Investing in Education

Such an interesting chapter, in this totally fascinating book, on education.

If you think education is expensive, try ignorance. 

Derek Bok

Kristoff & WuDunn:

Americans often assume that the way to increase education is to build schools, and in some areas that is necessary. We ourselves have recently built a school in Cambodia...but there are drawbacks. School construction is expensive, and there is no way to verify that teachers will do their jobs. One study in India found that 12 percent of all schools were closed at any time because teachers had not gone to work that day.

One of the most cost-effective ways to increase school attendance is to deworm students. Intestinal worms affect children’s physical and intellectual growth. Indeed, ordinary worms kill 130,000 people a year, typically through anemia or intestinal obstruction, and the anemia particularly affects menstruating girls. When deworming was introduced in the American South in the early twentieth century, schoolteachers were stunned at the impact: The children were suddenly far more alert and studious. Likewise, a landmark study in Kenya found that deworming could decrease school absenteeism by a quarter. 

‘The average American spends fifty dollars a year to deworm a dog; in Africa, you can deworm a child for fifty cents,’ says Peter Hotez of the Global Network for Neglected Tropical Disease Control, a leader in the battle against worms. Increasing school attendance by building schools ends up costing about $100 per year for every additional student enrolled. Boosting attendance by deworming children costs only $4 per year per additional student enrolled. 

Another cost-effective way of getting more girls to attend high school may be to help them manage menstruation. African girls typically use (and reuse) old rags during their periods, and they often have only a single torn pair of underwear. For fear of embarrassing leaks and stains, girls sometimes stay home during that time. Aid workers are experimenting with giving African teenage girls sanitary pads, along with access to a toilet where they can change them. Initial findings are that this simple approach is effective in increasing female attendance at high schools.