School Quality and Student Achievement: Evidence from the Centralized School Placement System in Kenya

Issac Mbiti

I utilize data from the Kenyan secondary school system to obtain causal estimates of the effects of school quality on student achievement. Whereas most studies on the effects of school quality on student achievement generally face difficulties in obtaining unbiased estimates due to the non-random selection of students into schools, the placement of students into government secondary schools in Kenya is based on national primary schools test scores and district quotas. I utilize the random variation induced by this system to isolate the treatment effect of school quality on subsequent student performance in the national high school examination. Using a unique data set containing high school test scores, primary school test scores, district of origin and school level information for every high school exam taker in the country, I compare the high school examination outcomes of students who had very similar primary school test scores but were assigned to different schools due to the placement system. I explore plausible mechanisms that underlie this relationship, especially the potential role of peer effects and school inputs such as teachers and facilities.

About Issac Mbiti

Isaac Mbiti is an Assistant Professor of Economics at Southern Methodist University. He is an empirical micro-economist whose research focuses on development economics, labor economics and economic demography. In particular, his research focuses on education, human capital formation, migration and remittances and household and family economics. He has examined the impact of the introduction of free primary schooling in Kenya and is currently involved in a randomized evaluation of vocational education in Kenya. He has also examined the effect of mobile phones on the economic and social development of African countries and was recently awarded a grant from the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) to support an evaluation of the impact of M-pesa, an innovative mobile phone money transfer program in Kenya. In addition to his work in Kenya, Mbiti has analyzed the relationship between marriage markets and labor markets in India, and also explored black-white employment differences in the US labor market during recessions. He is a Kenyan national and received his PhD from Brown University.