Beyond enrolments: the determinants of primary-school attendance in Melanesia

ABSTRACT

The second millennium development goal (MDG) is to achieve universal primary education and while developing countries have made good progress on primary-school enrolment rates, school attendance remains low. This paper addresses the determinants of school attendance using unique household survey data for two Melanesian economies rarely reported in the international literature: Solomon Islands and Vanuatu. There is a high degree of heterogeneity in the results across both gender and location. The main findings are that as children get older, they are less likely to attend school as are children that work either inside or outside the home. School fees act as a major deterrent for sending children to school, even though governments and international donors have taken significant steps to make primary education free. Finally, community programs that aim at increasing school attendance have been successful, particularly for girls and children in remote areas. A number of policy implications are provided.

KEYWORDS:

• School attendance
• education
• Melanesia

JEL:

• O12
• I25
• O56

Acknowledgements

The views expressed in the paper are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the Commonwealth of Australia. The Commonwealth of Australia accepts no responsibility for any loss, damage, or injury resulting from reliance on any of the information or views contained in the publication.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Examining school attendance is also preferred over school attainment as current schooling choices are related to contemporaneous factors of a household (Glick and Sahn 2000; Sackey 2007).

2. A rise in school fees was attributed to a fall in primary enrolment rates in Vanuatu from 95 per cent in 2005 to 80 per cent in 2008 (VANGOV 2010).

3. An additional category of whether the school was 1 hour away or more was also included in some regressions. The results, available upon request, are consistent with those presented in Section 3.

4. Age was also collected, but it is not included in the models because there is no a priori reason to expect that age of the household head should affect attendance. Furthermore, when included in the models this variable is found to be statistically insignificant.

5. We are thankful to an anonymous referee for making this point.

6. Column 1 finds the effect to be statistically insignificant at the 10 per cent level, but significant at the 17 per cent. The coefficient estimate in Column 2 is statistically significant at the 8 per cent level.

7. See Feeny et al. (2013) for a discussion on gardens and their role in promoting food security and providing exchange for Melanesian households.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID) through its Australian Development Research Award (ADRA) scheme [grant number RE-00402].

Notes on contributors

Alberto Posso

Alberto Posso is an associate professor of Economics in the International Development and Trade Research Group, RMIT. He specialises in labour market outcomes within developing nations in East Asia, Latin America, and the Pacific. His publications include World Development, The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, The Scottish Journal of Political Economy, and Applied Economics.

Simon Feeny

Simon Feeny is an associate professor of Development Economics at the International Development and Trade Research Group, RMIT. His specialises in aid allocation and effectiveness, remittances, the MDGs, poverty, and well-being. Much of his work focuses on Pacific Island countries. His publications include World Development, The Journal of Development Studies, Economic Modelling, and Applied Economics.