This paper focuses on the impact that two different types of policy interventions, namely enhancing school quality and contingent cash transfers, have on child labor and school attendance in Mexico. While there are many studies on the impact of Oportunidades on schooling outcomes, little evidence is available on whether school quality programs such as CONAFE also reduce child labor and help keep children in school. To carry out the analysis, we merge the Oportunidades panel dataset for the years 1997 to 2000 to the CONAFE dataset containing detailed information on the school quality program components. The econometric strategy involves a bivariate probit model for child labor and schooling, both for primary school aged children and adolescents. In this way, we are able to control whether the impact of the program on schooling differs according to the age of the targeted child. Our findings suggest that school quality programs are not only effective in increasing school attendance, but also act as deterrents to child labor, especially for children of secondary school age.
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The teachers’ union in Mexico, or Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores de la Educación (SNTE) represents over 1 million members and is the largest in Latin America. This study uses data from the national student tests administered by the Instituto Nacional para la Evaluación de la Educación (INEE), along with data from the Mexican Ministry of Education and other sources, to investigate the relationship between different measures of union influence and primary student test scores in Mexico. It found that union membership is not merely a function of state student enrollments, but of political and other factors. For example, the number of teaching positions (“plazas”) appears to increase with each election period, which might suggest an important avenue of political exchanges that might affect SNTE’s influence on education. In addition, the study suggests SNTE is far from a uniform block. Conflict and fragmentation inside the organization are significantly and negatively associated with student test scores. A single dissident section or multiple sections with opposing political inclinations in a state, are associated with lower average student test scores. The influence of the union over educational quality is a complex problem. This paper is presented only as an approximation with the intent of formalizing some of the potential channels through which this relationship becomes evident.
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The results of 2000 study of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) show that while Argentinean students performed similar to their peers in most other Latin American countries, they lagged behind all OECD and most of other participating countries. Attention needs to be given to further master the reading, math and science skills that are needed for a knowledge economy; and overcome the abnormal and high dispersion in performance among students. Comprehensive modeling and analysis of the education production function based on generalized least squares estimation and quantile regressions methods allow us to find that student’s performance in Argentina is associated mostly with: school and learning climate; quality of teachers; and whether students are encouraged, guided and oriented to be effective learners. The findings show evidence of significant relationships that need future follow-ups to investigate how each indicator is affecting performance.
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Designing educational policies under limited budgets requires a thorough analysis of the impact of alternative factors on student performance. This work aims at providing an analysis of the relationship between university performance and its explanatory factors. The analysis will focus on the Argentinean case, using the 1994 Census of Students in National Universities, which includes data on all students enrolled in public universities in Argentina. The theoretical framework chosen for the empirical analysis is based on a production function, where education is seen as a process through which a set of inputs (student skills and characteristics and environment) is transformed into an educational product valued by individuals and society. Methodological limitations are mainly associated with the heterogeneity in the data. Different strategies are used to focusing on small groups and leading to accuracy in the results. It is important to underline that this paper makes a number of contributions, both thematically and methodologically. As previously mentioned, this study contributes to the discussion on the factors that impact educational performance in university students in Argentina, a relevant issue in public policy decision making. Possibly one of the most significant contributions of this study is to establish a clear methodological foundation that can be used as a starting point for more sophisticated studies and reproduced in different countries or periods.
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