Objective: To study for the first time using a clinical trial the effect of free glasses on academic performance in rural Chinese children, among whom uncorrected myopia is the leading cause of visual impairment.

Participants: Among 19,934 children in grades 4 and 5 randomly selected for visual acuity screening, 3177 (15.9%, mean age 10.5 years) had visual acuity < 6/12 in either eye without glasses correctable to > 6/12 with glasses, and were eligible for allocation. Among these, 3052 (96.0%) completed the study.

Interventions: Children were randomized by school (84 schools per arm) to one of three interventions at the beginning of the school year: free glasses provided in class, vouchers for free glasses at a local facility or glasses prescriptions only (Control group).

Results: Among 3177 eligible children, 1036 (32.6%), 988 (31.1%) and 1153 (36.3%) were randomized to Control, Voucher and Free Glasses respectively. All eligible children would benefit from glasses, but only 15% had them at baseline. Intention-to-treat analyses were performed on all 1002 (96.8%), 946 (95.9%) and 1104 (95.8%) children completing final testing in Control, Voucher and Free Glasses groups. Effect on test score was 0.11 SD (95% Confidence Interval [CI] 0.01 to 0.21, p = 0.03) comparing the Free Glasses and Control groups. Adjusted effect of providing free glasses (0.10 SD, 95% CI 0.01 to 0.20; p = 0.04) was greater than parental education (0.03, 95% CI -0.03 to 0.10) or family wealth (0.002, 95% CI -0.07 to 0.07). Closeout glasses wear was 41% (observed), 68% (self-reported) in the Free Glasses group.

Conclusions: Providing free glasses improves children's performance on mathematics testing to a statistically significant degree, despite imperfect compliance. Myopia is common and rarely corrected in this setting.

Researchers typically explain inequalities in access to elite high schools by looking at gaps that appear before the high school admissions process. However, even when disadvantaged students reach the stage of high school admissions with identical qualifications as advantaged students, mechanisms particular to the high school admissions process may prevent disadvantaged students from accessing elite high schools. The overall goal of this paper is to examine the degree to which the high school admissions process deters disadvantaged students from accessing elite high schools. To fulfill this goal, we analyze longitudinal, administrative data on approximately 24,000 students in one region of China. In this setting, according to our data, the rural-urban gap in elite high school attendance can be larger than 50 percentage points (even though rural students comprise well more than half of the high school student population). Our results show that the five subject exams of the high school entrance exam (HSEE) are biased against rural students. If the HSEE dropped two of the most biased subject exams from the HSEE, access to elite high schools among rural students would increase by 4 percentage points (or 8 percent). Furthermore, conditional on HSEE scores, rural students are 13 percentage points less likely than urban students to apply for elite high schools. Finally, conditional on HSEE scores and application choices, the existence of an alternative admissions channel that charges extra admissions fees further reduces rural access by 18 percentage points.

An alarming number of students drop out of junior high school in developing countries. In this study, we examine the impacts of providing a social–emotional learning (SEL) program on the dropout behavior and learning anxiety of students in the first two years of junior high. We do so by analyzing data from a randomized controlled trial involving 70 junior high schools and 7,495 students in rural China. After eight months, the SEL program reduces dropout by 1.6 percentage points and decreases learning anxiety by 2.3 percentage points. Effects are no longer statistically different from zero after 15 months, perhaps due to decreasing student interest in the program. However, we do find that the program reduces dropout among students at high risk of dropping out (older students and students with friends who have already dropped out), both after eight and 15 months of exposure to the SEL program.

Teacher quality is an important factor in improving student achievement. As such, policymakers have constructed a number of different credentials to identify high quality teachers. Unfortunately, few of the credentials used in developing countries have been validated (in terms of whether teachers holding such credentials actually improve student achievement). In this study, we employ a student-fixed effects model to estimate the impact of teacher credentials on student achievement in the context of the biggest education system in the world: China. We find that having a teacher with the highest rank (a credential based on annual assessments by local administrators) has positive impacts on student achievement relative to having a teacher who has not achieved the highest rank. We further find that teacher rank has heterogeneous impacts, benefiting economically poor students more than non-poor students. However, other credentials (whether the teacher attended college or held teaching awards) have no impact on student achievement. 

Empirical evidence suggests that the prevalence of soil-transmitted helminth (STH) infections in remote and poor rural areas is still high among children, the most vulnerable to infection. There is concern that STH infections may detrimentally affect children’s healthy development, including their cognitive ability, nutritional status, and school performance. Medical studies have not yet identified the exact nature of the impact STH infections have on children. The objective of this study is to examine the relationship between STH infections and developmental outcomes in 2,180 school-aged children in seven nationally-designated poverty counties in rural China. We conducted a large-scale survey in Guizhou province in southwest China in May, 2013. Overall, 42 percent of elementary school-aged children were infected with one or more of the three types of STH—Ascarislumbricoides (ascaris), Trichuris trichuria (whipworm) and the hookworms Ancylostoma duodenaleor Necator americanus. After controlling for socioeconomic status, we observed that children infected with one or more STHs have worse cognitive ability, worse nutritional status, and worse school performance than their uninfected peers.

This paper studies women’s participation in village elections. It focuses on the impact of voting rights training on women’s knowledge, and their voting behaviors in Ningxia, China, a Hui nationality autonomous region with a conservative cultural environment for women. A randomized controlled trial has been used in the study.

This article exploits a randomized controlled trial to evaluate the impact of an intensive, short-term inservice teacher training program on the performance of English teachers in Beijing migrant schools and their students. The results show no significant impacts of teacher training on either teacher or student English test scores and thus imply the ineffectiveness of short-term teacher training programs on teacher and student performance.