Formation of Children’s Human Capital in Kenya: The Role of Teachers, Private Schools and the Family
Date
2017-09-22
Authors
Wamalwa, Fredrick Masinde
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of Cape Town
Abstract
In this thesis, we investigate the role of teachers, private schools and the family in the
formation of children’s human capital in Kenya. We focus on Kenya due to the declining
learning outcomes the country is experiencing, in the wake of increasing public spending
in the education sector. The first essay examines the effect of teacher subject knowledge,
pedagogical skill, teacher effective instruction time and teacher classroom practices on
grade 4 language and maths test scores. Our results show that a one standard deviation
increase in the teacher’s knowledge in language (maths) increases student test scores by
0.075 (0.126) of a standard deviation in language (maths). An additional hour of teacher
effective instruction time increases student achievement by 0.051 and 0.059 score standard
deviations in language and maths, respectively.
The second essay estimates the size of the effect of private school attendance on literacy
(language) and numeracy (maths) skill acquisition among children drawn from lower primary grades (grades 2-4) in Kenya. Using a household survey data, we apply different
estimation techniques (OLS, fixed effects and propensity score matching) to deal with the
potential endogeneity of school choice. We find positive and significant effects of private
school attendance on both language and maths achievements across all the estimation
techniques. For instance, the household fixed effects yield a private school premium of
0.13 to 0.21 score standard deviation in maths and language, respectively.
The third essay examines the effect of the gender and order of birth of a child on intrahousehold investments in, and educational outcomes of, children in Kenya. We measure
the intra-household education investment in children by the household’s decision to enrol
a child in a private school. We define educational outcomes by two variables: completed
years of education and relative grade progression. We control for the potential endogeneity of child’s gender, birth order, family size and household level unobservables using
household fixed effects model. We find no female advantage in terms of private school
enrolment. However, there is a consistent female advantage in terms of completed years of
education and relative grade progression. We find significant negative birth order effects
on private school enrolment, completed years of education and relative grade progression.