THE IMPACT OF SCHOOL DEVELOPMENT GRANTS ON STUDENT DROPOUT, ATTENDANCE AND ATTAINMENT WITH REFERENCE TO KOSOVO

Abstract
The post-conflict nature of the Kosovo society and economy led to an urgent need to address
educational policy, specifically to raise the quality of the reconstituted formal schooling system.
To address this priority major foreign aid and government subsidies were targeted at both the
demand (students) and supply (school) side. One of the major contributors, the World Bank, aimed to
improve the supply side by allocating development grants to schools in order to improve student
performance. In this thesis the following four research questions are addressed: how appropriate
are current evaluation strategies of education policy initiatives in developing countries, what has
been the impact of school development grants on student dropout, attendance and student attainment,
what are determinants of pupil dropout, attendance and attainment and what are the implications of
the answers to the above questions for the reform of education policies in developing economies and
the evaluation of policy initiatives. This is the first study that critically reviews previous
attempts at evaluating educational initiatives in Kosovo and then employs econometric methods to
measure the impact of school development grants on educational outcomes. A quasi experimental
approach is utilised and comparisons made between schools with treatment and schools without
treatment. A similar study for Cambodia serves as a reference for our research, though we have
extensively refined the approach taken in that study.

The empirical evidence presented in this thesis suggests at best only a marginal positive impact of
these policy initiatives on educational outcomes. More specifically there is some evidence of
reduced dropout but no effect is found on student attendance and attainment. These findings are
consistent with the results of recent reviews of the literature on this type of policy initiative.
This study seeks to act as an example of best practice which can be followed in future evaluations
of policy initiatives in countries like Kosovo. It draws important conclusions about the need at
the policy design stage to formulate appropriate evaluation strategy and to address related issues
about data quality, collection and analysis.