Cost-Benefit Analysis: Improving Girls' Retention in School

The paper, written by an economist of the Public Investment Office at the Ministry of Planning and External Cooperation, is part of the Haiti Priorise project of the Copenhagen Consensus Center. It proposes scholarships covering tuition, learning materials, uniforms and meals for 6,583 girls from disadvantaged rural areas who are at risk of dropping out of secondary school. The program would start in the 2017-2018 school year, run for 10 years and be managed by the Ministry of National Education and Vocational Training. The cost per recipient is 67,236 gourdes per year, and the cost for the first group over four years is 1,770,324,820 gourdes.

Benefits include wage gains and prevented infant mortality, HIV infections, child failure to thrive, and teen pregnancy with low birth weight. At a 5% discount rate the benefit-cost ratio is 5.2 per recipient and 4.4 after assuming that 85% of recipients graduate. The paper names risks such as budget constraints and mismanagement of funds, and recommends improving education quality, mobilizing communities and expanding sex education.