Do Poor Students Benefit from China's Merger Program? Transfer Path and Educational Performance

Autor/inn/en	Chen, Xinxin; Yi, Hongmei; Zhang, Linxiu; Mo, Di; Chu, James; Rozelle, Scott
Titel	Do Poor Students Benefit from China's Merger Program? Transfer Path and Educational Performance
Quelle	In: Asia Pacific Journal of Education, 34 (2014) 1, S.15-35 (21 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0218-8791
DOI	10.1080/02188791.2013.790781
Schlagwörter	Foreign Countries; Rural Schools; Elementary School Students; Elementary Schools; Academic Achievement; Multivariate Analysis; Least Squares Statistics; Costs; Comparative Analysis; Organizational Change; Transfer Students; Poverty; Mathematics Tests; Scores; Boarding Schools; Economics; Regression (Statistics); China + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Ausland; Rural area; Rural areas; School; Schools; Ländlicher Raum; Schule; Schulen; Elementary school; Grundschule; Volksschule; Schulleistung; Multivariate Analyse; Cost; Kosten; Organisationswandel; Hochschulwechsel; Schulwechsel; Studienortwechsel; Armut; Boarding school; Internat; Volkswirtschaftslehre; Regression; Regressionsanalyse
Abstract	Aiming to provide better education facilities and improve the educational attainment of poor rural students, China's government has been merging remote rural primary schools into centralized village, town, or county schools since the late 1990s. To accompany the policy, boarding facilities have been constructed that allow (mandate) primary school-aged children to live at school rather than at home. More generally, there also have been efforts to improve rural schools, especially those in counties and towns. Unfortunately, little empirical work has been available to evaluate the impact of the new merger and investment programmes on the educational performance of students. Drawing on a unique dataset that records both the path by which students navigate their primary school years (i.e., which different types of schools did students attend) as well as math test scores in three poverty-stricken counties, we use descriptive statistics and multivariate analysis (both Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) and covariate matching) to analyse the relationship between different transfer paths and student educational performance. This allows us to examine the costs and benefits of the school merger and investment programmes. The results of the analysis show that students who attend county schools perform systematically better than those who attend village or town schools. However, completing primary school in town schools seems to have no effect on students' academic performance. Surprisingly, starting primary education in a teaching point does not hurt rural students; on the contrary, it increases their test scores in some cases. Finally, in terms of the boarding effect, the neutral estimate in OLS and the negative estimate in covariate matching results confirm that boarding at school does not help the students; in some cases it may even reduce their academic performance. (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2017/4/10