The Effects of Conditionality Monitoring on Educational Outcomes: Evidence from Brazil’s Bolsa Família Programme

Conditional cash transfer programmes have been adopted by several developing countries. Despite their acceptance, the independent role of the conditionalities on education and health remain under scrutiny. We have used an ecological design to study the association between conditionality monitoring and educational outcomes in Brazil’s Bolsa Família programme. As programme coverage (taken as a proxy of cash transfers) and monitoring and enforcement of the educational conditionalities (proxy of conditionalities) are not correlated at the municipal level, this study fits a number of different ordinary least square (OLS) and growth-curve models to explain variation in dropout rates and school progression in basic education in public schools across municipalities. After controlling for a number of covariates, we did not find a significant association between Bolsa Família coverage and dropout and progression rates. On the other hand, monitoring of school attendance was negatively associated with dropout rates and positively associated with school progression (in the OLS models and in the initial status of the growth-curve models). The association between attendance monitoring and the rate of change of educational indicators in growth curve models was not the same, however, suggesting that its possible positive effect on educational indicators are not strong enough to affect a general tendency for these indicators to converge in the recent Brazilian context.

多个发展中国家已采用有条件现金转移支付（Conditional Cash Transfer）计划。尽管该类计划已获广泛采纳，但其中针对教育与健康领域的有条件要求的独立作用仍有待深入探讨。本研究采用生态研究设计法，针对巴西家庭补助金（Bolsa Família）计划中，有条件要求监管与教育成果之间的关联展开分析。由于在市政层面，计划覆盖范围（作为现金转移支付的代理变量）与教育类有条件要求的监管及执行力度（作为有条件要求的代理变量）之间并无相关性，因此本研究构建了多种普通最小二乘（Ordinary Least Square, OLS）模型与增长曲线模型，用以解释巴西各市政公立基础教育阶段的辍学率与学业进度的差异。在控制多项协变量后，本研究未发现家庭补助金计划覆盖范围与辍学率、学业进度之间存在显著关联。另一方面，在普通最小二乘模型以及增长曲线模型的初始状态分析中，学籍考勤监管与辍学率呈负相关，与学业进度呈正相关。然而，在增长曲线模型中，考勤监管与教育指标变化速率之间的关联并不一致，这表明在当前巴西的社会背景下，考勤监管对教育指标可能存在的正向影响并不足以推动这些指标向趋同的方向发展。