eval f4a education reportfinal

Report
Impact Evaluation of AVSI education program

Funded by Foundation 4 Africa and Fondation De Agostini.
Impact evaluation of AVSI education program

Funded by Foundation 4 Africa and Foundation De Agostini
Gulu and Kitgum, Uganda. November 2011
Designed, implemented and written

By Rob Kuijpers (rob_kuijpers1986@hotmail.com)
Supervised by Niccolo Francesco Meriggi
Commissioned by AVSI Uganda
Under supervision of Sara Pasolini
Acknowledgements
Special thanks goes out to Okidi George Okot and Michael Ojok as facilitators of the data collection
process; Ojok Philip, Toopaco Charles (cover photo), Onekalit John Titus, Kaunda Kenneth, Oroma
Angel, Lalango Dora Lillian as enumerators and Opio Denis and Omwony Patrick as data clerks.
Let us think of education as the means of developing our greatest abilities, because in each of us
there is a private hope and dream which, fulfilled, can be translated into benefit for everyone and
greater strength for our nation.
John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) Thirty-fifth President of the USA
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Foreword by the author
I performed this impact evaluation and wrote this report while I was guided by two principals. The
first principal is independence. No impact evaluation is legitimate or even useful, without aiming to
uncover the true effects of the program. Secondly, I was guided by the interest of the organization
and its stakeholders. Regardless of whether the Education+ program is considered a success or not,
this report should be valuable as a learning experience and direct AVSI and its partners towards
maximal effectiveness and efficiency in future education programs. Therefore, emphasis is put not
so much on the past, but more on the future.
Rob Kuijpers
Executive Summary
This report discusses the results of an impact evaluation that was conducted on an education
program funded by Foundation 4 Africa and Foundation de Agostini and implemented by NGO
AVSI between October 2008 and October 2011. The ultimate goal of this program was to increase
the overall well-being and future opportunities of primary school students living in Gulu and Kitgum
district. The chosen approach consisted out of a more traditional package topped up with an
education+ package that together could have an impact on almost all aspects of the educational
experience. Instead of observing the outcomes of education, which is beyond the scope of this
project, we measure, next to the level of wellbeing, the conditions that are required for increasing
the future opportunities of the students. These consist out the quality of education (defined as
teacher performance and the educational environment) and the quantity of education (defined as
student and teacher attendance). Additionally we will investigate the factors that determine teacher
attendance and motivation.
The lack of a baseline survey prohibited the use of a preferred randomized experiment. Therefore,
the choice was made for a rather unconventional, but nevertheless convincing, evaluation design.
Control schools were in principle selected on the basis of two criteria: 1) they should be comparable
to treatment schools before the program was implemented and 2) they should only have received
minimal assistance. In theory this ensures that you can observe a counterfactual situation even after
the program is implemented, without the need of a baseline survey. To make any significant effect
more rigorous, AVSI chose to make sure that the control group is slightly better off than the
treatment group three years ago. The treatment effect on treated is then simply calculated by
subtracting the average of the control group from the average of the treatment group. In the case of
wellbeing and health, we also correct for other observable characteristics, using propensity score
matching.
Using the above described methodology we provide evidence that the Foundation 4 Africa and
Foundation de Agostini education program improved student wellbeing and health. The largest
improvements were seen on life satisfaction, feelings of happiness, and vitality. Additionally, the
program had a signficant impact on three out of four conditions that are required for increasing the
future opportunities of the student, namely teacher attendance, teacher perfomance and the
educational environment.
Teacher attendance was increased drastically on two levels. Teacher school attendance was
increased by 15% and teacher classroom presence was improved with 77%, to levels of 76.6% and
50%, respectively. Although the achievements are noteworthy, needless to say there is still scope for
improvement.
Furthermore, the school environment has improved considerably on all but one aspect. The program
caused progress in the amount of books,desks per student, the light and size of the classroom, the
quantity and quality of teaching material, sanitation facilities, the cleanliness of the classroom and
the presence of educative posters. Only the water facilities in the school remain in need of
upgrading, as the students rate them average.
Like the environment, also teacher perfomance was improved by the program. Predominantly, the
ability to clearly explain the material, class organization and classroom presence. Teacher motivation
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increased with an impressive 29 percent. The only point of attention here is the openness of
teachers towards the students. On average the students only sometimes feel free to talk with
teachers regarding personal issues.
Student attendance is the only condition that remains untouched by the program. The cause of this
seems to have less to do with disease or the internal motivation of the student, but more with the
role of the parents and the household. Considering the high levels of poverty in this region, it could
well be that children are needed during the day to help in sustaining the household. This would
mean, regardless of the law of universal primary education and the promise of free education for
everyone, that sending children to school in fact does cost the household. Another reason for low
student attendance might be that parents simply do not value education and are not involved
enough. Unfortunately, it was beyond the scope of this program to go into the villages and interview
the parents regarding this topic.
Following a regression analysis, two factors are identified that can increase teacher attendance, one
is the motivation of the individual teacher and the other is a measure of parent involvement.
Motivation is in turn determined by the distance a teacher has to travel from school and the
frequency he or she speaks with the parents of pupils. Mind that these are by no means all the
factors that explain teacher behaviour (since these do not explain all variance in the dependent
variables), but at least it is safe to conclude that these variables have some influence. Another
conclusion we can make on the basis of these results is that although staffhousing does play a role in
increasing teacher motivation, it is basically only through helping teachers live close to the
communities and their schools. The quality of housing plays a more modest role, but should by no
means be neglected. The quality of housing could, for example, help to attract teachers to school
and make sure teachers can live together with the families.
Based on these findings we can now offer some recommendations. The aim is to point at some
possibilities and ideas that can be further investigated and developed by more experienced people
in this field.
1. Integration of evaluation within the design of the intervention: By initiating this impact
evaluation AVSI made a good step forward. The next step would be to integrate the evaluation
design within the project design. This will not only help to make a watertight evaluation design
that could produce solid evidence regarding any intervention, but could also streamline the
intervention, by reconsidering targets and redirecting the different components towards those
targets.
2. Reconsider main goal of educational interventions: Regardless of whether one of the goals of an
educational intervention should focus on increasing the current wellbeing of children, AVSI
acknowledges that education in general has an even higher goal to achieve, with a longer time
horizon, which is ensuring wellbeing in the future lives of students. Not only by giving them the
skills and capabilities to take care of themselves, nor by only teaching them how to live together,
but also, by fulfilling private hopes and dreams that exist in all of us. We suggest looking into
the possibility of focusing more on this goal by finding the right set of intermediate indicators in
the form of knowledge, cognitive and psychological tests, developed to measure the change
AVSI would like to see in the children.
3. Increase focus on parents and community: Perhaps the most promising advice we can give,
based on the findings, is to look into the role of parents in the educational process. This report
concluded, among other things, that focusing on parent involvement might be fruitful in
improving student attendance and teacher absenteeism and motivation. Parent involvement
might be improved by more regular communication with all parents on the childs performance
and absence, providing families with a school contact person, workshops for parents about
school attendance and home visits.
4. Staff housing: quantity and location: Staff housing improves motivation, not by offering a higher
quality house, but by offering a good opportunity to live close to the school and the community
which the teacher is serving. Higher quality housing can attract teachers from their houses
outside the community towards the school, but does not have any effect on the teachers
attitude, except for his or her job satisfaction. Therefore, we propose a refocus on the quantity
of housing instead of the quality. Especially those teachers that are not yet living close to school
and its community should be provided with housing. Moreover, since the major goal of housing
seems to be to connect teachers with the community, the possibility of locating housing in or
near to the surrounding community might be worthwhile to investigate.
5. Suggestions for increasing teacher classroom presence, beyond parents involvement and staff
housing:
A) Teachers seem not willing or are not obliged to substitute for teachers that are not attending
school and therefore cannot teach their assigned classes. Our suggestion is therefore, to
make head and deputy teachers aware of this difficulty and hand them possible solutions to
tackle this problem by providing appropriate training.
B) Providing a lockable desk that is placed in the classroom in which all documents regarding the
class are kept together with a comfortable chair, might attract teachers inside. An additional
piece of furniture would be a lockable classroom cupboard. If each class has the books that
are assigned to them in their own classroom in a cupboard, the books will not degrade as
quickly and moreover, books are more easily used in lessons since it requires minimal effort
for the teacher to collect and distribute them.
6. Minor suggestions for improvements:
A) In order to increase student attendance, AVSI might want to look into the possibility of school
meals. Like noted earlier, the program area can be considered extremely poor and many
children might have to stay home to help sustain the family. However, if the school would
provide a satisfying lunch for all students, this would mean one less mouth to feed for the
family and this might work as an incentive to send children to school.
B) Teacher performance in general has been improved by the program, but there was one
component which was unaffected, namely the openness of the teacher towards the students
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private issues. Therefore it might be good to have a look into the possibilities that can
improve this aspect, by, for example, reconsidering teacher trainings.
C) The AVSI program improved virtually all aspects of the educational environment except for
the water sources, while still considerable effort has been directed towards that goal. This
suggests the need for a re-assessment of available water sources and perhaps a change in
strategy.
Table of Contents
Executive Summary ............................................................................................................. 5
1. Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 11
1.1 Motivation .................................................................................................................... 11
1.2 Objective ...................................................................................................................... 11
1.3 Research questions ....................................................................................................... 12
1.4 Structure of the report .................................................................................................. 12
2. Program Description .......................................................................................................... 14
2.1 Background................................................................................................................... 14
2.2 Program components of education and education+ program ........................................ 15
2.3 Conceptual Framework ................................................................................................. 16
3. Methodology ...................................................................................................................... 18
3.1 Background: Baseline survey and selection of control schools ....................................... 18
3.2 Overcoming limitations: evaluation design revised........................................................ 19
3.3 Propensity score matching ............................................................................................ 20
3.4 Additional statistical tools ............................................................................................. 23
3.5 Data sources and instruments ....................................................................................... 24
3.6 The data collection process ........................................................................................... 27
3.7 Selection Bias................................................................................................................ 28
4. Visiting the schools: meeting teachers and students.......................................................... 30
4.1 The schools ................................................................................................................... 30
4.2 The teachers ................................................................................................................. 34
4.3 The students ................................................................................................................. 37
5. Program Impact .................................................................................................................. 39
5.1 Introduction to statistical terminology .......................................................................... 39
5.2 On student attendance ................................................................................................. 40
5.3 On teacher attendance ................................................................................................. 42
5.4 On teacher performance ............................................................................................... 44
5.5 On the educational environment .................................................................................. 45
5.6 On wellbeing and health .............................................................................................. 49
5.7 Some concluding remarks regarding impact .................................................................. 49
6. Determinants of teacher attendance, job satisfaction and motivation .............................. 50
6.1 Motivation .................................................................................................................... 50
6.2 Theoretical model ......................................................................................................... 50
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6.3 Results .......................................................................................................................... 50
6.4 Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 52
7. Conclusions ........................................................................................................................ 53
8. Recommendations ............................................................................................................. 55
9. Literature ........................................................................................................................... 59
Appendix ............................................................................................................................ 60
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1. Introduction
This report discusses the results of an impact evaluation that was conducted on an education
program funded by Foundation 4 Africa (F4A) and Foundation de Agostini (FA) and implemented by
NGO AVSI between October 2008 and October 2011. The ultimate goal of this program was to
increase the overall well-being and future opportunities of primary school students living in Gulu and
Kitgum district. The program consisted out of an innovative holistic approach, entailing all
components that are necessary to secure a positive educational experience.
1.1 Motivation for this evaluation

Impact evaluation can be defined as measuring the effect of a development activity, such as an
education program, on a beneficiary population. The last decade a paradigm shift becomes apparent
as donors, NGOs and governments are increasingly placing more value on evaluation. Moving from
a project design that is based on accumulated qualitative experience towards design that
acknowledges that an intervention is an opportunity to learn whats best and a design that exhibits
certain openness towards adaptation of new knowledge when needed.
The question to answer before the decision to evaluate can be made is: why spend scarce resources
on impact evaluation while the same resources could be spend on either increasing the scale of the
program or fulfilling the needs of existing beneficiaries better? Firstly, the answer depends on
whether the organization has a long term or short term view. If the program is a onetime operation,
evaluation would be useless since the learning experience cannot be applied in future programs.
When the program is intended to be applied repetitively however, a well designed evaluation will
pay off itself since ineffective or inefficient aspects will be identified and dropped from future
interventions. Secondly, the answer depends on whether the program is innovative. It is a waste of
resources to evaluate a proven concept, but when the program cuts the edge and will potentially be
up scaled, an evaluation is appropriate.
In this case, the Foundation 4 Africa and Foundation De Agostini Education program is in fact
innovative as it encompasses a holistic approach, entailing not only the usual education scheme such as the provision of books and renovation of the school building - but also, for instance,
improvement of water and sanitation facilities, provision of trainings on a wide range of topics, deworming of students and the implementation of a JFFLS program for the most vulnerable children in
the school. No empirical investigation on this approach has been undertaken yet and because AVSI is
an organization that works with a long time horizon, performing an evaluation is the right way
forward.
1.2 Objective
The purpose of this impact evaluation is to isolate and quantify the intended effects of the
Foundation 4 Africa and Foundation De Agostini education program and to collect constructive
information that can guide AVSI and its partners towards maximal effectiveness and efficiency in
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future education programs. Emphasis is put on providing a learning experience that helps to
empirically back up future decision making.
1.3 Research Questions

The main goal of the program is to increase the wellbeing and future opportunities of PS children in
the districts of Kitgum and Gulu (Uganda). Measuring future opportunities is however problematic
for the simple reason that the project was only initiated three years ago and we cannot, yet, observe
the pupils in adult age. Alternatively, we could have decided to measure an intermediate indicator,
such as student performance, but that would have required the design of universal student tests,
which is simply beyond the scope of this evaluation. Instead, this evaluation will measure the
conditions that are necessary for increased student performance and, consequently, future
opportunities. The main research question will therefore focus on wellbeing only and is expressed as
follows.
1. Does the F4A and FA Education program increase student wellbeing?
AVSI implemented a holistic education package that intervenes on virtually every aspect of the
students educational experience; therefore the set of hypotheses that will be tested is very
extensive. However we can bring them back to four sub-questions (a) up to (d). The combination of
these four targets should increase student performance (defined by an increasing rate of acquiring
knowledge, skills and capabilities), consequently increase the number of opportunities in later stages
of life and ultimately the likelihood of success in the adult age.
Does the F4A and FA Education program improve:
(a) Student attendance,
(b) Teacher attendance,
(c) Teacher performance,
(d) The educational environment?
Considering the rich data-set that is collected we have opportunity to study some additional
research questions that could provide valuable information for future projects.
2.
What factors influence teacher

a. Attendance,
b. Motivation?
1.4 Structure of the report.

The remainder of this report is organized as follows. The next section presents some background
information, the program components and the conceptual framework. Then, in section 3, the
methodology is discussed. This includes topics such as baseline survey results, causational design,
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choice of data sources and instruments, selection bias and a description of the data collection
process. After, Section 4 will describe the current educational situation based on the data. Section 5
is the main part of this report and will present the impact results. Then, section 6 describes the
results of an explorative study that aims to uncover some factors that explain teacher attitude. Then,
the conclusions are presented in section 7 and finally, in section 8, we will present some
recommendations and a way forward
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2 Program description
2.1 Background
Introduction to AVSI Uganda1
AVSI is an international non-governmental organization, founded in Italy in 1972. AVSIs mission is to
support human development in developing countries according to the Social Teaching of the
Catholic Church, with special attention to education and promotion of the global dignity of every
person.
AVSI has been active in Uganda since 1984, maintaining a constant presence in the northern regions
even during periods of high insecurity. This history and relationship with local communities has
allowed AVSI to establish well-equipped and versatile field offices, with experienced staff that have
in-depth knowledge of the area, the population and the local leadership.
AVSIs holistic approach includes strong partnerships with local organizations, smooth cooperation
with district authorities and government ministries. AVSIs comprehensive approach aims to improve
access to quality health and education services, food security status, and hygiene conditions in the
communities it serves. Additionally, AVSIs programs raise awareness on protection issues, facilitate
the return of formerly abducted persons, and support the most vulnerable individuals, including
people with disabilities (PWD).
In Uganda AVSI employs 207 international (20) and national (187) staff in offices in the districts of
Kitgum, Pader, Gulu, and Kampala. Throughout the years, donors such as the Dutch Government,
EU, ECHO, DFID, Italian Cooperation, UNICEF, UNHCR, USAID, and private foundations have funded
AVSI projects in the health and HIV/AIDS, water and sanitation, education, protection, mine action,
and food security and livelihood sectors.
Introduction to Gulu and Kitgum
The project schools are all located in the districts of Gulu and Kitgum, Uganda. Until 2007, this region
was the setting of a conflict that dragged on for twenty years and caused more than a million of
people to become internally displaced. Currently most people have returned to their original villages
and are rebuilding their lives, except for the most vulnerable, who are receiving assistance from
UNHCR, AVSI and other partners. Although the war has ended five years ago many things has
happened, this region is still considered very poor and many challenges remain. One of these
challenges is developing the educational system.
Introduction to the educational situation
Primary schools in Uganda are organized in 7 classes and are entered at the age of 6. After successful
completion, determined by a universal test (PLE), the student has the opportunity to continue to
secondary school. Since the introduction of Universal Primary education in 1997 the number of
school enrollments doubled causing a gap between the demand for education and the supply of
facilities and teachers. Although it is apparent that part of that gap is filled, especially in the exconflict area of Gulu and Kitgum there is still some way to go. Student attendance and dropout rates
1
Source: description by AVSI (2011)
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are high (as only 59.8%1 of the students reach beyond P4), many teachers are de-motivated and
found absent from teaching. Teachers themselves indicate this is because of low salaries and are
increasingly supporting industrial action organized by the teachers union UNATO. School equipment
varies from the absolute minimum (students sitting on the ground under the tree with minimal
teaching materials), to schools that are well under way with the help of international organizations
such as AVSI, to become a school that can be considered good by Ugandan standards. More
information regarding the current situation is found in section 4.
2.2 Program components of Education and Education+ program

This impact evaluation will evaluate two supplementing programs. A more traditional education
program funded by Foundation 4 Africa and an education+ approach that tops the traditional
education program and is as well funded by Foundation 4 Africa, but also by Foundation De Agostini.
The traditional approach, which was implemented between October 2008 and October 2010
provided assistance to eight rural schools in Gulu and Kitgum District (for a complete list of schools
be referred to 4.1). The approach entailed:
the construction of classrooms, staff housing and latrines,
the delivery of desks and books for all classes and music, dance and drama attributes,
support to the district in the form of monitoring and evaluation training, support to office
structure, management and activities,
four trainings for primary school teacher on topics including:
o The risk of education; dealing with the role of the teacher in respect to the student,
o Psychosocial support; which is aimed to help teachers cope with trauma,
o Peace and reconciliation; which trains teachers in the field of conflict resolution,
o Epidemics and detection of common diseases; which trains the teacher in
recognizing disease symptoms and to deal with them accordingly.
The education+ approach is a supplement on the traditional package which makes the educational
intervention of a truly holistic nature. Additionally, 2 schools were added, Oryebo and Lakwana PS,
which received both the traditional and education+ package. The time frame of this package was
November 2010 - October 2011. Education+ encompasses the following components:
Junior Farmer Field and Life Skills program; the largest component of education+ aimed to
involve the 30 most vulnerable children in the school in a positive experience that can teach
them, hands on, about agricultural practices and techniques, while at the same time creating
revenue that can be spend on something decided by all the participants and causing spillover effects towards the community.
Four trainings, including:
o The operation and maintenance of water sources for the schools water committees,
o JFFLS training for guardian committee (parents and teachers involved in JFFLS)
o Land rights and conflict resolution training for children involved in JFFLS
o The role of parents for SMC members, PTA members and Guardian committee;
this training focuses on the responsibilities of parents regarding the freedom of their
children.
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Vaccination against TT and de-worming

Activities including:
o Music dance and drama competition
o Junior farmer field days: In which the whole community is invited to witness the
project.
2.3 Overview of expected effects of program components on different outcomes: a

conceptual framework
Figure 1 below sketches the possible impacts of the different components of both the traditional and
education+ approach combined. The main goals of the program are positioned in the middle:
improving wellbeing and future opportunities for students attending AVSI supported schools. We are
of the opinion that all components can indirectly increase wellbeing. However, the components
listed at the top right side are thought to be able to influence student wellbeing directly, while the
components at top left side are thought to increase wellbeing by improving health. Furthermore, the
components listed at the bottom of the figure, although also capable of improving wellbeing, are, in
this framework more focused on increasing future opportunities by increasing both the quality and
quantity of education. Quantity is then separated in the goals of increasing teacher and student
attendance and quality is separated in the goals of improving teacher performance and the
educational environment.
Figure 1: Conceptual Framework
3 Methodology
Due to reasons explained in the next paragraph, the methodology for this impact evaluation is rather
unconventional. This section explains and justifies the methods used, outlines the set of hypotheses
that will help answer the research questions and describes the data collection process.
3.1 Background: Baseline survey and the selection of the control group
Intentionally this impact evaluation was aimed to measure the effects of the traditional education
package and the education+ package separately. After completion of the traditional education
package a baseline survey was undertaken to serve this goal. Since there was no baseline survey
done before the start of this package, and a preferred randomized experiment was therefore
impossible, AVSI chose for an unconventional evaluation design that guaranteed rigidity, in effect, by
ensuring fiercer competition in terms of the control group as explained in 3.1.1. Unfortunately, this
increase in statistical power, results in an effect size that is likely to be underestimated (in the case
of a positive effect) or overestimated (in the case of a negative effect).
3.1.1 Selection of the control group
Ten control schools were selected based on two criteria. First, the school should have had about the
same probability to be selected as a treatment school before the program began. The most
important selection criterion was that the school was in need of improvements. This means, for
instance, a lack of toilet or water facilities, lack of classrooms, lack of furniture or in the case of some
remote schools, the need for staff housing in order to attract teachers. The second criterion was that
those schools did only received minimal treatment from other parties during the program period. In
theory this makes the control schools identical to the treatment schools before the package was
implemented, creating a good counterfactual, assuming that outside factors, like government policy,
have similar influence across treatment and control schools.
However, AVSI acknowledges that in theory there is no difference in theory and practice, but in
practice there is. Therefore, to make any possible positive effect more convincing, the first criterion
is slightly undermined by picking schools that were evidently a little better off before the program
began. This is proven by the fact that in the government assessment on the quality of schools, AVSI
treatment schools were on average rated lower2. Since possible results in favor of AVSI treatment
have a higher probability to be underestimated, any significant positive result becomes more
convincing, which makes the evaluation more rigorous.
Be referred to figure#. A lower grade, assigned by the ministry of education, means that the school offers
higher quality education. Grade 1 schools are the highest and grade 4 schools are the lowest. On average the
treatment schools had a grade of 3.6, while the control schools received a grade of 2.8 before the program
was implemented. Note that since then schools have not be graded yet again.
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3.1.2 Results of Baseline survey
The baseline survey consisted out of a student questionnaire that included 20 questions regarding
the students perceived educational experience. The design simulates a special case of a randomized
experiment in which we assume that control and treatment schools were at least equal before the
program was implemented and that treatment and control schools underwent similar influences
from outside factors. Therefore we can take the differences in average outcomes between the
treatment and control schools at the end of the program implementation and consider them the
average treatment effect on treated (ATT).
The conclusion that followed was that the traditional education intervention works. Students in
AVSI-project schools report a stronger perception of improvements in their schools, whereas
improvement is identified as better environment (including sanitation facilities), more accessible
equipment, and increased availability and quality of teaching.
3.1.3 Evaluating Education+
Education+ was implemented in the period right after the baseline survey. As described in section
2.2, education+ is a package on top of the more traditional package and includes, predominantly, the
following components: Junior farmer fields and life skills program for the 30 most vulnerable
children in the school, accompanying training on land rights and conflict resolution for children
involved, training on operation and maintenance of water sources for schools water committee,
vaccination for TT and de-worming. Unfortunately, except for the aspect of water facilities, none of
the components is covered in the baseline survey, making a difference in difference approach
impossible. Consequently, there is no opportunity to separate the effect of the traditional package
from education+, as planned.
3.2 Overcoming limitations: the evaluation design revised

Following previous section, the decision was made to measure the effects of the traditional package
and education+ combined and to evaluate the main component of education+, JFFLS, in a later stage.
Emphasis is placed on end goals such as wellbeing and health, alongside aspects such as educational
environment, student attendance, teacher performance, - attendance and -motivation and AVSI
activities like music, dance and drama, JFFLS, and the training on land rights and conflict resolution.
The main focus remains the students, since they are the final beneficiaries. However, alongside an
elaborate student questionnaire (SQ), data is also collected through teacher interviews (TQ),
observations and teacher attendance registries.
Basically, the design is very similar to that of the baseline survey. The same control schools are used,
which means we are assured of the same rigorous design as explained in previous section. Even
though we do not have a baseline survey before both packages were implemented, we can safely
assume that the control schools were at least equally developed as the treatment schools and
probably slightly better off. Furthermore, control schools received in the program implementation
period only minimal assistance. This way we basically have a control school that can act as a
counterfactual, without the need of a baseline survey. The average treatment effect on treated can
20
be calculated, as previously explained, by simply subtracting the mean outcome of the treatment
group from the mean outcome of the control group.
Considering that wellbeing and health (the two main variables of interest) are largely determined by
factors outside the students education, it is necessary, in order to minimize any possible selection
bias, to control for these factors. This is done by applying propensity score matching. Note, that this
is only possible and desirable in the case of these two main outcomes. The effects of the program on
education related aspects, such as educational environment and teacher performance, are assumed
to be unrelated to factors outside the household.
3.3 Propensity score matching

Propensity score matching (PSM) uses observable characteristics of treated participants to create a
control group on the basis of the likelihood of participation. Each participant is matched with (a
group of) nonparticipant(s) that has more or less the same probability of participation (the
propensity score). This propensity score is calculated by performing a probit regression analyses with
the dependent variable being received treatment that can take a value of either 1 or 0 and the
independent variables being the observed characteristics that influences whether or not an
individual did participate. The estimates that come out of this regression are then used for
calculating the propensity scores by filling in the values of the individual participant and getting the
predicted values.
3.3.1
Observable characteristics
Only variables that simultaneously influence the participation decision and the outcome variable
(health or wellbeing) should be included. Including non significant variables in the propensity score
matching model will not bias the estimates or make them inconsistent; however it can increase the
variance (Caliendo and Kopeinig, 2005). Furthermore, the program cannot have affected any of the
included characteristics that influence participation. Based on these requirements the following
variables are included in the propensity score matching estimation of the program effect on
wellbeing and health:
Gender of student (dummy)

3
Number of adults in the household
Number of children in the household
Father is part of household (dummy)
Mother is part of household (dummy)
At least one of the adults in the household is occupied with farming (dummy)
At least one of the adults in the household owns a one man business (dummy)
At least one of the adults in the household has a public job (dummy)
Average education level among adults in the household
Household members were refugees in the war (dummy)
Student lived in an IDP camp (dummy)

The dwelling the students household live in is rented or owned
Distance in minutes to reach the following locations from their house:
The household is defined as all people that eat from the same pot.
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o Nearest source of drinking water

o Nearest source of any water
o Nearest main road
o Their school
o Nearest trading centre
How many times the student went to bed hungry past week
The amount of substantial meals the student eats in a day
The amount of different food groups the student consumed past 24 hours
The amount of different food groups the student consumed past week
A household wealth index
After testing different models, it turns out that higher variance, resulting from the inclusion of some
(very) insignificant variables, does not deteriorate the t-statistic in our case. Therefore, to be safe
and not to omit potentially important variables, all possible relevant variables are included.
3.3.2
Construction of characteristics
All of the characteristics are captured by section A and B in the student questionnaire (see appendix
A1)4 and most of them can be traced back to particular questions. However in some cases the data is
slightly transformed and some characteristics are constructed out of multiple questions (most
notably the wealth index).
Wealth Index
The wealth index is composed out of questions in the student questionnaire that could possible say
something about the wealth of the household. The challenge here is to give weights to the different
wealth indicators so that we can measure relative wealth. This is done using principal component
analysis or PCA5, which is a statistical method that can extract a set of uncorrelated principal
components out of a group of correlating variables. The components are then ranked according to
the amount of common information they contain. The first component always explains
proportionally the largest chunk of variance and is, in our case of asset variables, widely regarded to
represent the index of weights for the different wealth indicators (Filmer and Pritchett, 2001).
Together with the means and standard deviation of each wealth indicator, the wealth index can be
constructed as follows.
(
)
(
)
+. . +
Where WIj is the wealth index for the j-th household, f1 is the weight of asset 1 (a1) in the index,
determined using PCA, a1j is the amount of asset 1 owned by household j,
is average amount of
asset 1 owned by all households in the sample and s1 is the standard deviation of asset 1.
Although many wealth indices are based on dummy variables, PCA is in fact constructed for
continuous data. Not surprisingly, Kolenikov and Angeles (2005) found that using dummy variables
4
5
More explanation on the questionnaire can be found in section 3.6.

For the output of the PCA analysis be referred to the appendix B4
AVSI Impact Evaluation: Foundation 4 Africa and Foundation De Agostini education program
22
as proposed by Filmer and Pritchett (2001) is inferior to other methods for analyzing discrete
data,..., such as using ordinal variables. Therefore, in our questionnaire, wealth indicators are either
constructed as ordinal variables (as is the case for the amount of rooms/huts for sleeping, the
amount of plots of land owned and the list of possessions in question 37), or transformed towards
ordinal variables (as is the case with the material used for the roof, walls and floor of the house and
the type of toilet facilities).
3.3.3
Choice of matching algorithm
Next step is to choose a matching principle. Figure 2 presents the distribution of p-scores. As shown,
the distribution of propensity scores (p-score) is relatively similar between the treatment and the
control group and there is a large area of common support. Considering this and the fact that the
sample size is quite large, the choice of algorithm is less important (since asymptotically all
algorithms yield the same results) (Caliendo and Kopeinig, 2005). Therefore, as a first try we decided
on the most popular algorithm; nearest neighbor matching. However, after a balancing test
(appendix A2), we found that this algorithm un-balances 6 variables. Therefore, we decided to try
some others and finally made the decision for radius matching with a caliper of 0.01. Radius
matching is an extension on nearest neighbor matching and an improvement on pure caliper
matching. The nearest neighbor algorithm matches participants and non participants that are
nearest to each other; however matches might in fact be much distanced from each other,
producing an unbalanced dataset (as is the case here). Caliper matching offers a solution for this by
imposing a tolerance level by which the distance of the neighbor is restricted. Radius matching then
allows, instead of matching one-by-one, to match with all comparison members within the caliper,
which has the advantage of reducing variance (by oversampling) without causing bias (Caliendo and
Kopeinig, 2005). We set the caliper level rather small (0.01). This is only possible, because the
distributions of the propensity scores are very equal between control and treatment groups (as
discussed and shown in figure 2 below), which results in only 11 observations being dropped in the
case of the estimation of the effect on wellbeing. Conducting the balance test with this algorithm,
results in no unbalanced variables (as can be witnessed in appendix A3 (none of the t-tests turn out
significant)).
23
Figure 2: Distribution of p-scores
Results of the probit regression, the determination of the p-scores and matching, in the case of
wellbeing can be found in appendix B1. Now, the treatment effects can be determined. This is done
by simply subtracting the average wellbeing or health of the matched control group from the
average wellbeing or health of the matched treatment group. Note however, that the variance
accompanying the treatment effect is possibly incorrect, because it does not take into account the
variance due to the PSM and the common support criterion (Khander et al, 2010). A solution we will
use here is bootstrapping (Efron and Tibshirani, 1993 and Horowitz, 2002). Note however, that
although this method is widely used, there exists no formal evidence that can justify it. Nonetheless,
according to Imbens (2004), given that the estimators are asymptotically linear, it is likely that
bootstrapping will lead to valid standard errors and confidence intervals
3.4 Additional statistical tools

To find the treatment effect on other indicators than wellbeing and health, we do not have to go
through the above described difficulties of performing propensity score matching, but can simply
subtract the average of the control group from the average of the treatment group. To determine
whether the result is significant we perform a t-test that will determine how confident we can be
that the effect is not measured by chance.
A common statistical tool we will use in section 6 is multiple OLS (ordinary least square) regression
analysis. This analysis will uncover whether there is a relationship between one dependent variable
and two or more independent variables. It produces an estimate, which tells how the dependent
variable changes when one of the independent variables is increased with 1, while the other
independent variables are held fixed. Also here it is important to determine whether the effect is
significant.
24
3.5 Data sources and choice of instruments

The next step is to design the instruments that can capture the outcomes of the program. We start
by identifying the data sources that were utilized. After that we can construct the instruments
themselves.
3.5.1. Data sources
Between the 3rd and 28th of October all 20 schools were visited by the evaluator and a team of
enumerators. In order to get an accurate and complete impression, only one school was visited per
day. Considering the students are the main beneficiaries and ultimate target of the program, they
function as the main source of information. The student questionnaire touches on the topics of
wellbeing, health, the educational experience, AVSI activities and general household characteristics
that are used for propensity score matching. Since some of the questions might be too difficult to be
answered by the youngest of students, only the upper grades (p4 up to p7) are (randomly) selected
for an interview. Another important source of information that is used is the teacher. The teacher is
the provider of education and therefore of pivotal interest for the evaluation. Topics of interest
include job satisfaction, motivation, salary, parent commitment, organization, job status, staff
housing and trainings. Additional to these two subjective sources, information is collected by the
teacher attendance register each school keeps and by observations. Observations around school
mainly involve inspection of the water sources, latrines and library. Another, more delicate kind of
observation, are the unannounced classroom observations. A random unannounced visit of the
classroom during regular teaching hours can give an indication on how often classes are empty
during times when the children should be taught. In the same visit student attendance is taken, and
furniture is inspected, as well as the physical structure and cleanliness of the classroom.
Unfortunately, it is beyond the possibilities of this evaluation (both time and monetary wise) to go
into the villages and interview the parents.
3.5.2 Instruments of choice
Now the data sources are known we can continue with the construction of instruments that can
identify the treatment effects. One would have to be an expert child psychologist, social worker,
doctor, pedagogic and water and sanitation expert to produce perfect instruments for all aspects.
That is simple beyond the scope of this evaluation. Fortunately, the most important quality an
instrument can have is not as much to produce an interpretable and accurate value of the aspect of
interest, as providing sufficient variance that makes it possible to determine differences between
groups. The idea is that although a certain percentage might misinterpret a question in a specific
way, you can reasonable expect, given a sufficiently large sample size, that this percentage is as big
in the control group as in the treatment group. In the end it is about the difference in means
between these two groups, which means that this effect will be cancelled out.
Observations will predominantly consists out of counting (number of students, desks, toilets etc) or
dummy variables (is there a teacher in the classroom?). The questionnaires tries to use a 5 point
likert scale where possible to capture more variance compared to a 3 point scale and to offer the
25
possibility for students to be neutral so they will not be forced to be either positive or negative on an
issue (as with a 4 point scale). Considering the extensive nature of the student questionnaires we
refrain as much as possible from a standard agreement scale, in order to make the questionnaire
more diverse and keep the attention of the student.
What follows is a list of the most important indicators we either use to quantify the impact of the
program or for the identification of factors that determine teacher job satisfaction, attendance and
motivation. Note that in the case of inversed or/and non 5-scale questions that are part of a bigger
indicator, like health, the specific questions are rescaled or, if necessary, inversed again.
Wellbeing
Student wellbeing is the most important and challenging aspect that is measured. Obviously the only
source that could be used for this is the students themselves. Primarily section B in the student
questionnaire is developed for this purpose. Following NEF (2009), we measure childrens wellbeing
on a range of dimensions including life satisfaction, positive feelings, optimism, self image,
relationships, resilience, autonomy and vitality corresponding to questions 38 up to 45 respectively.
The measure wellbeing will then be constructed by taken the average over these eighth
dimensions.
Health
Student health is measured as the average of three components, namely vitality (SQ45), disease
(SQ47) and ability (average of question 48 up to 51). In effect we ask the student to judge his or her
own health. This is an example of a possible inaccurate measure, as discussed previously, but since
we expect the same kind of inaccurateness across the treatment and control group we can still
measure the treatment effect by comparing the means.
Student attendance
Student attendance is objectively measured by counting the students in p4 up to p7 and dividing this
number by the corresponding enrollment rate per class. The student attendance rate is then the
average attendance rate over the different classes.
Teacher attendance
Teacher attendance is taken from the attendance register, which each school should legally keep.
Every day when a teacher arrives at school the teacher should first fill in the register with his name,
time of arrival and signature. The attendance indicator is constructed by taking the attendance over
the last 20 days. For instance, a teacher who has been present in school for 18 out of 20 days is
assigned an attendance percentage of 90%. This number is later used in the regression analysis that
aims to uncover the factors that determine teacher attendance (Section 6). We only look at the last
20 days since they represent most closely the current attitude of the teacher. To determine whether
the program increases teacher attendance the average attendance of all teachers in treatment
schools is compared with the average attendance of all teachers in control schools.
Teacher classroom attendance
Note however, that after signing the register, the teacher can still to go back home at some point
during the day or chose not to give the lessons he is or she is supposed to give. Therefore we will use
26
an additional measure, namely class attendance. A randomly timed, unannounced visit of the
classroom during regular teaching hours can give an indication on how often classes are empty
during times when the children should be taught. This reflects partly the attendance of teachers at
school and the willingness of teachers to take over classes of absent colleagues, as well as
motivation to teach. An additional measure of teacher classroom attendance is presented by
question 62 in the student questionnaire that asks students how often their teacher is found in the
classroom.
Teacher performance
The performance of the teachers is rated by the students on the basis of question 62 up to question
66 of the student questionnaire. Components of the performance include the previously mentioned
classroom presence (SQ62), ability to clearly explain the material (SQ63), openness for students
personal issues (SQ64), interaction (SQ65) and the ability to keep the classroom ordered and
organized (the level of noise in the classroom (SQ66) instruments for this component). The measure
of overall teacher performance is then obtained by taking the average over these components.
Teacher motivation
Teacher motivation is measured on two levels. First the teachers are asked to judge their own
motivation to teach (TQ17), and then they are asked to judge the level of motivation of their
colleagues (TQ52). While TQ17 is quite straight forward, TQ52 requires some additional operations.
First a list is prepared that contains the name of all teachers employed in the school. Then the
interviewee is presented with the same statement about each individual teacher, namely: [name of
teacher] is very motivated to teach. Then the interviewer defines a teacher who is very motivated
to teach as someone who attends school whenever possible, is on time in the classroom for his
lessons, stays inside the classroom during the lesson, thoroughly prepares all lessons and tries to
teach the children at the best of his or her ability. The teacher who is being interviewed is then
asked whether he strongly disagrees, disagrees, agrees, strongly agrees or is neutral on the
statement. After all interviews are done, all judgments are collected and combined to form averages
that represent the motivation of all teachers individually.
Parent involvement
Parents are an important stakeholder in the educational process, but are not interviewed. To get a
sense of how involved the parents are with the education of their children we ask both the students
and the teachers. Students are asked how important it is for their parents that they go to school
(SQ61) and whether they have time to read at home (SQ60). Teachers are asked whether they think
parents are concerned with the educational performance of their children T(Q28) and whether they
think they get enough recognition from them (TQ22).
The educational environment.
This is the most extensive indicator that consists out of many components obtained from all data
sources. The school observations provide data on number of toilets and books per student, while the
classroom observation provide the number of desks per student and a rating on the cleanliness and
physical structure of the classroom. Beside these objective measures we ask both teachers and
students to rate the environment. Teachers are asked questions regarding the classroom, furniture,
quantity and quality of teaching material (TQ48 up to TQ51 respectively), while the students are
27
asked about the size and light of the classrooms, the furniture, the availability of textbooks, whether
they can take textbooks home and the water and sanitation facilities (SQ67 up toSQ73). Additionally
they were asked whether they saw improvements in the school the past 3 years (SQ78).
3.6 Data collection process

3.6.1. Preparations
The above described plan and the accompanying data collection tools were developed by the author
and his supervisor (Niccolo Meriggi) in July, August and September 2011 and agreed upon by AVSI.
All questionnaires and data collection forms were then discussed with the Program Manager (Sara
Pasolini) and Assistant project officer (George Okidi Okot) at the program location (Kitgum, Uganda)
and adapted towards the local context and AVSI wishes and suggestions. Next step is the training of
the team of enumerators and data clerks and to have a trial in the field.
3.6.2. Training of enumerators and data clerks
A team of eight experienced Gulu University students were selected to collect and digitalize the
data. The teams were divided in one Gulu and one Kitgum team, such that for neither team the work
would get too much of a routine and travel times were kept restricted. Each team consisted of one
data clerk and three enumerators, who would visit, together with the evaluator, one school per day.
The enumerators got the responsibility of interviewing the students, while the evaluator was
occupied with the teachers and observations. This choice was made since many children are not yet
proficiently speaking English and it is therefore necessary to translate the questions. Since, a unified
translation of the student questionnaire was not possible within the time frame, this responsibility is
passed on to the enumerators. During a training session the program was introduced and the
methodology and main goals of the evaluation were presented. The main part of the training was an
interactive session, in which the intention of each single question was made clear to the
enumerators, after which they, together with the two program manager assistants, discussed the
appropriate translation. Other issues that were touched during the training were the expectations of
the organization towards the evaluation team and vice versa, the relationship between the
interviewer and the student and suggestions for adaptation of the questionnaire to fit local context
and to maximize the convenience of the interviewer.
3.6.3. Trial
The day after the training was done, the entire team set off to Alel primary school to practice and
test the questionnaire. The enumerators were told to report any problems they had, especially
concerning translation and whether the respondents could easily interpret the questions correctly.
These things were discussed in a closing session and in the end it was decided that some questions
needed revision. The enumerators were especially concerned about whether the students were able
to estimate the size of the plots of lands owned by their household. In the end the question was kept
in the questionnaire, but after analyzing the data, dropped anyway, because of inconsistent results.
Additionally, the average time that an enumerator needed to conduct the interview was measured.
This varied from 41 minutes to up to 1 hour and 30 minutes. The aim was to collect 24 student
28
questionnaires per day and considering the fact that enumerators were expected to improve their
speed, the length of the questionnaire was considered appropriate.
3.6.4. Remarks regarding the four weeks of data gathering.
After this trial, the team was ready to commence the real data collecting in the 4 weeks thereafter.
The procedure was always the same. We gathered at 8 oclock, departed to the school at 8.30h and
arrived depending on the distance, 1 to 2 hours later. The first thing to do then, is visit the head
teacher, explain him the purpose of the survey without too much details and ask for permission to
observe classrooms, check registries and interview students and teachers. Then we explain that we
will only minimally disrupt their lessons and want them to continue like on any normal day. Next,
each class (P4 up to P7) is visited and the reason of our visit is explained. The students that are
enrolled in this school for 1 year or shorter are separated (since they might not have experienced
some changes) and the remaining students are given a paper with their class code and student
number. Corresponding papers with the same numbers are collected in a bag or big envelope. Every
time an enumerator is finished interviewing one child he selects the following by blindly and thus
randomly drawing a paper out of the envelope, visit the class corresponding the class code and ask
whether the student with the corresponding number wants to step outside for an interview.
Teachers are selected by randomly walking towards a teacher and ask them for an interview. Before
the interview is started both students and teachers are explained that the interview is for research
purposes only and any answers they will give will not influence any benefits that are distributed.
They are also told that the interview is confidential which means that the information they will give
is only available for AVSI staff.
While visiting the first two schools in Guda and Oryebo we witnessed that teacher attendance and
motivation was more of a problem than expected. Therefore, we decided to change the teacher
questionnaire last minute and include questions regarding the teachers job satisfaction and
motivation. The next day, Namakora was visited and after witnessing a large discrepancy between
the self reported motivation (TQ17) and the judgment of other colleagues in general, we decided to
include yet another question, namely TQ52, in an attempt to get a good idea about the motivation
of individual teachers. The consequence is that we did not collect the same amount of data
regarding the teachers in Oryebo, Guda and Namakora, as we did in the other schools.
3.7 Selection bias

Although selecting the sample per school is done completely random, it does not prevent some
inevitable selection bias. First reason for this is that due to budget and time constraints it is only
feasible to visit one school a day. The amount of students sampled per school then depends on the
distance from town. Every day the interview team scheduled to leave around 8.30h, but since
schools differ in distance greatly and school universally ends at 16.10h, the schools further located
from town are slightly under sampled.
Another, more pressing, issue is the fact that only the students and teachers that did attend school
during the survey could be interviewed. Students that were not at school have on average more
severe problems showing up in general. Due to this bias we possible cannot uncover the severity and
29
entire range of possible reasons for student absence. When the students are for example asked
about how important it is for their parents that he or she goes to school, the average answer might
be too optimistic, since the parents that do not care about schooling are keeping their children
home.
In the case of the teacher, the reasoning is similar. We are particularly interested in teacher job
satisfaction and motivation. On average we will interview more motivated teachers, since the most
de-motivated teachers are more inclined to stay at home. This implies less variety in the sample and
not a complete view of reality.
However, these sources of selection bias are not necessarily detrimental for the outcomes of this
evaluation. In view of the fact that both control and treatment schools experience the same bias, the
schools remain comparable. Instead of, for instance, comparing the wellbeing of all students
(including the students who have problems showing up), we compare the wellbeing of students that
have less problems at home.
30
4 The schools: meeting teachers and students.

This section presents information regarding schools and the descriptive statistics regarding the
teachers and the students. It does not focus on differences between control and treatment schools;
instead it provides a situational overview and an impression of the current state of the educational
experience in Kitgum and Gulu.
4.1 The schools

In both Gulu and Kitgum five treatment and five control schools were selected. The table below
presents all schools involved in the project evaluation. A school in this sample has on average 611
students enrolled and employs 13 teachers, making for an average of 48 students per teacher.
School
Code
School Name
Region
Sub-county
6
Aromowanglobo PS
Gulu
Odek
12
Lakwana PS
Gulu
Lakwana
14
Laminoluka PS
Gulu
Lakwama
16
Loyoajonga PS
Gulu
Lalogi
19
Orapwoyo PS
Gulu
Odek
1
Abole PS
Gulu
Koro
2
Aketket PS
Gulu
Lalogi
7
Atyang PS
Gulu
Lakwana
10
Idobo PS
Gulu
Lalogi
13
Lalogi PS
Gulu
Lalogi
4
Alel PS
Kitgum
Lagoro
5
Aloto PS
Kitgum
Lagoro
9
Guda PS
Kitgum
Namokora
17
Lyellokwar PS
Kitgum
Omiya Anyima
20
Oryebo PS
Kitgum
Namokora
3
Akuna Laber PS
Kitgum
Lagoro
8
Buluzi PS
Kitgum
Lagoro
11
Kalele PS
Kitgum
Omiya Anyima
15
Lopur PS
Kitgum
Omiya Anyima
18
Namokora PS
Kitgum
Namokora
Table 1: Overview of all control and treatment schools.
4.1.1
Children
enrolled
Received
AVSI
support
Grade
501
805
640
611
640
386
918
771
542
350
469
367
653
358
378
976
344
315
1201
1007
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
NO
NO
NO
NO
NO
YES
YES
YES
YES
YES
NO
NO
NO
NO
NO
4
3
4
3
3
3
2
3
3
3
4
4
3
4
4
3
4
3
2
2
Classrooms
In general, the physical structure of a school consists out of barrack style classrooms that are
entered from outside, build around an open space or playground. All classrooms will have at least a
blackboard and about half of them are decorated with educative posters. In the best case the
classroom has walls that are plastered and painted, a clean floor and contains 7 big windows
(without glass) and a lockable door. In terms of furniture the classroom will contain benches with
attached desks, suitable for a maximum of 3 persons. In the worst case there is no classroom and
31
pupils get taught outside, in a grass thatched classroom or in a temporary building that barely offers
enough shelter from the elements. In some cases pupils have no choice then to sit on the ground,
due to a lack of benches and desks and floors might be dirty with sand and food residuals.
4.1.2. Staff housing
Except for a few schools, there is staff housing available near or on the premises. Normally, these are
grass thatched houses constructed by parents, but almost all of those are in bad condition; leaking
roof, located in a flood sensitive area, no door (which makes it easy for burglars to enter) and in
many cases too small, which means that teachers cannot invite their families to live with them.
Figure 3: The absolute availability of permanent and grass thatched staff housing
The above figure illustrates the distribution of staff housing across the different schools that are
examined. Except for Lakwana PS, in the case of AVSI supported schools, permanent teacher
structures are available for at least two teachers, but in some, more remote schools, staff housing
can be provided for up to ten. Permanent buildings are in general of very good quality, containing
multiple rooms and a kitchen, glass windows and painted walls. The exception is Namokora where
on average teachers who occupied the permanent buildings rated them as poor. Except for Aloto
and Aromowanglobo PS, even for schools that have some permanent staff buildings, grass thatched
housing is still an important form of accommodation for teachers. Mind that the graph presented
above is showing absolute numbers. The graph below presents the same numbers divided by the
amount of teachers employed. As you can see AVSI supported schools (the ten schools on the right
side of the graph) offer more staff housing per person and a higher percentage of staff
accommodation consists of permanent buildings.
32
Figure 3: The availability of permanent and grass thatched housing per teacher employed
4.1.3. Sanitation and water facilities

In general, toilet facilities are present in the form of several blocks of pit latrines which are separated
for boys and girls and sometimes for staff. On average there is one toilet per 47 students. In many
cases, hand wash facilities are lacking or are out of order.
Figure 4: The amount of students that have to share 1 toilet
Figure 4 shows the students per toilet ratio. Note that the lower the bar, the fewer students have to
share one toilet. The worst case is found at Akuna Laber PS where 98 students have to share one
toilet and the best case can be found at Lyellokwar PS, where only 18 students have to share 1
facility.
Usually the main water source is a borehole which is always shared with the surrounding
community, while the location can vary from being positioned within the school premises to a 4 km
walk. In a few cases the only water source was a tank in which rainwater is collected from the roof of
the classroom. However, in many cases the tanks were in need of repair and were out of order.
33
4.1.4 Books
Except for a small head teacher office there are no other rooms available. Books are often stored
there or in a classroom. In many cases there are too little cupboards and books are stacked on the
floor. In the worst case, books are kept in an unordered pile, which makes the books wearing out
quicker and gives the general impression that many books are never used. This is confirmed by the
observation that in general hardly any books are found on the desks of students on unannounced
classroom visits.
Figure 6: The amount of books per student
The figure above illustrates the distribution of books across schools (again the 10 schools on the
right received AVSI support). On average there are 2.46 books per student available. The best case is
Guda where every student has on average 6 books, whereas in Buluzi, the worst case in this sample,
a student only has 0.46 books available. Considering those numbers also include supplementary
readers and novels and bearing in mind that there are 4 main subjects, this a dramatically low
number. Bear in mind though that the amount of books available does not say anything about either
the quality of those books nor the fact whether the books are used on a frequent basis.
4.1.5 Management structure
The management structure is in all cases the same. There are two main bodies; the SMC and PTA.
The SMC or School Management Committee has 10 members from different stakeholders (parents,
teachers and the head teacher) and is concerned with general school issues and allocates the
budget. Note that the government budget is very strict on where it should be spend, however in
many cases the school also receives some parent contribution. Stimulating this contribution, by
making parents more aware of the importance of education and getting them more involved, is what
the PTA or Parents and Teacher Association is occupied with. Parent contribution can either be in
kind (construction of grass thatched teacher housing is a favorite, but also repairs on buildings and
furniture) or monetary. Monetary parent contribution varies from nothing up to 6000 UGX per child
per term, but since there is the universal primary education law, this contribution can only be
voluntary and many parents either cannot or are unwilling to contribute. Parent contributions are
spend on paying the salary of, mostly unqualified, parent teachers (who can support the regular staff
34
when there is a shortage of personnel), co-curricular activities, small construction activities and/or to
supplement teacher salaries.
4.2 The teachers

4.2.1
General descriptive statistics
The teaching profession in this region of Uganda is dominated by males, evidenced by the sample in
which only 13% of the interviewed teachers were female. Teachers are relatively young with a
median age of 31 years and an average of 34. The youngest teacher that has been interviewed was
21 years and the oldest was 59 years old.
Figure 7: The distribution of the age of teachers
The distribution of age across teachers is illustrated in the histogram above where it seems that
some cohorts have been formed. The formation of the biggest cohort, the one of teachers between
21 and 34, can reasonably be explained by the introduction of universal primary education in
Uganda in 1997, which caused a drastic increase of student enrollment6 and a subsequent demand
for teachers. While the average teaching experience is 8 years, the teacher turnover rate seems to
be rather high as 51% of the teachers are employed at their current school for 2 years or shorter.
Out of all interviewed teachers 93% is on the government payroll and 7% is a so called parent
teacher; someone who is not necessarily qualified as a teacher, but is paid out of parent
contributions to relieve the regular staff from the heavy workload. The salary of a parent teacher
varies between 100.000 and 180.000, decided by the individual schools.
Staff housing is available for 69% of the teachers, but note that this includes grass thatched huts. As
explained in 4.1.2., the quality of staff housing varies greatly. 37% of the staff house occupiers rate
their house as either horrible or poor, 35% rate the condition of their house fair and 27% thinks that
the state of the house is either good or even excellent. Although a staff house might be available;
still 16% decides not to use it. The most common reason for this is that the house is either of a too
6
http://jae.oxfordjournals.org/content/18/2/183.full
35
low quality or too small to bring a family. Out of the 31% of the teachers that do not have the
possibility to live in a staff house, 83% would make use of a house if it was made available.
4.2.2
Job satisfaction and motivation
What is most striking when you visit the average school in this region is the lack of motivation
among teachers. This impression is mainly caused by the fact that during visits many classes are not
receiving lessons for very long stretches of time, while teachers might still be present in school. This
is captured in the data collected by unannounced classroom observations, where in 60% of the cases
there was no teacher present. Students can literally be waiting all day before they are taught. In a
single case, when asked, students told they did not receive a single lesson during the whole past
week. In interviews, the lack of motivation and job satisfaction is, more or less, acknowledged by the
teachers themselves. This is shown in the table below.
Variable
Job Satisfaction (TQ16)
Mean
3.35
Std. Dev.
1.06
Min
1
Max
5
Observations
102
Self reported motivation

(TQ17)
3.66
1.25
102
Motivation as judged by
colleagues (TQ52)
3.54
0.75
1.6
4.75
89
Motivation of colleagues
in general (TQ29)
2.68
1.17
96
Table 2: Job Satisfaction and motivation levels among teachers
As you can see the above three variables (TQ16, TQ17 and TQ52) are averaging between 3 and 4.
These numbers could be interpreted as follows. Teachers are on average not satisfied with their job,
although that does not mean they are unsatisfied (in which case the average would have been close
to 2 and 1. In the case of motivation, TQ17 and TQ52, the means can be interpreted similarly, albeit
slightly more positive. We cannot say the teachers feel de-motivated, but they are definitely not very
motivated either. An inconsistency arises though when we compare theses results with the
outcomes of another question. Asked about the motivation level of their colleagues in general, as is
done in TQ29, teachers seem to give far less positive answers. This is illustrated in figure 8 below.
Figure 8: The level of motivation of teachers in general, judged by teachers (TQ29)
36
When asked whether they agree with the statement your colleague teachers are very motivated to
teach more than half of them either disagrees or strongly disagrees. The judgment about colleagues
is far more negative then the teachers self reflection. What is even more striking is that when they
are presented with exactly the same statement but then regarding the individual teacher, like in
TQ52, the average is still far more positive. One explanation for this bias is that teachers might feel
social pressures that make them reluctant to individually grade colleagues in a negative way.
Following section 3.7 on selection bias, another explanation is that, while TQ29 captures the
motivation of all colleagues, including those who are not attending school the day of the visit, TQ52
only captures the motivation of teachers who are in fact present. It can be assumed that teachers
who are attending school today are on average more motivated to teach than teachers who are
absent the day of the visit.
4.2.3. Teacher salary
When asked about possible reasons for low job satisfaction and motivation levels among teachers in
general, teachers themselves almost unanimously answered it was caused by low salary. Intuitively,
this makes sense. To meet minimum household subsistence needs, teachers need to spend effort in
acquiring supplement income, causing them to be less focused on the job of teaching and even
spend time during teaching hours on finding other sources of income. Theoretically, this reasoning
finds support in Maslows theory of needs. Before effort is put into reaching higher order needs,
such as achievement and job satisfaction, basic survival and safety needs have to be fulfilled first.
The base salary of a Ugandan teacher who achieved grade 3 in PTC (primary teachers college) is
currently around 260.000 Ugandan Shillings per month, which is approximately an income of 3 dollar
per day. Assuming that the teacher is bread winner for an average Northern Ugandan family of
5.277, this would mean an average income of 56 dollar cents per day per household member, which
is significantly under the poverty line.
Figure 9: Teacher salary satisfaction
Okurut, Francis, Jonathan Odwee, Asaf Adebua. 2002. Determinants of regional poverty in Uganda. AERC research paper.
37
It is quite apparent that teachers are very unsatisfied about their salaries. This is evidenced by the
teacher strike that occurred two weeks before we started the data collection and also by the results
on question 20 from the teacher questionnaire as illustrated by figure 9. More than 87% of the
teachers are either unsatisfied or very unsatisfied. Only 4% can say that they are satisfied with their
salaries. In Section 6 we will further elaborate and investigate on the possible determinants of
teachers job satisfaction, motivation and attendance.
4.3 The students and their families

A total of 604 questionnaires were collected, 312 in Gulu and 292 in Kitgum; 301 came from AVSI
supported schools and 303 came from control schools. The final male/female ratio was 50.1% /
49.9%. The students come from families which count on average 7.7 members of which 2.47 are
adults and 5.35 are younger than 18. Even for African standards this is a high average. About 27%
does not have a father and 16% does not have a mother, which means 32.8% is at least partially
orphan and 8.8% is full orphan. By far the most common occupation among adults in the families is
agriculture, as 94.2% have at least one adult that is occupied with farming. The second and third
most common occupation is having a public job and owning a one-man business, with respectively
11.6% and 6.4% of the families having at least one adult that is occupied with these jobs. On average
the adults in the households have rather low education levels. This is illustrated in the figure below.
No schooling
39%
Started Primary
21%
Completed Primary
Lower Secondary
15%
21%
4%
Upper Secondary
University
0%
Figure 10: The education of adults in the families of students
You can see that basically 60% did not finish any regular education (21% never attempted primary,
39% is a primary school drop-out), 21% has finished primary education and 15% made it through to
lower secondary school. Only 4% of the adults have enjoyed higher secondary education and
virtually no one went to university.
At the time of data collection the war ended about 6 years ago. Almost all children (98%) remember
that their families needed to flee their homes in the past and 86% has lived in an IDP camp
themselves. Now however, almost all have returned back and have restarted their lives in their old
villages. About 92% of the children live in a house that is owned by their family. This is typically a
grass thatched hut (98% of the cases), with walls of unburned bricks with mud (88%) and a rammed
earth floor (99%). Exceptions are mostly found for families that live in a regional trading centre. In
that case they can have a roof made of iron sheets, walls of burnt bricks with cement and a cement
screed floor. The main source of fuel for lighting is firewood and paraffin. Toilet facilities are
38
generally in the form of a covered family pit latrine (in 41% of the cases) and otherwise a covered
but shared pit latrine (22%), an uncovered pit latrine (21%) or the bush (16%).
Most students live in small villages in rural areas. On average they need to walk 25 minutes to reach
the nearest source of drinking water, 65 minutes to reach the nearest trading center and 42 minutes
to reach their school.
The average household in the sample can be labeled very poor. Since most of them are farmers the
most important possession they can have is land and many households (91%) own at least one plot.
Additionally, we asked the students what other possessions they and their households own, which in
general is just a few items. The average family owns 1 bicycle, 0.9 cattle, 11.7 chickens, 4 goats, 0,4
oxen, 8 banana trees, 5.7 mango trees, 5 hoes, 0.3 ploughs, 0.9 tables, 2.6 chairs, 1.1 mattresses,
0.79 radios, 0.71 mobile phones, 3.6 jerry cans, 0 cars and 0 computers.
Fortunately, poverty in this region does not, necessarily, mean hunger. The land is fertile and many
households rely on subsistence farming. This is considered a fine option in this region as both in
Kitgum and Gulu, households can consistently expect a good harvest. Still, about 30% of the students
only eat one substantial meal per day and about 25% reports that they went to bed hungry at least 1
time in the past week. Moreover, the meals are not very varied. The typical meal, albeit depending
on the season, consists out of poshum (based on maize) with beans. On average they consumed
three types of food out of a possible eleven food groups in the last 24 hours and 5 types of food in
the last week.
39
5 Program impact
This is the main section and all intended results will be reported and evaluated here. The first two
objectives, increasing student attendance and teacher attendance (corresponding to research
question 1a and 1b) are key, since only when both the student and teacher are present, education
can take place and knowledge can be transferred. The next two objectives, increasing the teacher
performance and improving the educational environment (corresponding to research questions 1c
and 1d), are important because they will determine the quality of education, and that determines
the amount of learning takes place while both the student and teacher are present. Together they
should shape the right conditions that can increase the number of opportunities in later stages of life
and ultimately the likelihood of success in the adult age. Last but not least we measure the effects of
the program on the objective of increasing student wellbeing and health. Section 5.2 up to 5.5 will
make use of simple t-tests to determine treatment effects while section 5.5 will make use of
propensity score matching.
5.1 Introduction to statistical terminology

The results, presented in the tables below might be difficult to interpret if you are not too well
acquainted with statistics. Therefore we shall briefly introduce some important statistical concepts.
All tables will present the means and corresponding standard errors of both the treatment and
control group. The means describe the average value for the outcome in the specified group. By
taking the difference of the means between the treatment and control group we obtain the average
treatment effect on treated (ATT). This number is the absolute increase (or decrease when negative)
compared to the control group and thus, following our design, the situation 3 years ago before the
program was implemented. Easier to interpret is perhaps ATT (%), which is the treatment effect
expressed in a percentage change compared to the control group and the situation before the
program was implemented. This number basically expresses the improvement in outcome in
percentage terms. However, since we took a sample from a bigger population we need a measure
that tells us whether we can be confident about the existence of a similar treatment effect (ATT) in
the population. That number is specified under significance level and this is determined using the
effect size, the standard error and an assumed distribution. When the significance level is smaller
than 0.10 it is generally accepted to conclude that the result is significant, which means, in this
case that we can be for at least 90% confident that the treatment effect exists.
40
5.2 On student attendance

This section discusses the objective of increasing student attendance. The table below presents the
main results.
Table 3: Student Attendance

Group
Mean
Standard Error
Observations
CONTROL
48.73%
3.80%
43
TREATMENT
51.89%
3.73%
40
ATT:
3.16%
5.33%
ATT (%):
6.48%
Significance level:
0.2774
As the table shows; in control schools 48.73 percent of the enrolled students attend class, while in
the treatment schools this is 3.16% higher, namely 51.89%. This is a relative improvement of 6.48%.
This result is not significant however, which means that we cannot be confident that the program
was successful on this aspect. Furthermore, if it might have been successful, the attendance rate is
still rather low.
The most important question here is: why are levels of student attendance so low and why did the
program not offer any improvement? To uncover this answer let us first see whether the problem
lies with the student.
Variable
(N=598)
How much of the time do you like going to school?
(SQ56)
Going to school is useful. (SQ75)
Education helps you to improve your opportunities
for a good life in the future. (SQ76)
Group
Mean
CONTROL
TREATMENT
CONTROL
TREATMENT
CONTROL
TREATMENT
4.673
4.667
4.670
4.684
4.623
4.644
Std.
Error
0.035
0.032
0.038
0.033
0.038
0.035
Att
Significance
-0.006
INSIGNIFICANT
0.014
INSIGNIFICANT
0.021
INSIGNIFICANT
Table 4: The students internal motivation for attending school
Table 4 above demonstrates that there exists no difference between students going to AVSI
supported schools and students going to control schools regarding their internal motivation. On
average both groups like to go to school almost nearly all of the time and almost all students think
that their education is useful and that it will help them to improve their opportunities for a good life
in the future. If we ask the students themselves, what the most common reasons are for not
attending class, they give the following answers.
SQ59: When you do not attend class what are the most common reasons for this?
1. You did not feel like going to school that day.
2. Sickness.
3. Work to earn money for yourself.
4. Work to earn money for the household.
5. Household chores.
Percentage:
3.45%
57.85%
5.87%
8.94%
23.88%
Table 5: Reasons why students did not attend school in the past
41
The first result that is noticable is the fact that only a few student have stayed at home because they
did not feel like going to school that day. This confirms the previous findings in table 4. The other
results show that out of all reasons of staying home, two stand out. The first one is staying home due
to sickness (57.85%). So is disease a big problem, or do the students list disease as a reason to stay
home, because everyone falls sick once in while? Section 5.6 shows that general health levels among
the students can be considered relatively high (around 4.5 on a scale ranging from 1 to 5). Also when
asked how many times the students were so ill the past 2 months that they could not attend
school (SQ47), on average they answered one time. Evidence for this can be found in the results
displayed in table 6 below (note that the scale was inverted with the maximum of 6 meaning never
and the minimum of 1 meaning more than six times). According to these results it is implausible
that an average of 50% of the students stays home because of disease.
Variable
Treated
Control
Average treatment
effect on treated
ATT
(%)
Standard
Error
Significance
level
Illness (Q47)
5.169
5.047
0.1066
2.11%
0.1066
0.125
0.0929
0.097
After Bootstrapping:
Tabel 6: Illness of students
The second most common reason is staying home due to the fact the student had to work for the
household (32.82%), in the form of household chores (23.88%) and earning money (8.94%).8 For this
reason, we check whether the program improves parent involvement. Students are asked whether it
is important for their parents that they go to school (SQ61) and teachers are asked whether they
think the parents of their pupils are concerned with their childrens educational perfomance (TQ28).
The table below displays the findings.
Variable
Group
Mean
Std. Error
How important is it for the parents that their

child goes to school (SQ61)
CONTROL
TREATMENT
CONTROL
TREATMENT
4.110
4.177
3.229
3.341
0.0571
0.0564
0.1786
0.1994
Are parents concerned with the educational

perfomance of their children (TQ28)
Att
Att (%)
Sig.
0.067
1.63%
0.2035
0.112
3.47%
0.3410
Table 7: Two measures of parent involvement with education
Although both aspects show a positive average treatment effect, the effect is either too small (as is
the case with SQ61) or the standard error too big (as is the case with TQ28) to produce a significant
result. Therefore we cannot conclude that the AVSI education program improves parent
involvement.
Since the introduction of universal primary education, parents seem to be able to send their children
to school at minimal costs. This might make many parents decide to enroll their children, while they
already know that they will often keep their children at home. But the question to ask here is
whether this is because of a lack of involvement by parents or because of a lack of choice. A lack of
involvement might be caused by the fact that many parents did not complete any education
8
For reasons explained in section 3.7, these results might not reveal the entire truth . Only students that attended school the day of our
visit could be interviewed and therefore the students who are more likely to stay home are omitted. What is clear however, is that in this
case the parents play a big role in student attendance.
42
themselves and, according to the teachers, see more virtue in vocational training. An additional
cause is perhaps a lack of success stories regarding persons that did in fact complete a reasonable
amount of education and are now better of. Or, do parents just have no other choice than to retain
their children from school, such that the children can help in the survival of the household; BY
fetching water, help in the garden and harvesting. Therefore, it could be argued that there are
opportunity costs of schooling, since by sending their children to school they forgo the returns of
their labor. It could be argued that the older the child gets the higher the opportunity costs get and
this would correspond with the high drop out rates the schools are experiencing. Moreover,
although tuition fees are free, many schools still ask for parent contributions, and parents need to
buy a uniform for their children. Add to that the opportunity costs mentioned above and it is hard to
argue that schooling is free.
5.3 On teacher attendance

Next, we look into the effect of the program on teacher attendance. Table# below displays the
percentage of teachers that daily show up at school. Although there are only 163 observations, each
observations represents the attendance of one teacher over the last 20 workdays since the visit.
Table 8: Teacher Attendance in School

Group
Mean
Standard Error
Observations
CONTROL
66.60%
2.39%
91
TREATMENT
76.66%
1.70%
72
ATT:
10.06%
3.33%
ATT (%):
15.10%
Significance level:
0.0015
According to the results, the program increased teacher attendance with 10.06%, from 66.6% to
76.66%. This is an improvement of 15.10% compared to the situation 3 years ago. This is a significant
result.
However, a teacher that is attending school can still decide not to teach their assigned classes or go
home early. A teacher attending school is simply not enough to provide the students with education.
The minimal requirement for this is a teacher who is present in the classroom and is instructing the
children. Table 9 presents the results from the unannounced classroom observations. These results
will not simply reflect attendance, but also teacher motivation and the willingness to take over a
class of a teacher that is not attending school that day.
Table 9: Teacher presence in classroom*

Group
Mean
Standard Error
Observations
CONTROL
28.20%
7.20%
39
TREATMENT
50.00%
7.91%
40
ATT:
21.80%
1.07%
ATT (%):
77.30%
Significance level:
0.0237
*Significance level calculated with proportion test.
43
The findings tell us that in general the teacher classroom attendance is shockingly low throughout
both AVSI and control schools with only about 39.23% of the classrooms having a teacher instructing
the students during normal teaching hours. Nevertheless, the AVSI program offers hope as it
improved the situation significantly with 77.30%, raising classroom attendance from 28.20% up to
50%.
When no teacher was found in the classroom during the unannounced visit the children were asked
whether they already received any lesson today. In AVSI supported schools this was the case in 85%
of the classes, while the same was the case in only 53.57% of the class in the control group. This
means that the program caused an absolute improvement of 31.42% and a relative improvement of
58.31%. Results are displayed in the table below.
Table 10: Teacher presence in classroom before visit*

Group
Mean
Standard Error
Observations
CONTROL
53.57%
9.42%
28
TREATMENT
85.00%
7.98%
20
ATT:
31.42%
12.35%
ATT (%):
58.31%
Significance level:
0.0114
*Significance level calculated with proportion and z test.
Also the students confirm that the program improves teacher classroom presence. table below
shows that the students report an improvement in teacher presence of 10%. This result is significant
beyond 1%.
Table 11: How often are your teachers present in the classroom? (Q62)
Group
Mean
Standard Error
Observations
CONTROL
3.441
0.05336
299
TREATMENT
3.810
0.05406
300
ATT:
0.3685
0.07596
ATT (%):
10.71%
Significance level:
0.0000
Possible reasons for low classroom presence could be a combination of low teacher motivation and
inadequate management. Since the amount of teachers is determined by enrollment and not by the
amount of classes, and considering that the class sizes are on average relatively large, there is
actually an oversupply of teachers. The consequence is that schools work with extensive teacher
rosters. One problem could be that there is no systematic solution for teachers that are absent and
teachers do not feel motivated enough to substitute for colleagues who are not there.
44
5.4 On teacher performance

Now we will examine whether the program improved teacher performance. This is done by first
looking into the overall teacher performance (as rated by the students) and then by considering the
motivation of teachers (based on self reflection and the judgment of colleagues). The table below
presents the main results. It turns out that the program improves the performance of teachers by
4.52%. This result is solid beyond the 1% significance level.
Table 12: Teacher Performance

Group
Mean
Standard Error
Observations
CONTROL
3.496
0.05199
302
TREATMENT
3.655
0.04190
301
ATT:
0.158
0.06674
ATT (%):
4.52%
Significance level:
0.0090
When we then unravel teacher performance in table 13 below, we find that the program
significantly improves 3 out of 5 components. Most notably the previously discussed classroom
presence (10.71% improvement), but also the teachers ability to clearly explain the material and
the ability to keep the class ordered and organized as witnessed by the level of noise in the
classroom, with an improvement of 3.5% and 4.93%, respectively. The program does not significantly
improve the teachers openness towards personal issues of the student and it neither increases
classroom interaction. Note however, that in the latter case of class interaction the values can
already be considered quite high and also, after observing many teachers, we can safely state that
class interaction must be an important topic in the curriculum of primary teachers college and is
therefore not really an issue. We cannot say the same regarding the openness of teachers towards
students; these values can in fact be considered rather low and are in need of improvement.
Table 13: Teacher perfomance unraveled

Variable
Group
Mean
Std. Error
Obs.
Classroom presence
(SQ62)
CONTROL
3.441
0.0534
299
TREATMENT
3.810
0.0541
300
Clearly explain
material (SQ63)
CONTROL
3.560
0.0445
298
TREATMENT
3.690
0.0463
300
Openess to students
personal life (SQ64)
CONTROL
3.243
0.1253
300
TREATMENT
3.263
0.0801
300
Class interaction
(SQ65)
CONTROL
89.56%
2.78%
297
TREATMENT
89.63%
1.76%
299
CONTROL
1.967
0.0481
300
TREATMENT
2.064
0.0463
298
Class organization
*(SQ66)
Att
Att (%)
Significance
0.3685
10.71%
0.0000
0.1260
3.5%
0.0220
0.02
0.61%
0.4466
0.06%
NA
0.4915
0.0971
4.93%
0.0733
Stat.
Power
* Note that SQ66 is inverted such that 3 represents low noise and 1 represents high noise in the classroom during lessons.
Apart from the competence, as displayed above, a teacher needs motivation to be able to
consistently provide the students with high quality instruction. Teacher motivation is measured on
three levels. First, the teachers are asked to judge their own motivation to teach (TQ17), then they
45
are asked to judge the motivation of their colleagues in general and, finally, they are asked to judge
the level of motivation of the individual colleagues separately (TQ52).
Table 14: Teacher motivation

Variable
Self reported motivation (TQ17)
Motivation as judged by
coleagues (TQ52)
General motivation among
collegues (TQ29)
Group
Mean
Std. Error
Obs.
CONTROL
3.524
0.1596
53
TREATMENT
3.854
0.1931
36
CONTROL
3.378
0.1118
61
TREATMENT
CONTROL
TREATMENT
3.793
2.436
3.000
0.0947
0.1530
0.1815
41
55
41
Att
Att (%)
Significance
0.3291
9.34%
0.0963
0.4150
12.29%
0.0048
0.5636
23.14%
0.0096
The results clearly put forward that the AVSI education program improves motivation among
teachers. The program causes an improvement of 9.34% and 12.29% for TQ17 and TQ52,
respectively. In the case of TQ52 the program causes a move from a more neutral position towards
more agreement regarding the statement that teachers are very motivated to teach. Moreover,
outcomes of the program are even more positive when we base them on the more anonymous
teacher opinion about their colleagues in general (TQ29). In that case we can speak of a relative
improvement in motivation levels of 23.14%. This measure of motivation is however more
pessimistic about the absolute level of motivation among teachers. It is talking of an improvement
from an average disagreement towards a neutral position regarding the statement that their
colleague teachers are very motivated to teach.
5.5 On the educational environment

The remaining condition that is required for good educational outcomes is a good educational
environment in terms of material, infrastructure, facilities and cleanliness. For this objective we
gathered evidence from all data sources: school- and classroom observations, teacher interviews
and student interviews.
Observations
The table below presents the two indicators that could be gathered by looking around the school
premise; the amount of books per student and the amount of students that have to share one toilet.
Variable
Group
Mean
Std. Error
Obs.
Students
per toilet
CONTROL
57.86
7.9961
10
TREATMENT
36.00
3.0499
10
CONTROL
1.961
0.4690
10
TREATMENT
2.959
0.5725
10
Books per
student
Att
Att (%)
Significance
-21.867
-37.80%
0.0099
0.999
50.94%
0.0970
Table 14: Educational environment measured by school observations
The provision of latrines and textbooks by the program significantly improved the situation. On
average the amount of students that had to share 1 toilet went down from 57.86 to 36, meaning an
improvement of 37.8%. The amount of books increased from an average of almost 2 books per child
46
to an average of 3 books per child, which improved the situation with 50%. Mind that the sample
sizes are very small, but since the effect sizes are so big, the statistical power lies above 90%.
In the classroom, data for four indicators could be collected, including the cleanliness and physical
structure of the classroom (as judged by the evaluator on a scale of 1-3 and 1-4 respectively),
number of desks per students enrolled and whether there were educative posters present on the
walls. The results are displayed in the table below.
Variable
Group
Mean
Std. Error
Obs.
Cleanliness
of classr.
CONTROL
1.769
0.1243
39
TREATMENT
2.308
0.1171
39
Physycal
Structure.
CONTROL
3.026
0.1580
39
TREATMENT
3.800
0.1025
40
Desks per
Student
CONTROL
0.592
0.0622
43
TREATMENT
1.170
0.0838
40
Poster(s)
present
CONTROL
12.82%
0.0535
39
TREATMENT
55.00%
0.0787
40
Att
Att (%)
Significance
0.5384
30.43%
0.0012
0.7743
25.58%
0.0000
0.5785
97.71%
0.0000
42.18%
329.02%
0.0000
Stat.
Power
Table 15: Educational environment measured by classroom observations
All aspects were positively and significantly influenced by the AVSI education program. It improved
the cleanliness and physical structure with more than 30% and 25%, respectively. It almost doubled
the amount of desks of the students and had a very positive effect (329% improvement) on the
decoration of the classroom in the form of posters.
Educational environment as judged by the teachers
All teachers were asked to judge the educational aspect on four aspects: Classroom quality, the
quality of the available teaching material, the quantity of the available teaching material and the
classroom furniture. Results are found below.
Variable
Group
Mean
Std. Error
Obs.
Classroom Quality
(TQ48)
CONTROL
2.862
0.1545
58
TREATMENT
3.659
0.1288
41
Teaching Material
Quantity (TQ49)
CONTROL
2.836
0.1101
61
TREATMENT
3.293
0.1571
41
Teaching Material
Quality (TQ50)
CONTROL
3.049
0.0947
61
TREATMENT
3.683
0.1128
41
Classroom
Furniture (TQ51)
CONTROL
2.492
0.1251
61
TREATMENT
4.146
0.0894
41
Att
Att (%)
Significance
0.796
27.81%
0.0002
0.457
16.11%
0.0079
0.634
20.79%
0.0000
1.655
66.41%
0.0000
Stat.
Power
Table 16: Educational environment as perceived by the teachers
As you can see, also the teachers are positive about the change in educational environment. The
perception of the teachers regarding the classroom and furniture quality improved with 27.81% and
66.41%, respectively. While the perception regarding the teacher material improved with 16.11%
regarding the quantity of material and with 20.79% regarding the quality. All results are significant
beyond the 1%-level.
47
Educational environment as perceived by the students

The students were of course also asked for their opinion, since they are the one who in the end
should profit from an improved environment. As users they can be considered the most important
judges and are therefore presented with the most extensive index regarding educational
environment, including separate indicators for the light and size of the classroom, the furniture,
availability of textbooks, the ability to take textbooks home and the sanitation and water facilities.
The main result is presented in table 17 below.
Table 17: Educational environment according to the students.

Group
Mean
Standard Error
Observations
CONTROL
3.4988
0.0366
301
TREATMENT
3.9138
0.0327
301
ATT:
0.4150
0.0259
ATT (%):
11.86%
Significance level:
0.0000
The findings tell us that in general the AVSI program improved the perception of students regarding
the educational environment with 11.86%. This result is significant beyond the 1%-level.
Table 18: The educational environment unravelled.

Variable
Group
Mean
Size of classroom
(SQ67)
CONTROL
TREATMENT
3.9699
4.2767
Std.
Error
0.0695
0.0622
Obs.
Att
Att (%)
Significance
299
300
0.3067
9.24%
0.0005
Lightness in classroom
(SQ68)
CONTROL
TREATMENT
4.375
4.475
0.0455
0.0401
301
301
0.0996
2.28%
0.0503
Furniture
(SQ69)
CONTROL
TREATMENT
3.179
0.0616
301
3.953
0.0530
301
0.7740
24.35%
0.0000
0.4983
16.06%
0.0000
11.94%
14.79%
0.0000
0.5732
19.32%
0.0000
0.11
3.84%
0.1173
Textbook availabiliy
(SQ70)
CONTROL
3.103
0.0706
301
TREATMENT
3.601
0.0628
301
Possibility to take
textbooks home (Q71)
CONTROL
80.73%
2.27%
301
TREATMENT
92.67%
1.51%
300
Toilet Facilities
(Q72)
CONTROL
2.967
0.0604
301
TREATMENT
3.540
0.0547
300
CONTROL
2.860
0.0639
300
TREATMENT
2.970
0.0668
300
Water Facilities
(Q73)
Stat.
Power
When we unravel the educational environment into its different components as done in table 18
above, we see that more or less all aspects were improved by the program and except for the water
facilities all effects are significant at the 5% or 1% significant level. The size of the classroom,
furniture, textbook availability, the possibility to take textbooks home and the toilet facilities
improved most drastically, with respectively 9.24%, 24.35%, 16.06%, 14.79% and 19.32% compared
to the old situation. The lightness in the classroom did not improve drastically since it seems not to
present a big issue and students were already quite happy with the old situation. This is not true for
the water facilities. Although there is a result, it is hardly significant and the water facilities are still
not rated better than average.
48
5.6 On wellbeing and health

This subsection presents evidence on the main research question. The effect of the program on both
wellbeing and health are examined and both are unraveled into their smaller components. As
explained previously, the standard error after propensity score matching is probably incorrect and so
also the resulting significance level. Each table will therefore contain also the results after
bootstrapping and the new significance level is considered the correct one. The table below presents
the main results.
Table 19: Student Wellbeing (N= 590)

Treated
Control
3.637
Average
treatment effect
on treated
ATT (%)
Standard Error
Significance
level
0.1203
3.4%
0.0509
0.0093
0.0636
0.0125
3.517
Table 19 shows that the program improves student wellbeing from 3.517 with 0.1203 to 3.637,
which is a relative improvement of 3.4%. This result is significant at 5%. Unraveling the results, we
see where the main changes occurred.
Table 20: Wellbeing Unraveled

Variable
Treated
Control
Average treatment
effect on treated
ATT
(%)
Standard
Error
Significance
level
Life Satisfaction (Q38)
3.491
3.316
0.175
5.28%
0.1046
0.047
0.1141
0.063
Positive feelings (Q39)
3.601
3.398
0.203
5.97%
Optimism (Q40)
3.979
3.939
0.047
1.26%
Self Image (Q41)
4.267
4.159
0.108
2.60%
Relationships (Q42)
4.039
3.972
0.093
2.34%
Resilience (Q43)
3.039
2.882
0.156
5.41%
Autonomy (Q44)
2.721
2.783
-0.061
-2.19%
Vitality (Q45)
3.972
3.704
0.2674
7.22%
0.1095
0.032
0.1204
0.045
0.0901
0.330
0.1038
0.350
0.0912
0.119
0.0927
0.122
0.0930
0.236
0.1194
0.288
0.1301
0.115
0.1251
0.106
0.1220
0.309
0.1240
0.311
0.1065
0.006
0.1195
0.013
As the table above shows, the students life satisfaction, feelings of happiness and vitality are
significantly improved by the program, with respectively 5.28%, 5.97% and 7.22%. At the same time
is the effect of the program on resilience and a positive self image less clear, but can, with some
willingness, be regarded as almost significant, with a respective p-level of 0.106 and 0.122. The
49
program improves these dimensions with 5.41% and 2.60%, respectively. The effects on
relationships and autonomy are unmistakably insignificant.
The component of vitality is also part of the health index. Health could be seen as a first requirement
for wellbeing. Without a certain level of health it is difficult to feel well. The table below displays the
main result regarding health.
Table 21: Student Health

Treated
Control
Average
treatment effect
on treated
ATT (%)
Standard Error
Significance
level
4.483
4.349
0.1336
3.07%
0.0568
0.0118
0.0689
0.0257
As the findings show, health levels among students can be considered fairly high (an average of 4.4
on a scale from 1 till 5 among the entire sample). We can conclude nevertheless, that the program
improves the health of the children with 3.07%. Note however, that these conclusions are based on
self reports, instead of a more objective judgment of a doctor.
Table 22: Health Unraveled

Variable
Treated
Control
Average treatment
effect on treated
ATT
(%)
Standard
Error
Significance
level
Vitality (Q45)
3.972
3.704
0.2674
7.22%
0.1065
0.006
0.1195
0.013
0.1066
0.125
0.0929
0.097
Illness (Q47
5.169
5.047
0.1066
2.11%
Ability
4.674
4.608
0.0660
1.43%
0.0858
0.221
0.0752
0.190
After unraveling health, as done in the table above, we see that both the frequency of illness and the
vitality of the students have been significantly improved by the program with respectively 2.11% and
7.22%. The ability of students to do a range of activities (SQ48 up to SQ51) is untouched by the
program.
5.7 Some concluding remarks regarding the impact of the program

In general we can say that the AVSI education program improved all conditions for good education,
except for student attendance. Effects in many cases can be regarded as very large, especially on the
educational environment and teacher attendance, presence in the classroom and motivation. The
effects on wellbeing and health can also be regarded as a success. Considering that wellbeing is
influenced by a broad range of factors outside the students education, like family relationships,
poverty and community life, it is quite an achievement to increase a childs wellbeing by improving
their education.
50
6 Determinants of teacher attendance, job satisfaction and

motivation
6.1 Motivation
Based on the gathered evidence it is safe to say that the current attitude of teachers forms a
constraint on the improvement of education. Across the entire sample, teachers attendance at
school is on average 70% and only in 39% of the classrooms is a teacher present. Evidently, teacher
absenteeism as described above, leads to significantly lower student achievement. Notable evidence
for this from a developing country is delivered by Das et al. (2007), who found that in Zambia that a
5 percent increase in teachers absence reduces learning by 4 to 8 percent of average gains over the
year. This subsection will provide a first idea about what factors can influence this behavior. By no
means will this section be conclusive regarding any possible intervention component, but rather
aims to start the process of finding possible solutions.
6.2 Theoretical Model

Based on the scarce literature that is currently available regarding teacher motivation and
absenteeism (Bennell and Akyeampong (2007) and Rogers and Vegas (2007)) we included a list in
the teacher questionnaire with possible factors that could influence the attendance and motivation
of teachers. This list includes salary (TQ20), parent recognition (TQ22), head teacher recognition
(Q24), job status (TQ25), school management (TQ26), accountability towards students (TQ27),
parent involvement (Q28), frequency of meeting parents (TQ30), born and raised in community
around school (TQ32), time to travel to school (TQ33), availability of a staff house (generated staff
house dummy), staff house quality (q41), and educational environment (q48 up to q51). Additionally
also another variable, q41transformation, is produced that can be interpreted as quality of staff
housing, but with the possibility of taking a value of zero when there is no staff housing available.
The idea is that we measure the perception of teachers regarding these factors and put them in a
regression analysis against the values of motivation and attendance. The correct model is then
determined by backward elimination, dropping all variables with a significance level higher than
10%, until we are left with a correct model.
6.3 Results
The outcomes of the analysis are in the form of three relatively small models that by no means can
explain all variance in the dependent variables. However, they certainly give some indication
regarding what factors might be important and maybe more notably, what factors do not play a role.
First we will investigate the results on job satisfaction, next on motivation and, finally, on
attendance. To be complete the stata outputs are entirely displayed.
51
Job satisfaction
The regression results are displayed below. As you can see the model that remains is relatively
simple and small, but still has a respectable adjusted R2 of 23.37%.
Job Satisfaction
Coefficients
Standard errors
Significance level
Staff house quality (Q41transform)

Motivation of colleagues (TQ29)
Satisfaction with Salary (TQ20)
0.1462
0.2678
0.3686
0.0564
0.0840
0.1269
0.011
0.002
0.005
Constant
1.6498
0.3075
0.000
R- squared:
0.2676
Adjusted R-squared:
0.2437
Table 23: Regression results, job satisfaction
Three variables turn out to influence job satisfaction significantly (close or beyond 1% of
significance). First of all, it appears that teachers are more satisfied about their job when they are
more satisfied regarding their salary (TQ20). As explained in section 4.2.3., teachers in Northern
Uganda are living under the poverty line and it is no surprise that this would influence their job
satisfaction, especially considering the teacher strike that took place in September. Another
important factor is working with a team of motivated colleagues (TQ29). This too is intuitively very
understandable; working with colleagues that like their job can bring more enjoyment in working.
The final factor that positively influences job satisfaction is staff house quality, not only does a staff
house means you do not have to pay rent, a high quality staff house might also bring status and
comfort. Moreover, since a higher quality staff house is often bigger, teachers have the possibility to
live together with their family. To summarize, better secondary working conditions improve job
satisfaction.
Motivation
Job satisfaction does not immediately translate into job motivation, as the results below show. This
model is even simpler than the previous one. What remains after backward elimination are only two
variables. The model still explains 21.88% of the variance in teacher motivation.
Motivation
Coefficients
Standard errors
Significance level
Distance from teachers home to school (TQ33)

Frequency teacher talks with parent (TQ30)
Constant
-0.0103
-0.1873
4.2095
0.0025
0.0774
0.2211
0.000
0.018
0.000
R- squared:
0.2188
Adjusted R-squared:
0.2006
Table 24: Regression results, motivation
First of all, what influences teacher motivation is the frequency with which they talk to the parents
of their pupils (TQ30). This variable takes a value of 1 when the respective teacher speaks to most of
the parents every week and a value of 6 when the teacher never speaks with the parents of their
pupils. The negative estimate therefore means that when the teacher talks to the parents more
frequently he or she is likely to be more motivated. This could be because talking more often with
parents might make the teacher feel more accountable towards them. A problem however, is that
the regression might be endogenous and that the causality might run the other way around. It could
be that more motivated teachers seek more contact with parents and therefore talk more frequently
with them.
52
The other variable that influences job motivation is the distance a teacher has to travel from their
home to reach school. The coefficient of this variable can be interpreted as the decrease in
motivation if the teacher lives 1 minute further from school. Following previous argument, the best
intuitive explanation for this one might be that living near the community that you serve, makes you
more motivated, due to increased accountability and perhaps a sense of an increased feeling of
responsibility. Staff housing obviously makes people live closer by school, but mind that quality of
staff housing did not came out as an important factor influencing motivation in this analysis.
Attendance
The last factors that we try to uncover are the ones that determine teacher attendance. The results
below are of a weaker nature than previous two. Still, the model explains 12% of the variance in
teacher attendance.
Teacher attendance
Coefficients
Standard errors
Significance level
Motivation (TQ52)
Parent Involvement (TQ29)
Constant
0.0300
0.0694
0.4235
0.1639
0.0285
0.1150
0.071
0.017
0.000
R- squared:
0.1214
Adjusted R-squared:
0.0955
Table 25: Regression results, teacher attendance
The factors that significantly influence teacher attendance are the previously specified motivation
(TQ52) and a measure of how concerned parents are with the educational performance of their
children (TQ28). Motivation influencing attendance is not a surprise and parents might have a
similar role to play as when influencing motivation; increasing accountability and responsibility.
Worth wile to note is that the determinants of motivation itself, distance to school and frequency of
talking to parents, does not influence attendance. It might be the case that the motivation
influencing attendance is of a more internal nature.
6.4 Conclusion
Following the results, we can conclude that two factors are important for teacher attendance and
motivation, namely the place where the teacher lives and the involvement of parents. These two
factors appear to be related. If the teacher lives near the community he serves, he might be more in
contact with parents and if those parents are very involved with the education of their children,
teachers might become more motivated and attend school more often. Most likely this mechanism
runs through increased accountability and an increased sense of responsibility. Important for future
interventions is that these results suggest that staff housing indeed seems to work, but the quality of
housing does not seem to matter much, except for job satisfaction. However, in order to be more
conclusive regarding this matter, future research is needed.
53
7 Conclusions
This impact evaluation aimed to uncover the true effects of the Foundation 4 Africa and Foundation
De Agostini education program, which was conducted by AVSI between October 2008 and October
2011 in Gulu and Kitgum district, Uganda. According to the methodology used, the situation in which
the AVSI supported schools were found before treatment is on average equal to the situation in
which the control schools find themselves now. If we look into the quantity of education in the case
of the control schools now (and following our design, basically the situation before the program was
implemented), we can say that average teacher attendance was at a level of 66.60% and student
attendance was at a level of 48.73%. Furthermore, on unannounced visits, in 71.80% of the
classrooms was no teacher present during regular teaching hours. If you would transform these
numbers to form an estimate of the quantity of education before the intervention, we can state
that the average enrolled student only received 13.74% (48.73% x 28.20%) of the potential amount
of education.
AVSI aimed to tackle this problem and succeeded partially. While the program did not significantly
increased student attendance, which is now at a level of 51.89%, it did increase teacher attendance
with a relative improvement of 15.10% to a level of 76.66%. An even more impressive achievement
is that the program raised teacher classroom presence with 77.30% compared to the old situation,
such that now in 50% of the classrooms there is a teacher present. If we analogously calculate the
same quantity of education, the average enrolled student now receives 25.95% of the maximum
potential education, which means an improvement of 88.88% compared to the old situation.
The evidence regarding the causes of low student attendance clearly points in the direction of the
parents. Since the introduction of universal primary education, parents can send their children to
school at minimum costs. This might make many parents decide to enroll their children, while they
already know that they will often keep their children at home. Many parents did not completed
education themselves and tend to see more value in vocational training. Another problem might be
the lack of success stories within the communities of persons who in fact finished a reasonable
amount of education and are now better of. Additionally, parents might be involved with education,
but might at same time have no choice than to retain their children from school, such that the
children can help in the survival of the household. The opportunity cost of sending a child to school
is then perceived too high, and is increasing with the age of the child. This could give a good
explanation of the high drop out rates many schools in the region are experiencing; the older the
student, the more he or she can work and generate income, the more costly it is to send them to
school.
Another important reason why parent involvement is important, is because it can motivate teachers
and increase their attendance. According to our results in section 6, there are two factors that
increase attendance, which are the motivation of the individual teacher and whether the parents are
concerned with the educational performance of their children. Motivation is in turn determined by
the distance a teacher has to travel from school and the frequency he or she speaks with the parents
of pupils. Mind that these are by no means all the factors that explain teacher behaviour (since these
do not explain all variance in the dependent variables), but at least it is safe to conclude that these
54
variables have some influence. Another conclusion we can make on the basis of these results is that
although staffhousing does play a role in increasing teacher motivation, it is basically only through
helping teachers live close to the communities and their schools. The quality of housing plays a
more modest role, but should by no means be neglected. The quality of housing could, for example,
help to attract teachers to school and make sure teachers can live together with the families.
The effects of the program on teacher perfomance and, especially, the educational perfomance
(measures of the quality of education) are significantly positive. Overall, teacher perfomance, as
perceived by students, experienced a relative improvement 4.52%. If we take a look at the different
components we see that this improvement is especially caused by an advancement in classroom
presence, ability to explain material and the ability to keep the class ordered and organized. Also
teacher motivation is significantly improved by the program (by 12.29%), as judged by the teachers
themselves. The most trustworthy value of motivation however, is the one generated by question 29
in the teacher questionnaire in which colleagues are asked to judge the motivation of their collegues
in general. According to this variable, teacher motivation was improved by 23.24%, but remains an
aspect that requires attention (the current value is 3 on a scale from 1 to 5). One component that
needs additional attendance is the openess of the teacher for the students personal issues. This
aspect remains untouched by the program, but is in need of improvement.
The educational environment underwent drastic improvement according to all data sources. Hard
observations tell us that the amount of books per students has increased from 2 to 3 books per
students and the amount of students that have to share one toilet has declined from 58 students to
36 students. Classroom observations are even more impressive. The cleanliness of the classroom,
the physical structure, the amount of desks per students and the amount of classrooms with
decorative posters has improved, with respectively 30%, 26%, 98% and 329%. These results are also
acknowledged by the teachers and students. Teachers perception regarding the classrooms, quantity
and quality of teaching material and furniture, improved with 28%, 26%, 21% and 66%, respectively.
Students perception has improved regarding size and lightness of classrooms, furniture, textbook
availability, possibility to take textbooks home and toilet facilities. Basically only one aspect of the
educational environment stays behind the rest and that is the quality of water facilities, which did
not improve, while the need for improvement is there, since on average the water facilities are only
rated average.
The main goal of the program was to raise the level of wellbeing among students. The program has
been reasonable succeful in this respect, especially considering the difficult circumstances in which
the students and their families typically find themselves. On average, levels of wellbeing improved
signifcantly with 3.4%. This was caused by especially an improvement in life satisfaction (5.28%),
feelings of happiness (5.97%) and vitality (7.22%). Optimism, the childs autonomy and the existence
of caring relationships are untouched by the program. With a little bit of goodwill, we can state that
also self image and resilience underwent slight improvements. Next to the increase in vitality,
another health aspect improved. The amount of illness decreased significantly, with 2.11%.
We can therefore conclude that the Foundation 4 Africa and Foundation De Agostini education
program had and is still having a wide-range impact on the most important stakeholders in the
educational process: the children.
55
8 Recommendations for future education interventions

Based on the findings of this impact evaluation we can now offer some recommendations. The aim
in this section is not to come up with proven and ready program components, but to point at some
possibilities and ideas that can be further investigated and developed by more experienced staff in
this field.
1. Integration of evaluation within the design of the intervention
By initiating this impact evaluation AVSI made a good step forward. We are of the opinion that any
NGO or government, whos effectiveness cannot simply be measured by profits or rising stocks,
should look for other methods to measure their performance and impact and by doing so be
stimulated to learn from the past and to use that new knowledge in the future. By deciding for this
impact evaluation AVSI did just that. The next step would be to integrate the evaluation design
within the project design. This will not only help to make a watertight evaluation design that could
produce solid evidence regarding any intervention, but, maybe more importantly, will help the
designers to reconsider what the targets of the program should be and to be focused on carefully
directing the different components towards those goals in a cost effective way. An integrated
evaluation can, in other words, streamline an intervention.
2. Reconsider main goal of educational interventions
Education occupies a good part of the day of any student, and the classroom and playground are
worlds in their own rights. Increasing the wellbeing of the children is therefore a sensible goal to
attain. The program was successful in this respect. The life satisfaction, feelings of happiness and
vitality were significantly improved, with, respectively, 5.28%, 5.97% and 7.22%. As mentioned
before, this can be considered quite the achievement considering the general levels of poverty and
sometimes hardship in which many school children live. Nevertheless, regardless of whether one of
the goals of an educational intervention should focus on increasing the current wellbeing of children,
AVSI acknowledges that education in general has an even higher goal to achieve, with a longer time
horizon: ensuring wellbeing in the future lives of students. Not only by giving them the skills and
capabilities to take care of themselves, nor by only teaching them how to live together, but also, by
fulfilling private hopes and dreams that exist in all of us.
We suggest looking into the possibility of focusing more on this goal by finding the right indicators.
However, as discussed in the introduction, coming up with a direct indicator for success in the adult
life is difficult. Therefore we propose to use a set of intermediate indicators in the form of
knowledge, cognitive and psychological tests, developed to be able to measure the change AVSI
would like to see in the children. An improvement in these indicators would signify a step in the right
direction, that is, towards a higher likelihood of success in adult age.
56
3. Increase focus on parents and community.
Perhaps the most promising advice we can give, based on the findings, is to look into the role
parents have in the educational process. This report concluded, among other things, that focusing on
parent involvement might be fruitful in improving student attendance and teacher absenteeism and
motivation. Although the program in fact entails some activities directed towards this goal in the
form of a training for parents already involved in school named The role of parents and the
inclusion of parents in the guardian committee for JFFLS, but this approach is apparently not
comprehensive enough to tackle school wide and higher order problems. To make a
recommendation regarding activities that could improve the involvement of parents is, however, not
as straightforward as it may seem.
Only a few studies hint towards the need for accountability to improve teacher motivation (Bennell
and Akyeampong, 2007). Also, little study has been conducted on what the effects of increased
parent involvement are on attendance and educational outcomes, and what is there, focuses on the
western word. An indication of the possible effects is given by Epstein and Sheldon (2002) who
report that several familyschoolcommunity partnership practices predict an increase in daily
attendance, a decrease in chronic absenteeism, or both. These practices include regular
communication with all parents on childs performance and absence rates, providing families with a
school contact person (in this case this could be the teacher living closest to those families),
workshops for parents about school attendance and home visits. Note however that these practices
were designed for schools in the developed world. In northern Uganda, other initiatives might be
more effective. Moreover, considering the general level of poverty many families find themselves in,
other constrains can exist, that might not as much have to do with involvement of parents than with
the role of children as much needed help in sustaining the family.
These are all issues that require future investigation and probably an experimental approach in
which different parent involvement mechanisms can be tested.
4. Staff housing: quantity and location
Basically, the provision of a staff house is an improvement in earnings, not in monetary terms, but in
kind. By decreasing travel times drastically it has the additional benefit that it removes another
possible barrier of school attendance. It also might make teachers more committed since they
become part of the community in which the school resides. Although it is widely believed that, for
these reasons, staff housing increase teacher attendance, to this date, there exists no sound
empirical evidence that confirms this hypothesis.
Our explorative research in section 6 can give some direction or at least a good basis for future
experimenting. According to those results staff housing improves motivation, not by offering a
higher quality house, but by offering a good opportunity to live close to the school and the
community which the teacher is serving. Higher quality housing can attract teachers from their
houses outside the community towards the school, but does not have any effect on the teachers
attitude, except for his or her job satisfaction. The quality of housing is also something that is
context dependent. Some of the houses AVSI constructed are as spacious and luxurious as any house
57
that can be found in a 40km radius, containing 4 rooms, while a 2 room house might already mean a
significant improvement and offers the possibility for teachers to live together with their families.
Therefore, we propose a refocus on the quantity of housing instead of the quality. Especially those
teachers that are not yet living close to school and its community should be provided with housing.
The role of quality is providing at least a house that is spacious enough for an entire family and
attracting even the teachers who are happy with their current location outside the school and
community and their state of housing. Moreover, since the major goal of housing seems to be to
connect teachers with the community, the possibility of locating housing in or near to the
surrounding community might be worthwhile to investigate.
5. Suggestions for increasing teacher classroom presence, beyond parents involvement and staff
housing.
Except for parent involvement and staff housing discussed under recommendations 3 and 4, two
smaller and more practical suggestions can be made towards solving the problem of empty classes.
a. Providing training for head and deputy teachers about organizations and coping with low
attendance rates.
The amount of teachers per school is determined on the basis of enrollment and not on the
basis of number of classes. Since class sizes are rather big on average, many schools have
more teachers employed than classes to teach. This means that in general teachers are
waiting for their turn to teach according to the roster. You would expect that with such
overcapacity all classes are taught all the time. This is however not the case, as demonstrated
in 5.3. A reason for this seems to be that teachers are not willing or are not obliged to
substitute for teachers that are not attending school and therefore cannot teach their
assigned classes. Our suggestion is to make head and deputy teachers aware of this problem
and hand them possible solutions to tackle this problem, by providing appropriate training.
b. Provision of teacher chairs, lockable desks and cupboards in each classroom.
What is often observed is that teachers are found outside the classrooms, seated on a
student desk, checking exams or preparing lessons, while several classes are not being
taught at that moment. If you would provide a lockable desk that is placed in the classroom
in which all documents regarding the class are kept together with a comfortable chair, this
would offer a good alternative location for preparing lessons and might attract teachers
inside. The trade off for the teacher is however, that if he or she wants to prepare lessons or
check exams inside the classroom has at least to give the students something to do.
An additional piece of furniture would be a lockable classroom cupboard. Currently, in many
schools, books are kept on the ground or in a small cupboard in one classroom that is locked.
This inhibits the frequent use of books, since using books in your lessons requires getting the
key and collecting the right books from an unsorted pile. If each class has the books that are
assigned to them in their own classroom in a cupboard, the books will not degrade as quickly
and moreover, books are more easily used in lessons since it requires minimal effort for the
teacher to collect and distribute them.
58
6. Minor suggestions for improvements
The suggestions listed below might be regarded as being positioned lower on the priority list, but are
nevertheless worth wile to consider.
a. Look into possibilities of providing school meals
Besides improving parent involvement, as suggested under recommendation 3, in order to
increase student attendance, AVSI might want to look into the possibility of school meals.
Like noted earlier, the program area can be considered extremely poor and many children
might have to stay home to help sustain the family. However, if the school would provide a
satisfying lunch for all students, this would mean one less mouth to feed for the family and
this might work as an incentive to send children to school.
Evidence on the effects of school meals is widely available and is generally positive about its
effects. A publication that especially applies to our situation is an article written in 2008 by
Alderman et al. named: The Impact of Alternative Food for Education Programs on School
Participation and Education Attainment in Northern Uganda. They investigate the effects of
different feeding programs and they report improvements in attendance rates between 9 %
and 30%.
The most important consideration is the cost of a potential school feeding program.
Alderman et al (2008) estimate the cost between $20 and $35 per child per year. It might
therefore to be worth wile to look into synergy possibilities between a school agricultural
program (like JFFLS) and school meals. Another financing option is practiced in neighboring
region Karamoja, where parents contribute to school in the form of food.
b. Increase teachers openness for private issues for children
Teacher performance in general has been improved by the program, but there was one
component which was unaffected, namely the openness of the teacher towards the students
private issues. Even though the teacher training of risk on education partially deals with the
relationship with the student, both students in AVSI supported and non supported schools
report on average that they only sometimes feel free to talk with their teachers regarding
personal things. Therefore it might be good to have a look into the possibilities that can
improve this aspect, by, for example, reconsidering teacher trainings.
c. Re-assessment of school water sources.
The AVSI program improved virtually all aspects of the educational environment except for
the water sources, while still considerable effort has been directed towards that goal. Both,
students attending AVSI supported and non-supported schools, rate the water facilities in
their schools below average. This suggests the need for a re-assessment of available water
sources and perhaps a change in strategy.
59
9 Literature
Bennel, Paul and Kwame Akyeampona. 2007. Teacher Motivation in Sub-Saharan Africa and South
Asia. Educational Papers.
Caliendo, Marco, and Sabine Kopeinig. 2008. Some Practical Guidance for the Implementation of
Propensity Score Matching. Journal of Economic Surveys 22 (1): 3172.
Das, Jishnu, Stefan Dercon, James Habyarimana, and Pramila Krishnan. 2007. Teacher Shocks and
Student Learning: Evidence from Zambia. Journal of Human Resources, 42 (4).
Efron, Bradley, and Robert J. Tibshirani. 1993. An Introduction to the Bootstrap. Boca Raton, FL:
Chapman & Hall.
Epstein, Joyce and Steven Sheldon. 2000. Presen and accounted for: Improving Student Attendance
through family and community involvement. The Journal of Educational Research. 95(5).
Filmer, Deon and Lant Pritchett. 2001. Estimating wealth effects without expenditure data -- or
tears: an application to educational enrollments in states of India.
Horowitz, Joel. 2003. The Bootstrap in Econometrics. Statistical Science 18 (2): 21118.
Imbens, Guido. 2004. Nonparametric Estimation of Average Treatment Effects under Exogeneity: A
Review.Review of Economics and Statistics 86 (1): 429.
Kolenikov, Stanislav and Gustavo Angeles. 2004. Theory, simulations and applications to
socioeconomic indices.
Miguel, E., and M. Kremer. 2004. Worms: Identifying impacts on education and health in the
presence of treatment externalities. Econometrica 72 (1): 159217.
NEF and Action for Children. 2009. A guide to measuring childrens wellbeing. Backing the future:
practical guide 2.
Rogers, Halsey and Emiliana Vegas. 2007. No more cutting class? Reducing teacher absence and
providing incentives for performance. The World Bank, Policy Research Working Paper.
Tan, J.-P., J. Lane, and G. Lassibille. 1999. Student outcomes in Philippine elementary schools: An
evaluation of four experiments. World Bank Economic Review 13 (3): 493508.
60
Appendix A: Data collection tools
AVSI Education+ Student Questionnaire

Do not read: Make sure questions Q1 up to Q11 are always filled out, even if the respondent does not want to participate
(answers no in Q11).
Read:
Hello, I am pleased to meet you. My name is _____ and I am doing this interview for AVSI. This is an organization that is
concerned with the well-being of school students like you. For them I would like to ask you some questions.
Before we begin you should know that all answers that you give are confidential, which means that no one will ever see your
answers except for AVSI staff and the answers will not be connected to your name.
Another thing you should know is that this is a research project and no direct benefits are distributed on the basis of the
answers you will give us.
Also, if there is anything you do not understand or feel confused about, do not feel hesitant to tell me.
DD/MM/YYYY: |___|___|/|___|___|/|___|___|___|___|
(b) Time of Interview:
HH:MM: |___|___|:|___|___|
Q1: (a) Date of Interview:
Q2: (a) Respondent first name:
|_________________________________________________|
(b) Respondent middle name:|_________________________________________________|
(c) Respondents last name: |_________________________________________________|
Q3: Respondents birth day: DD/MM/YYYY: |___|___|/|___|___|/|___|___|___|___|
Q4: Student code (Leave this open): |___|___|___|___|___|___|___|

Q5: Enumerators name: |________________________________________________________________________|
Q6: Location of interview:
(a) District:
(b) Sub-county:
(c) Village:
(d) School name:
Q7: (a) Grade:
(b) Stream:
Do not ask the person you are interviewing the following 3 questions, but observe them to fill in the answers yourself.
Q8: Do not read: WHAT IS THE

GENDER OF THE INTERVIEWEE?
Q9: Do not read: DOES THIS PERSON
SEEM EMOTIONALLY AND
MENTALLY CAPABLE OF
COMPLETING THIS SURVEY?
Q10:
Do not read: IS THE

INTERVIEW BEING CONDUCTED
WITH THE INTERVIEWEE ALONE
(EXCEPTING SURVEY STAFF)?
Q11:
Are you willing to participate

in this interview?
1. Male
2. Female
1. Yes
2. No, too short attention span
3. No, mentally impaired
4. No, other: ________________________
If no, stop interview and refer the case to the survey
supervisor
1. Yes
2. No Politely ask to be allowed to interview the
respondent alone. Stress that the interview is
private and confidential.
1. Yes
2. No, because:
__________________________________________
__
If no, stop interview and refer the case to the survey
supervisor
Answer:
Answer:
Answer:
Answer:
61
Section A: Household Characteristics

Read: I first would like to know how many people are in your household. The household is defined as all of the people who
normally live and eat their meals together in your home, from the same pot.
Q12: How many children (under age 18) live in your
Answer:
children
household?
Q13:
How many adults (age 18 and above) live in your

household?
Answer:
adults
Note down, by asking the student, for all adults in the household (see Q13!), how they relate to the student, what is
their occupation, their highest attained education and their age under Q14 up to Q19 below. Use the codes provided.
A. Relationship with student B. Occupation
C. Highest attained
D. Age
1. Father
1. Farming
Education.
(In years)
1. No schooling
If they are
2. Mother
2. Job at a company
not sure let
2.
Started
primary
school
3. Brother/Sister
3. Public Job (teacher,
them
3.
Completed
primary
4. Grand Parent
government etc)
estimate it,
school
5. Uncle/aunt
4. Household chores
otherwise If
4. Lower secondary
6. Nephew/niece
(cooking, cleaning etc)
unknown
5. Upper secondary
7. Other:
5. Owns a business
write U
6. University
___________________
6. Job at an NGO
7. You do not know
7. One man business (like
8.
9.
10.
11.
boda driving)
Studying
Retired
None
You do not know
Q14:
Q15:
Q16:
Q17:
Q18:
Q19:
Read: Now, for the remainder of this survey, when we talk about your household, I mean only these people we have
discussed and listed above.
Q20: In which village do you live?
Q21:
Do you remember whether your family needed to

flee their home in the past?
Q22:
Q23:
Did you live in an IDP camp?
Is the dwelling your household live in rented or

owned by your household?
1. Yes, they did

2. No, they didnt
3. You do not know
1. Yes
2. No
3. You do not know
1. Owned
2. Rented
3. You do not know
Answer:
Answer:
Answer:
62
Q24:
What type of material is used for the roof of the

dwelling where you sleep? Mark all that apply.
Q25:
What type of material is used for the walls of the

Q26:
What type of material is used for the floor of the

Q27:
1. Grass
2. Iron sheets
3. Asbestos
4. Concrete
5. Tins
6. Tiles
7. Banana leaves/Fibres
8. Other:________________
1. Burnt bricks with cement
2. Burnt bricks with mud
3. Cement Blocks
4. Concrete
5. Stone with cement
6. Unburnt Bricks with
cement
7. Unburnt Bricks with mud
8. Wood
9. Mud and poles
10. Other:_______________
1. Rammed Earth
2. Bricks
3. Cement screed
4. Concrete
5. Wood
6. Other:________________
Answer(s):
Answer(s):
Answer(s):
How many rooms are there for sleeping?

Answer:
Q28:
What is your households main source of fuel or

energy for lighting? Mark all that apply.
Q29:
What type of toilet facilities does your household

usually use? Mark all that apply.
rooms
1. Electricity
2. Gas
3. Paraffin (Lantern)
4. Candle
5. Firewood
6. Cow dung or grass (reeds)
7.
Other:_________________
1. Covered pit latrine
private
2. Covered pit latrine
shared
3. Uncovered pit latrine
4. Flush toilet private
5. Flush toilet shared
6. Bush
7. Other: ___________
Answer(s):
Answer(s):
Read: Now Ii will ask you some questions regarding the location of your house.
Q30:
How long do you need to walk from your house

to reach the nearest source of drinking water?
Answer:
minutes (Write 00 if in home)
Answer:
Answer:
Answer:
Q31:

to reach the nearest source of any water?
Q32:

to reach the nearest road?
Q33:

to reach your school?
63
Q34:

to reach the nearest place where you can buy and sell
goods?
Answer:
Answer:
plots (Write 0 if no plots)
Q35:
Do you or your household own any plots of land

and if yes, how many? (fill in the amount of plots)
Q36:
Could you estimate the size of each plot in katala

or acre?
1. Yes
2. No
Answer:
If yes, note down the estimates in the table below.

(a)
Area of first plot:
(b)
Area of second plot:
(c)
Area of third plot:
(d)
Area of fourth plot:
(e)
Area of fifth plot:
(f)
Area of sixth plot:
|___|___|,|___| Katala
or
|___|___|,|___| Acres
|___|___|,|___| Katala
or
|___|___|,|___| Acres
|___|___|,|___| Katala
or
|___|___|,|___| Acres
|___|___|,|___| Katala
or
|___|___|,|___| Acres
|___|___|,|___| Katala
or
|___|___|,|___| Acres
|___|___|,|___| Katala
or
|___|___|,|___| Acres
Now I want to ask you about the items owned by you and your householdthe people who eat from the same
pot. I want to remind you that the purpose of this survey is not to provide assistance, so please respond fully and
completely, as your answers will not affect any kind of benefits.
How many of each of the following items do you and your household own? Read each asset off list and write number
|__|__| Donkeys
|__|__| Bicycles
|__|__| Stoves
|__|__| Oxen
|__|__| Motorcycles
|__|__| Car batteries
|__|__| Cattle (excluding oxen)
|__|__| Motor vehicle (car or truck)
|__|__| Generator
|__|__| Goats
|__|__| Tractor (motorized)
|__|__| Sewing machines
|__|__| Sheep
|__|__| Mobile phones
|__|__| Boat or canoe
|__|__| Pigs
|__|__| Beds
|__|__| Radios
|__|__| Chickens and Turkey
|__|__| Sofas
|__|__| Cassette or CD players
|__|__| Ducks
|__|__| Chairs
|__|__| Televisions
|__|__| Doves and pigeons
|__|__| Water-heaters
|__|__| Video cassette or DVD player
|__|__| Mango trees
|__|__| Tables
|__|__| Laptop or desktop computer
|__|__| Banana trees
|__|__| Mattresses
|__|__| Wheelbarrow
|__|__| Pineapple trees
|__|__| Kettle
|__|__| Speakers
|__|__| Other kinds of trees
|__|__| Iron
|__|__| Helmets
|__|__| Hoes
|__|__| Jerry cans
|__|__| Mirrors
|__|__| Ploughs
|__|__| Pots and pans
|__|__| Watches
|__|__| Granary
|__|__| Fans
|__|__| Other (Specify in b only for
items that they feel are very
important)
(b) If Other describe:
Q37:
Section B: Wellbeing
Read: Now, I would like to ask some questions about your wellbeing.
1. Very unsatisfied
Q38: All things considered, how satisfied are you with
2. Unsatisfied
life as it is nowadays?
3. Neutral
4. Satisfied
5. Very satisfied
Answer:
64
1. Almost never
2. Seldom
3. Sometimes
4. Often
5. Nearly all the time
1. Very pessimistic
Q40: How optimistic are you about your future?
2. Pessimistic
3. Neutral
4. Optimistic
5. Very optimistic
1. Very Negative
Q41: How do you feel about yourself?
2. Negative
3. Neutral
4. Positive
5. Very Positive
Read: How much do you agree with the following three statements?
Q39:
How much of the time during the past week did

you feel happy?
Q42:
There are people in your life that really care

about you
Q43:
When things go wrong in your life, it generally

takes you a long time to get back to normal.
Q44:
You feel free to decide how you want to live your
life.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Strongly disagree
Disagree
Neutral
Agree
Strongly agree
Strongly disagree
Disagree
Neutral
Agree
Strongly agree
You do not know
Strongly disagree
Disagree
Neutral
Agree
Strongly agree
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Almost never
Seldom
Sometimes
Often
Nearly all the time
Less than a day ago
Less than a week ago
Weeks ago
Months ago
Years ago
Never
Once
Twice
Three to four times
Five to six times
More than six times
Answer:
Answer:
Answer:
Answer:
Answer:
Answer:
Section C: Health
Read: Lets talk about your health
Q45:
How much of the time during the past week did

you feel like you had a lot of energy?
Q46:
What was the last time you experienced

diarrhea?
Q47:
How many times during the past 2 months have

you felt so ill that you could not attend class?
Answer:
Answer:
Answer:
65
Read: For each of the following questions, can you please tell us whether you can perform the activity we mention easily,
with slight difficulty, with great difficulty, or not at all.
1. Not at all
Q48: Can you carry a 20L jerry can of water for 20
Answer:
2. With great difficulty
meters easily?
3. With slight difficulty
4. Easily
1. Not at all
Q49: Can you perform digging in a garden easily?
Answer:
4. Easily
1. Not at all
Q50: Can you run a short distance easily?
Answer:
4. Easily
1. Not at all
Q51: Can you bow, squat and kneel easily?
Answer:
4. Easily
Q52:
How many times did you go to bed hungry in the

past week?
Q53:
Answer:
days
Answer:
meals
How many substantial meals do you eat in a day?
Q54:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Which of the following types of food did you consume in the last day? (ENCIRCLE THE APPROPRIATE NUMBERS
AND FILL IN THE AMOUNT OF DIFFERENT FOODGROUPS UNDER ANSWER)
Millet/Sorghum/maize
7. Fish
Potatoes/casava
8. Beans/peas/Nuts
Answer:
Vegetables
9. Milk and milk products
Fruits
10. Oil/fat
Meat and Poultry
11. Sugar/Honey
Eggs
Q55:
Which of the following types of food did you consume in the last week? (ENCIRCLE THE APPROPRIATE
NUMBERS AND FILL IN THE AMOUNT OF DIFFERENT FOODGROUPS UNDER ANSWER)
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Millet/Sorghum/maize
Potatoes/casava
Vegetables
Fruits
Meat and Poultry
Eggs
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
Fish
Beans/peas/Nuts
Milk and milk products
Oil/fat
Sugar/Honey
Answer:
Section D: Education
Read: Now some questions about your education.
Q56: How much of the time do you like going to
school?
Q57:
How often do you attend class?
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Almost never
Seldom
Sometimes
Often
Nearly all the time
Almost never
Seldom
Sometimes
Often
Nearly all the time
Answer:
Answer:
66
Q58:
How many days out of the last 5 school days did

you not attend class?
Q59:
When you do not attend class, what are the most

common reasons for this? Mark all that apply
Answer:
Answer(s):
4.
5.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
1.
2.
You did not feel like

going to school that
day
Sickness
Work to earn money
for yourself
Work to earn money
for the household
Household chores
Other:
______________
Almost never
Seldom
Sometimes
Often
Nearly all the time
Very unimportant
Unimportant
Neither important or
unimportant
Important
Very Important
Almost never
Seldom
Sometimes
Often
Almost Always
Almost never
Seldom
Sometimes
Often
Nearly all the time
Almost never
Seldom
Sometimes
Often
Nearly all the time
Yes
No
1.
2.
3.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
High
Medium
Low
Strongly disagree
Disagree
Neutral
Agree
Strongly agree
Answer:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Q60:
How often do you have time to read at home?
Q61:
How important is it for your parents/guardians

that you go to school?
Q62:
How often are your teachers present in the

classroom?
Q63:
How much of the time do you clearly understand

the material that is explained?
Q64:
Do you feel free to talk with your teacher about

personal things?
Q65:
In the last 5 school days, did you have the chance

to reply to a question in class, posed by your teacher?
Q66:
What is the level of noise in the classroom during

lessons?
Q67:
How much do you agree with the following

statement:
The classroom is big enough.
days
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
1.
2.
3.
Answer:
Answer:
Answer:
Answer:
Answer:
Answer:
Answer:
67
Q68:

statement:
The classroom is light enough.
Q69:
How would you rate the current furniture in your

classroom?
Q70:

statement:
There are enough textbooks available for you in the
classroom.
Q71:
Do you have the possibility to take textbooks

home?
Q72:
Q73:
Q74:
How would you rate the toilet facilities at school?
How would you rate the water facilities at school?
Do you agree with the following statement:
The past half year you feel like you have learned a lot.
Q75:
It is useful for you to go to school.
Q76:
Your education will help you to improve your

opportunities for a good life in the future.
Q77:
Do agree with the following statement?
Attending class has improved your English.
Q78:
Do you agree with the following statement?
You have seen improvements in your school in the past

3 years.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
1.
2.
Strongly disagree
Disagree
Neutral
Agree
Strongly agree
Horrible
Poor
Average
Good
Excellent
Strongly disagree
Disagree
Neutral
Agree
Strongly agree
Yes
No
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Horrible
Poor
Average
Good
Excellent
Horrible
Poor
Average
Good
Excellent
Strongly disagree
Disagree
Neutral
Agree
Strongly agree
Strongly disagree
Disagree
Neutral
Agree
Strongly agree
Strongly disagree
Disagree
Neutral
Agree
Strongly agree
Strongly disagree
Disagree
Neutral
Agree
Strongly agree
1.
Strongly disagree ->

Q78b
Disagree -> Q78b
Neutral -> Q78b
Agree -> Q78a
Strongly agree ->Q78a
2.
3.
4.
5.
Answer:
Answer:
Answer:
Answer:
Answer:
Answer:
Answer:
Answer:
Answer:
Answer:
Answer:
68
Q78 (a): Where have you seen these improvements?
Answer:
Q78(b): What are areas the school can improve in?
Answer:
DO NOT READ: If the respondent does not go to a school that received the AVSI package the interview ends here. Go to the
end of the interview to thank the student and to note down possible comments from either you or the student. Make sure
the student makes the English test!
Section E: AVSI activities (this section is only meant for students in AVSI schools)
Read: For the last part of the interview we will ask you some questions on the theme of peace and reconciliation.
Answer:
Q79: Did you participate in junior farmer fields and life 1. Yes -> go to question
81
skills activities?
2. No -> go to question 80
Q80:
Even though you did not participate in the junior farmer field school, I would like to ask you whether you did like
the concept, and if so, what you liked about it?
Go to Q86
Q81:
What was the most important thing you learned from the junior farmer fields and life skills activities?
Q82:
What did you like the most about the JFFLS activities?
Q83:
And what did you did not like about it?
Q84:
SInce, you participated in the junior farmer fields school, you must remember that you also participated in a
training on land rights and conflict resolution (if student does not remember go to Q86). What was the most
important thing you learned during that training?
Q85:
What did you like most about the training on land rights and conflict resolution?
69
Q86:
1.
2.
Yes
No
Answer:
Q87:
1.
2.
Yes
No
Answer:
Q88:
1.
2.
Yes
No
Answer:
Q89:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Music
Dance
Drama
JFFLS
No opinion/ no
particip.
Did you participate in any drama activities

organized by school?
Did you participate in any dance activities
Did you participate in any music activities
Which of the activities you did participate in you
liked most?
Answer:
Q90:
What did you like most about the junior farmer field day? (If the student does not remember or was not present,
write that down)
Read: This was the end of the interview. Thank you very much for your participation, you have been very helpful to us. Do
you have any comments you would like to make about the interview?
Comments student:
Comments enumerator:
Read: Finally I would like to ask you whether you are willing to make a short english test? It will take not much longer than
5 minutes . When you are ready, leave the test on the desk and then you can go back to your class. Thank you.
70
ENGLISH GRAMMAR TEST

Student name: _________________________________
Grade: ____
Stream (if applicable): _______
In the questions T1 up to T10 below, you are presented with two similar sentences. However,
only one is correct. Write down the appropriate letter (A or B) under answers.
TEST QUESTIONS:
T1.
T2.
T3.
T4.
T5.
T6.
T7.
T8.
T9.
T10.
Q91:
A.
B.
A.
B.
A.
B.
A.
B.
A.
B.
A.
B.
A.
B.
A.
B.
A.
B.
A.
B.
ANSWERS:
I come to Uganda
I come from Uganda
There are not much people here
There are not many people here
I would like an information please
I would like some information please
Do you walk to school yesterday?
Did you walk to school yesterday?
You should make your homework
You should do your homework
Can you tell me when the train leaves?
Can you tell me when leaves the train?
She is not work tomorrow.
She is not going to work tomorrow.
I went to the shop to buy some chocolate
I went to the shop for buying some chocolate.
Would you mind to close the door?
Would you mind closing the door?
He is interested for learning Italian.
He is interested in learning Italian.
Grade of the test. (DO NOT FILL THIS IN YOURSELF!)
TOTAL:
71
AVSI Education+ Teachers Questionnaire

Do not read: Fill in the following questions yourself right before or right after the interview.
Q1: (a) Date of Interview:
DD/MM/YYYY: |___|___|/|___|___|/|___|___|___|___|
(b) Time of Interview:
HH:MM: |___|___|:|___|___|
Q2: Location of interview:
(a) District:
(b) Region:
(c) Village:
(d) School name:
Q3: Details of enumerator
Name:
Q4: Gender of respondent
1. Male
Answer:
2. Female
Read: Hello I am pleased to meet you. My name is ___ and I would like to ask a couple of questions
for AVSI. AVSI is concerned with the education of children in Gulu and Kitgum. To improve their
programs they need feedback from both teachers and students.
You should know that the results of this interview are used only for research purposes and answers
will not directly influence anyones wellbeing.
Of course, the answers you will provide are treated confidential and will only be available to AVSI
staff.
If there is anything you feel confused about, do not be hesitant to tell me.
Q5: Are you willing to participate in this short
1. Yes
Answer:
interview?
2. No -> stop here.
Q6: What is your name?
|___________________________________|
Q7: What is your age?
|___| Years
Q8: Have you ever heard before of AVSI?
1. Yes
Answer:
2. No
Q9: What grade(s) do you usually teach in this
1. P4
school? Mark all that apply
2. P5
Answer(s):
3. P6
4. P7
Q10: What subjects do you teach?
1. English
Answer(s):
Mark all that apply
2. Math
3. Social studies
4. Science
Q11: Are you a government or parent
1. Government
teacher?
teacher
Answer:
2. Parents teacher
Q12: How many years have you been
teaching?
Answer:
years
Q13: How long have you been teaching in this

school?
Answer:
years
72
Q14: What is the highest level of schooling
that you completed?
Q15:
Are you licensed for teaching?
Q16: How satisfied are you with your job as a

teacher?
Q17: How much of the time do you feel

motivated to teach at the best of your
ability?
Q18: How much of the time you feel

motivated to show up at school?
Q19: How much of the time do come to

school hungry?
Q20: How satisfied are you with your current

salary?
Q21: How important you feel it is to get

recognition from the parents of the
students?
Q22: How satisfied are you with the

recognition you get from the parents of
students?
Q23: How important you feel it is to get

recognition from the head teacher?
1. Did not complete

primary school
2. Primary
3. Lower secondary
4. Higher secondary
5. University
6. Other tertiary
1. Yes
2. No
1. Very unsatisfied
2. Unsatisfied
3. Neutral
4. Satisfied
5. Very satisfied
1. Almost never
2. Seldom
3. Sometimes
4. Often
5. Almost always
1. Almost never
2. Seldom
3. Sometimes
4. Often
5. Almost always
1. Almost always
2. Often
3. Sometimes
4. Seldom
5. Almost never
1. Very unsatisfied
2. Unsatisfied
3. Neutral
4. Satisfied
5. Very satisfied
1. Very unimportant
2. Unimportant
3. Neutral
4. Important
5. Very Important
1. Very unsatisfied
2. Unsatisfied
3. Neutral
4. Satisfied
5. Very satisfied
1. Very unimportant
2. Unimportant
3. Neutral
4. Important
5. Very Important
Answer:
Answer:
Answer:
Answer:
Answer:
Answer:
Answer:
Answer:
Answer:
Answer:
73
Q24: How satisfied are you with the
recognition you get from your head
teacher?
Q25: How much do you agree with the

following statement?
Teaching is considered as a highly regarded
job in society.
You feel that you and your colleagues are
well managed.
You feel responsible for the education of the
students.
Parents are concerned with the educational
performance of their children.
You feel your colleague teachers are very
motivated to teach.
Q30: How often do you speak with the
parents of most children?
Q31: Were you a big supporter of the teacher

strike?
Q32: Do you originally come from the
community in which this school exists?
Q33: How long does it take for you to travel
from your home to school?
Q34:
How do you usually commute to school?
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
1.
2.
1.
2.
Very unsatisfied
Unsatisfied
Neutral
Satisfied
Very satisfied
Strongly disagree
Disagree
Neutral
Agree
Strongly Agree
Strongly disagree
Disagree
Neutral
Agree
Strongly Agree
Strongly disagree
Disagree
Neutral
Agree
Strongly Agree
Strongly disagree
Disagree
Neutral
Agree
Strongly Agree
Strongly disagree
Disagree
Neutral
Agree
Strongly Agree
Once a week
Once a month
Once every term
Once in a year
Once in a few years
Never
Yes
No
Yes
No
Answer:
Answer:
Answer:
Answer:
Answer:
Answer:
Answer:
Answer:
Answer:
Answer:
hours and
1. On foot
2. By bicycle
3. By motorbike or
car
4. By bus
5. Other:
_____________
minutes
Answer:
74
Q35: Did you experience any constrains that made you absent from teaching last month. If yes,
what kind of constrains?
Q36: Is there any accomodation available for

you in the school?
Q37: Do you ever make use of this
accomodation?
Q38: If no, why not?
Continue with Q41

Q39: Would you make use of a separate staff
house to spend the night, if it was available?
Q40: If no, why not?
Yes
No -> go to Q39
Yes ->go to Q41
No
Answer:
1. Yes-> go to Q27
2. No
Answer:
1.
2.
1.
2.
Continue with Q43

Q41: How would you rate the state of this
room?
Q42:
1. Horrible
2. Poor
3. Fair
4. Good
5. Excellent
How would you like the accomodation to be improved?
Q43: Did you receive any training during the

past year on the theme of peace and
reconciliation?
1. Yes
2. No
Q44: How frequent do you spend time on the

theme of peace and reconciliation in class?
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Very frequently
Frequently
Sometimes
Seldom
You never spend
time on that theme
Answer:
Answer:
Answer:
Answer:
75
Q45: How important do you feel it is to teach
the children about the theme of peace and
reconciliation?
1. Very unimportant
2. Unimportant
3. Neutral
4. Important
5. Very important
Q46: Did you receive any other training or
1. Yes
support during the past year?
2. No -> go to Q48
Q47: What kind of training or support did you receive?
Answer:
Answer:
Q48: How would you rate the size and

availability of light in the classroom(s)?
1. Horrible
2. Poor
Answer:
3. Average
4. Good
5. Excellent
Q49: How would you rate the quantity of
1. Horrible
teaching materials available (books etc.)?
2. Poor
Answer:
3. Average
4. Good
5. Excellent
Q50: How would you rate the quality of
1. Horrible
teaching materials available?
2. Poor
Answer:
3. Average
4. Good
5. Excellent
Q51: How would you rate the furniture in
1. Horrible
your classroom?
2. Poor
Answer:
3. Average
4. Good
5. Excellent
Read: This was the last question. Thank you very much for your cooperation, you have been very
helpful to us. Is there any remark or comment you want to make regarding this interview?
Comments of teacher:
Comments of enumerator:
Q52: [__________]
76
AVSI education+ evaluation: School Overview.

Section A: School Information
1. Name of School: |________________________________|
2. School Code:
|___|
3. District: |________________________|
4. Sub county: |______________________|
5. Adres (street /nr./village) (if
|_________________________________________| |__|
applies):
|_____________________________________________|
6. Date of Visit (dd/mm/yyyy):
|__|/|__|/|2011|
7. Name of Head teacher:
|______________________________________________________|
8. School Phone number:
|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|
9. Remarks about this visit:
Section B: Overview of classes (grades p4 to p7 only)

1. Class
code:
2. Grade:
3. Stream:
4. Total
number of
students
registered in
class
5. Total
number of
girls
registered in
class
6. Name of teacher
responsible for the
class:
77
Section C: School Characteristics
Obtain information by observation and interviewing head teacher. Ideally take a walk with the head teacher and ask him/her the
questions below, or, if the question can be answered by observation, you should ask the head teacher to walk you to that place.
1. Approximately, how many primary schools

exist within a 10 km radius from this one?
2. How far, approximately, is this school from a
tarmac road?
3. How many teachers, (including parent teachers), are
employed in this school?
4. How many of those are female?
|__|__| primary schools

|__|__| km
|__|__|, |__| fte (full time equivalents)
|__|__|, |__| fte (full time equivalents)
5. How many teachers should be present at this

day and hour?
6. How many teachers, that should be present,
are not at the moment?
7. How many of those are excused?
|__|__| teachers
|__|__| teachers
|__|__| teachers
8. How many working toilets does this school

have in total?
9. What kind of toilets? Mark all that apply
11. How many separate toilets are there for

girls?
12. How many separate toilets are there for
school staff?
13. Does this school have a separate place (or
library) where books are stored?
14. Approximately, how many books are in that
place?
15. What is the main source of drinking water?
|__|__| toilets
1. Pit latrine
2. Ecosan toilet
3. Flush toilet
4. Bush
|__|__| toilets
|__|__| toilets
1. Yes
2. No -> go to question 13
|__|__|__|__| books
1. Tank
2. Borehole
3. Stream/pond/river
4. No source of drinking water available -> go to
question 15
16. Can students use this source of water

today?
17. Is this source exclusively for school or is it
shared with the surrounding community?
18. Is there lunch provided by the school?
19. Do the students wear uniforms?

20. For how many persons are there grassthatched staff housing and brick staff housing
available?
Other important observations:
1. Yes
2. No
1. Exclusively for school
2. Shared with surrounding community
1. Yes for all grades
2. Yes, but only for senior students
3. No
1. Yes
2. No
Grass thatched: |__|__| persons
Brick house:
|__|__| persons
78
Section D: Classroom Observations.
Classcode:
|__|__|__| Grade:
|__|__|
Stream (if applicable):
|__| Start time:
__:__
(hh:mm)
1. How many students are present in the

classroom?
2. How many of those students are female?
|__|__|__| students
|__|__|__| students
3. How many chairs are available in the

classroom? (a chair is defined as a sitting for 1 person, (one 2 person
|__|__|__| chairs
bench therefore counts as 2 chairs)
4. How many desks are available in the

classroom? (A desk is defined as a table-high workspace for 1
|__|__|__| desks
person)
5. How many small windows (smaller than half a door (<1

2
m )) does the classroom contain?
6. How many big windows (bigger than half a door (<1 m2))
does the classroom contain?
7. What is the number of books present in the
classroom? (this includes books in the hands of students)
8. Are there any posters on the walls?
9. Is electricity available in the classroom? (tick
appropriate box)
10. Are there any electric lights in the

classroom?
11. What is the size of the classroom,
approximately?
12. How would you rate the cleanliness of the
classroom?
13. How would you rate the physical structure
of the room?
14. Is there a teacher present in the room?

15. According to the children, has the teacher
showed up this day already?
16. Is there a chalkboard installed in the
classroom?
17. Is there any chalk available inside the
classroom?
Time that the classroom observation ended:
|__|__| small windows

|__|__| big windows
|__|__|__| books
1. Yes
2. No
1. Yes
2. No
1. Yes
2. No
|__|__| m2
1. Bad (dirty floors and walls, torn posters, etc.)
2. Acceptable
3. Good
1. No structure (teaching outdoors)
2. Bad (partially destroyed of not finished)
3. Acceptable (wall and roof present, but windows/door broken)
4. Good
1. Yes -> go to question 16
2. No
1. Yes
2. No
1. Yes
2. No
1. Yes
2. No
___:___ (HH:MM)
79
Appendix B: Propensity score matching

Appendix B1: Result of probit regression and propensity score matching
Probit regression
Number of obs
LR chi2(2
22)
Prob > chi2
Pseudo R2
Log likelihood = -384 .951 87

treatment
Coef.
q8
q13
q12
fatherdummy
motherdummy
farmerdummy
onemanbusi~n
publicjob
hhedulevel
q21
q22
q23
q30
q31
q32
q33
q34
q52
q53
q54
q55
wealthindex
_cons
-.119 5594
.004 8444
-.014 7764
-.044 4505
-.149 4504
.510 0342
.291 7867
.268 7296
-.067 6028
-.037 7038
-.01 8342
-.149 8087
-.002 8072
-.000 4074
.000 8554
-.002 3491
.004 4097
-.065 2356
.085 2747
-.011 0236
-.092 2169
-.039 3535
.367 4681
psmatch2:
Treatment
assignment
Std. Err.
.1 0765 19
.0 5739 92
.0 2514 57
.1 3499 15
. 1608 91
.2 5388 47
.2 2290 52
.1 8061 51
.0 6152 15
.2 0494 07
.1 7419 79
.1 5226 61
.0 0256 91
.0 0161 51
.0 0186 65
.0 0196 76
.0 0105 75
.0 6017 27
.0 9610 14
.0 5755 52
.0 3652 76
.0 2920 97
.5 1891 16
P>|z|
-1. 11
0. 08
-0. 59
-0. 33
-0. 93
2. 01
1. 31
1. 49
-1. 10
-0. 18
-0. 11
-0. 98
-1. 09
-0. 25
0. 46
-1. 19
4. 17
-1. 08
0. 89
-0. 19
-2. 52
-1. 35
0. 71
psmatch2: Common
support
Off suppo On suppor
0.26 7
0.93 3
0.55 7
0.74 2
0.35 3
0.04 5
0.19 1
0.13 7
0.27 2
0.85 4
0.91 6
0.32 5
0.27 5
0.80 1
0.64 7
0.23 3
0.00 0
0.27 8
0.37 5
0.84 8
0.01 2
0.17 8
0.47 9
0
11
29 8
28 1
2 98
2 92
Total
11
57 9
5 90
Bootstrap results
command:
_bs_1:
_bs_1
590
47 .95
0.0 011
0.0 586
[95% Conf. Interval]

-.33 05531
-.10 76559
-.06 40611
-.30 90289
-.4 64791
.01 24294
-.14 50995
-.08 52696
-.18 81826
-.43 93802
-.35 97635
-.44 82447
-.00 78425
-.00 35731
-.00 28028
-.00 62056
.0 02337
-.1 83172
-.10 30807
-.12 38297
-.16 38097
-.09 66034
-. 64958
.0914 344
.1173 447
.0345 083
.220 128
.1658 902
1.007 639
.7286 729
.6227 288
.052 977
.3639 726
.3230 795
.1486 274
.0022 281
.0027 582
.0045 136
.0015 074
.0064 824
.0527 008
.2736 301
.1017 824
- .0206 242
.0178 965
1.384 516
Total
Untreated
Treated
Bootstrap replications (5
5 0)
1
2
3
4
5
..................................................
=
=
=
=
50
Number of obs
Replications
=
=
5 90
50
psmatch2 treatment q8 q13 q12 fatherdummy motherdummy farmerdummy onemanbusinessoccupation publicjob

hhedulevel q21 q22 q23 q30 q31 q32 q33 q34 q52 q53 q54 q55 wealthindex, out(wellbeing) radius cal(0.01)
common
r( att)
Observed
Coef.
Bootstrap
Std. Err.
P>|z|
Normal-based
[95% Conf. Interval]
. 1203398
.0536 072
2.24
0.025
.01 52717
.22540 79
80
Appendix B2: Balance test for nearest neighbor matching
Mean
Treated Control
%bias
%reduct
|bias|
.51678
.5137
-6.8
-6.2
9.1
-0.82
-0.74
0.411
0.457
2.4829
2.4829
2.4564
2.3836
2.5
9.3
-274.8
0.30
1.16
0.762
0.245
Unmatched
Matched
5.1062
5.1062
5.3389
4.8185
-10.6
13.0
-23.6
-1.28
1.67
0.200
0.095
Unmatched
Matched
.7226
.7226
.75168
.59589
-6.6
28.8
-335.8
-0.80
3.25
0.423
0.001
Unmatched
Matched
.83219
.83219
.86242
.80822
-8.4
6.7
20.7
-1.02
0.75
0.308
0.452
Unmatched
Matched
.96575
.96575
.92617
.9726
17.5
-3.0
82.7
2.13
-0.48
0.034
0.633
Unmatched
Matched
.07192
.07192
.0604
.08219
4.6
-4.1
10.8
0.56
-0.46
0.574
0.642
Unmatched
Matched
.11986
.11986
.11074
.11301
2.9
2.1
24.9
0.35
0.26
0.729
0.797
Unmatched
Matched
2.3207
2.3207
2.4073
2.3628
-9.7
-4.7
51.3
-1.18
-0.56
0.239
0.579
Unmatched
Matched
1.0171
1.0171
1.0235
.9863
-2.4
11.6
-384.1
-0.29
1.88
0.772
0.061
q22
Unmatched
Matched
.86644
.86644
.86577
.83904
0.2
7.7 -4010.3
0.02
0.93
0.982
0.351
q23
Unmatched
Matched
1.0822
1.0822
1.1074
1.0822
100.0
-0.85
-0.00
0.397
1.000
q30
Unmatched
Matched
24.764
24.764
25.047
30.712
-1.1
-22.2 -1999.9
-0.13
-2.41
0.898
0.016
q31
Unmatched
Matched
31.195
31.195
32.023
38.538
-2.0
-17.4
-786.5
-0.24
-1.98
0.811
0.048
Unmatched
Matched
27.127
27.127
24.037
29.962
9.4
-8.7
8.2
1.15
-0.94
0.252
0.347
q33
Unmatched
Matched
41.723
41.723
41.718
44.113
0.0
-7.4-53234.4
0.00
-0.85
0.999
0.398
q34
Unmatched
Matched
74.527
74.527
54.866
75.14
34.8
-1.1
96.9
4.23
-0.12
0.000
0.904
Unmatched
Matched
.38014
.38014
.46309
.35959
-8.5
2.1
75.2
-1.04
0.32
0.300
0.752
Unmatched
Matched
1.7911
1.7911
1.7752
1.6952
2.6
15.9
-502.0
0.32
1.97
0.749
0.050
Unmatched
Matched
2.9555
2.9555
3.1208
2.9863
-13.2
-2.5
81.4
-1.61
-0.31
0.109
0.760
Unmatched
Matched
4.8562
4.8562
5.3456
4.7774
-26.0
4.2
83.9
-3.16
0.55
0.002
0.585
Unmatched
Matched
-.23858
-.23858
.16048
-.4398
-19.0
9.6
49.6
-2.31
1.32
0.021
0.186
Variable
Sample
q8
Unmatched
Matched
.48288
.48288
Unmatched
Matched
q13
q12
fatherdummy
motherdummy
farmerdummy
onemanbusi~n
publicjob
hhedulevel
q21
q32
q52
q53
q54
q55
wealthindex
-7.0
0.0
t-test
p>|t|
81
Appendix B3: Balance test for radius matching with a caliper of 0.01
Mean
Treated Control
%bias
%reduct
|bias|
.51678
.51961
-6.8
-5.7
15.9
-0.82
-0.67
0.411
0.500
2.4829
2.4698
2.4564
2.4601
2.5
0.9
63.5
0.30
0.11
0.762
0.914
Unmatched
Matched
5.1062
5.1317
5.3389
4.9732
-10.6
7.2
31.9
-1.28
0.85
0.200
0.395
Unmatched
Matched
.7226
.72954
.75168
.70759
-6.6
5.0
24.5
-0.80
0.58
0.423
0.564
Unmatched
Matched
.83219
.83274
.86242
.82016
-8.4
3.5
58.4
-1.02
0.39
0.308
0.694
Unmatched
Matched
.96575
.96441
.92617
.97049
17.5
-2.7
84.7
2.13
-0.41
0.034
0.686
Unmatched
Matched
.07192
.07117
.0604
.07893
4.6
-3.1
32.6
0.56
-0.35
0.574
0.728
Unmatched
Matched
.11986
.11388
.11074
.09392
2.9
6.2
-118.8
0.35
0.77
0.729
0.439
Unmatched
Matched
2.3207
2.3128
2.4073
2.3834
-9.7
-7.9
18.5
-1.18
-0.93
0.239
0.351
Unmatched
Matched
1.0171
1.0178
1.0235
.99519
-2.4
8.5
-255.0
-0.29
1.04
0.772
0.298
q22
Unmatched
Matched
.86644
.86477
.86577
.84987
0.2
4.2 -2135.1
0.02
0.50
0.982
0.616
q23
Unmatched
Matched
1.0822
1.0854
1.1074
1.0812
-7.0
1.2
83.4
-0.85
0.14
0.397
0.885
Unmatched
Matched
24.764
24.221
25.047
25.435
-1.1
-4.5
-328.7
-0.13
-0.56
0.898
0.579
Unmatched
Matched
31.195
30.409
32.023
32.713
-2.0
-5.5
-178.2
-0.24
-0.65
0.811
0.514
Unmatched
Matched
27.127
26.267
24.037
28.461
9.4
-6.7
29.0
1.15
-0.74
0.252
0.461
q33
Unmatched
Matched
41.723
41.117
41.718
41.299
0.0
-0.6 -3962.1
0.00
-0.07
0.999
0.946
q34
Unmatched
Matched
74.527
71.028
54.866
69.407
34.8
2.9
91.8
4.23
0.35
0.000
0.730
Unmatched
Matched
.38014
.37367
.46309
.37275
-8.5
0.1
98.9
-1.04
0.01
0.300
0.989
Unmatched
Matched
1.7911
1.79
1.7752
1.7468
2.6
7.2
-171.3
0.32
0.86
0.749
0.389
Unmatched
Matched
2.9555
3.0178
3.1208
3.0045
-13.2
1.1
91.9
-1.61
0.13
0.109
0.897
Unmatched
Matched
4.8562
4.968
5.3456
4.8683
-26.0
5.3
79.6
-3.16
0.68
0.002
0.495
Unmatched
Matched
-.23858
-.21015
.16048
-.34545
-19.0
6.5
66.1
-2.31
0.84
0.021
0.402
Variable
Sample
q8
Unmatched
Matched
.48288
.4911
Unmatched
Matched
q13
q12
fatherdummy
motherdummy
farmerdummy
onemanbusi~n
publicjob
hhedulevel
q21
q30
q31
q32
q52
q53
q54
q55
wealthindex
t-test
p>|t|
82
Appendix B4: PCA analysis to construct wealth index
Rotation: (unrotated = principal)
Rho
0.1724
Component
Eigenvalue
Difference
Proportion
Cumulative
Comp1
Comp2
Comp3
Comp4
Comp5
Comp6
Comp7
Comp8
Comp9
Comp10
Comp11
Comp12
Comp13
Comp14
Comp15
Comp16
Comp17
Comp18
Comp19
Comp20
Comp21
Comp22
Comp23
Comp24
Comp25
Comp26
4.48141
1.82878
1.60082
1.33394
1.26607
1.16631
1.09601
1.02028
.984639
.955953
.932278
.851103
.830346
.808274
.777741
.740524
.712727
.648044
.618241
.603875
.576831
.511796
.489184
.440707
.400226
.323896
2.65264
.227959
.266883
.0678695
.0997523
.0703002
.0757354
.0356388
.0286867
.0236745
.081175
.0207575
.0220714
.0305336
.0372165
.0277972
.0646829
.0298027
.0143667
.0270431
.0650356
.0226121
.048477
.0404802
.0763308
.
0.1724
0.0703
0.0616
0.0513
0.0487
0.0449
0.0422
0.0392
0.0379
0.0368
0.0359
0.0327
0.0319
0.0311
0.0299
0.0285
0.0274
0.0249
0.0238
0.0232
0.0222
0.0197
0.0188
0.0170
0.0154
0.0125
0.1724
0.2427
0.3043
0.3556
0.4043
0.4491
0.4913
0.5305
0.5684
0.6052
0.6410
0.6738
0.7057
0.7368
0.7667
0.7952
0.8226
0.8475
0.8713
0.8945
0.9167
0.9364
0.9552
0.9721
0.9875
1.0000
Principal components (eigenvectors)

Variable
Comp1
Unexplained
q241
q251
q261
q27
q291
q35
oxen
cattle
goats
sheep
pigs
chicken
mangotrees
bananatrees
pineapplet~s
hoes
ploughs
bicycles
motorcycles
mobilephones
beds
chairs
tables
matresses
radios
wheelbarrow
0.0528
0.1107
0.1163
0.1584
0.1215
0.1161
0.2302
0.1875
0.2237
0.0447
0.0787
0.1786
0.1145
0.0732
0.0209
0.1898
0.1875
0.2534
0.0894
0.3068
0.2546
0.3262
0.2964
0.3207
0.2638
0.2275
.9875
.9451
.9394
.8876
.9338
.9396
.7625
.8424
.7756
.9911
.9723
.857
.9412
.976
.998
.8386
.8425
.7122
.9642
.578
.7094
.5231
.6063
.5391
.6882
.768

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Report

Impact Evaluation of AVSI education program

Impact evaluation of AVSI education program

Designed, implemented and written

John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) Thirty-fifth President of the USA

1.1 Motivation for this evaluation

1.3 Research Questions

What factors influence teacher

1.4 Structure of the report.

Source: description by AVSI (2011)

2.2 Program components of Education and Education+ program

Vaccination against TT and de-worming

2.3 Overview of expected effects of program components on different outcomes: a

Figure 1: Conceptual Framework

3.2 Overcoming limitations: the evaluation design revised

3.3 Propensity score matching

Gender of student (dummy)

Student lived in an IDP camp (dummy)

o Nearest source of drinking water

More explanation on the questionnaire can be found in section 3.6.

Choice of matching algorithm

Figure 2: Distribution of p-scores

3.4 Additional statistical tools

3.5 Data sources and choice of instruments

3.6 Data collection process

3.7 Selection bias

4 The schools: meeting teachers and students.

4.1 The schools

4.1.3. Sanitation and water facilities

Figure 4: The amount of students that have to share 1 toilet

Figure 6: The amount of books per student

4.2 The teachers

General descriptive statistics

Figure 7: The distribution of the age of teachers

Job satisfaction and motivation

Self reported motivation

Table 2: Job Satisfaction and motivation levels among teachers

Figure 8: The level of motivation of teachers in general, judged by teachers (TQ29)

Figure 9: Teacher salary satisfaction

4.3 The students and their families

5.1 Introduction to statistical terminology

5.2 On student attendance

Table 3: Student Attendance

Table 4: The students internal motivation for attending school

Tabel 6: Illness of students

How important is it for the parents that their

Are parents concerned with the educational

Table 7: Two measures of parent involvement with education

5.3 On teacher attendance

Table 8: Teacher Attendance in School

Table 9: Teacher presence in classroom*

*Significance level calculated with proportion test.

Table 10: Teacher presence in classroom before visit*

*Significance level calculated with proportion and z test.

5.4 On teacher performance

Table 12: Teacher Performance

Table 13: Teacher perfomance unraveled

Table 14: Teacher motivation

5.5 On the educational environment

Table 14: Educational environment measured by school observations

Table 15: Educational environment measured by classroom observations

Table 16: Educational environment as perceived by the teachers

Educational environment as perceived by the students

Table 17: Educational environment according to the students.

Q4: Student code (Leave this open): |_|_|_|_|_|_|___|