Textbooks and Test Scores: Evidence from a Prospective Evaluation in Kenya Work-in-Progress

Although there is intense debate about the effect of increased expenditure on education in developed countries, there is widespread consensus that provision of textbooks can substantially increase test scores in developing countries. This paper evaluates a program through which a Dutch non-profit organization provided textbooks to 25 rural Kenyan primary schools that were chosen randomly from a group of 100 candidate schools. After one school year, average test scores did not differ substantially between program and comparison schools. However, for those students in the top quintile of the distribution of initial academic achievement, the program raised test scores by at least 0.2 standard deviations. 1 This project was a joint undertaking of many people. The data were collected and analyzed by Charles Asoka, Najy Benhassine, Marcos Chamon, Edward Drozd, Dan Levy, Irene Majale, Sean May, Ted Miguel, Robert Namunyu, Caroline Nekesa, Stacy Nemeroff, Jaypee Sevilla, Michael Wambetsa, Polycarp Waswa, and Maureen Wechuli. Invaluable assistance was provided by the staff of Internationaal Christelijk Steunfonds: Chip Bury, Jos Huizinga, Paul Lipeyah, Japheth Mahagwa, Rebecca Mbaisi, and Susan Walji. We are grateful to Joshua Angrist, Angus Deaton, Paul Gertler, Claudia Goldin, Eric Hanushek, Lawrence Katz, Marlaine Lockheed, Richard Murnane, and Steve Pischke for advice and comments. Finally, we are grateful to Mr. Munala, the District Education Officer of Busia, to Mr. Buluma, the inspector of primary schools in Busia, and to the headmasters, teachers, and students of the participating schools. The costs of this evaluation were covered by the National Science Foundation and the World Bank research committee. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the World Bank, its Executive Directors, or the countries they represent. Glewwe and Moulin, World Bank and Kremer, MIT, NBER and HIID.