School Fee Abolition and Its Effects on Education Indicators

Ray Langsten, American University in Cairo

The international community has declared that fee abolition is an important part of achieving Universal Primary Education (UPE) and that fee abolition reduces differentials in enrollment and attainment by gender and wealth. I use DHS data to examine the impact of fee abolition on the Net Enrollment Rate (NER) and on the Primary School Completion Rate (PSCR). The effect of fee abolition on the NER is much greater than its effect on the PSCR. Moreover, although after fee abolition gender and wealth differentials in the NER are reduced, in the PSCR these differentials often remain about the same, or may actually increase. I show that these conflicting results are found across a range of countries and explain the reasons for this differential effect.