Education choices in Ethiopia: what determines whether poor households send their children to school?

Abstract

The paper uses data from a 2002 survey of 1000 rural and urabm households with eight-year old children sampled from food insecure communities in Tigray, Amhara, Oromia, SNNP and Addis Ababa Regional States. Using a probit regression model, we investigated external factores associated with child enrolment in school. We found that household wealth, cognitive social capital, adult education and ownrship of land had a positive impact on whether eight-year - old children were attending school . Household wealth had the strongest impact followed by cogntitive social capital (perceived levels of trust and reciprocity), the maximum level of education attained by female adults in the household, ownership or rental of land, and the maximum level of education attained by male adults in the household. In contrast, child enrolment was found to be negatively associated with the number of household members over the age of 15 years, birth order, ownership of livestock , ecomomic shocks, distance to primary school, and child labour, in declining magnitude. the findings in general suggest that increasing child enrolment in primary school, which is a commitment of the sustainable- development and poverty reduction program (SDPRP) and education sector development program (ESDP), will neccessitate more targeted educational policies to adress regional gender and wealth disparities, the development of education programmes for adult caregiveres, as well as broaders intersectoral policy initiatives to ensure that policy intiatives in other sectors facilitate rather than hinder children;s education (particularly credit and labour markets and infrasture-related policies).