Absence of Conflict of Interest.
Citation
Sparrow, R. (2007). Protecting education for the poor in times of crisis: An evaluation of a scholarship programme in Indonesia. Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, 69, 99-122. doi: 10.1111/j.1468-0084.2006.00438.x
Highlights
- The study’s objective was to examine the impact of Jaring Prengaman Sosial (JPS), a scholarship program in Indonesia, on child labor and school enrollment.
- The author used data from an annual Indonesian national survey to estimate an instrumental variable (IV) regression model to examine if scholarship receipt affected school enrollment, and probit models to examine the effects on child labor and school attendance.
- The study found that the receipt of a scholarship was significantly associated with a decrease in child labor and an increase in school attendance.
- The quality of causal evidence presented in this report is low because the author did not ensure that the groups being compared were similar before receiving the JPS in the probit model and no evidence was provided on the strength of the instrument used in the IV model. This means we are not confident that the estimated effects are attributable to the Jaring Pengaman Sosial (JPS) scholarship program; other factors are likely to have contributed.
Intervention Examined
Jaring Prengaman Sosial
Features of the Intervention
The Jaring Prengaman Sosial (JPS) scholarship started in the 1998-1999 academic year. Scholarships were targeted to children from poor households in grade 4 or higher. The scholarship amount increased with grade level: 10,000 rupiahs per month for enrollment in primary school; 20,000 rupiahs per month for enrollment in junior secondary school; and 25,000 rupiahs per month for enrollment in senior secondary school. The scholarship funds were distributed in three phases. During the first phase, the funds were distributed to districts based on poverty estimations from the 1996 Indonesian national economic survey (Susenas). During the second phase, district committees determined which schools would receive the funding based the economic conditions of the community that the school served. During the third and final phase, school committees assigned scholarships to children based on prosperity status, household composition (with preference given to single-parent and large households), and distance to school. The school committees were instructed to award at least half of the scholarships to girls.
Features of the Study
The study used a nonexperimental design to compare the treatment group receiving the Jaring Prengaman Sosial (JPS) scholarship in 1999 to the comparison group that did not receive the JPS. The author used data from Indonesia’s 1998 and 1999 national economic survey, Susenas, for a sample of 113,187 children (ages 10 to 18). Using these data, the author estimated bivariate probit and IV regression models to analyze the relationship between JPS and both child labor and school enrollment. The JPS scholarships were implemented using decentralized targeting, which resulted in delivery of the program in some areas that should not have been targeted. The author capitalized on the mistargeting and used geographic separability (at the district level) to select the instrument for the instrumental variable analysis. The instrument chosen to identify the scholarships effect on outcomes was constructed from the actual poverty profile for the district in 1998 and the mistargeting due to selection rules (1996 poverty estimate and number of enrolled students in the district). In the probit models, the author controlled for age, household size, agricultural or non-agricultural income, head of household demographics, and schooling type (public or private).
Findings
Employment/Child labor
- The receipt of a JPS scholarship was significantly associated with a decrease in the probability of child labor by 3.8 percentage points.
Education (School participation/enrollment)
- The receipt of a JPS scholarship was significantly associated with an increase in the probability of school attendance in the previous week by 1.5 percentage points.
- However, the receipt of a JPS scholarship was not significantly associated with school enrollment.
Considerations for Interpreting the Findings
The author did not include a test of the instrument’s strength in his analysis of the IV model. Also, the author did not account for preexisting differences between the groups before program participation including baseline school attendance and child labor outcomes in the probit models. These preexisting differences—and not the JPS scholarship— could explain the observed differences in child labor and school attendance.
Causal Evidence Rating
The quality of causal evidence presented in this report is low because the author did not ensure that the groups being compared were similar before receiving the JPS in the probit model and no evidence was provided on the strength of the instrument used in the IV model. This means we are not confident that the estimated effects are attributable to the Jaring Pengaman Sosial (JPS) scholarship program; other factors are likely to have contributed.