Republic of Madagascar : Primary Education in Time of Crisis

Abstract

The Malagasy population has undergone a
 severe political and economic crisis since 2009, whose
 impact on children's enrollment is little documented.
 The stagnation of primary school enrollment in a context of
 sustained demographic growth points to a rapid deterioration
 in the access to basic education services. The objective of
 this study is thus to evaluate the effects of the current
 crisis on household education choices, to orient education
 policy decisions over the short and medium term. The study
 combines recent available qualitative and quantitative data,
 to propose a set of assumptions on the effects of the crisis
 and its impact channels on education. Short of being able to
 carry out a full impact analysis of the crisis, due to its
 national coverage, the following data and sources are
 analyzed in detail to better document its effects: 1)
 monetary and budget data; 2) education statistics from the
 Ministry of Education (MEN); 3) the last two household
 surveys (EPM), of 2005 and 2010; 4) a follow-up survey of
 the pupils, households and schools of the districts of
 Amboasary and Betioky in the south of Madagascar, carried
 out in 2012 on the basis of an original pre-crisis survey,
 of 2009; and 5) workshops with the main sector players. The
 conceptual framework approaches the determinants of
 household education choices and behavior from the
 perspective of education supply and demand. The crossed
 impact of supply and demand-side factors enables the
 identification of four channels of impact of the crisis on
 household education choices: direct and indirect education
 costs, household income and access to loans, the perceived
 return on investment in education and the opportunity costs
 of schooling. Finally, the effects of a certain number of
 pupil and household characteristics on school access are
 determined through econometric analyses that enable the
 evaluation of the relevance of each channel.