Paying students to perform well in school and increase attendance is a relatively new and controversial idea that is catching on in many school districts across the United States, but it is an idea that is not limited to the U.S. alone. From the United Kingdom to Colombia, giving some form of incentives to students for their performance has been practiced for some time. Education Next (Spring 2005) reported on an incentive program in Kenya, begun in 2001, that rewarded female students for continuing their studies in a country where many girls did not.
Up until 2003 there was a fee to attend Kenyan schools that many families could not afford. In a country where the average income is less than $400 a year, spending sparsely available money on education proved challenging for many parents. Families simply could not afford to send their children to school, leaving millions of prospective students out of the classroom.
Beginning in 2001, International Child Support (ICS), a Dutch-funded nonprofit organization, began the Girls Scholarship Program in a number of schools. The program paid for two years of schooling for girls who scored in the top 15 percent on their sixth grade exams. The families of the girls who did well were awarded with the equivalent of $12.80 for each of the next two school years. Part of the money was used to pay school fees, while the rest was used to purchase textbooks, uniforms, and other supplies.
The program, which took place in schools in the Teso and Busia districts, was a success as test scores rose dramatically in many of the participating schools (Busia district schools greatly improved, while the Teso district schools remained the same mainly due to community misgivings about the program). While most of the scholarship winners were from slightly more advantaged families, even lower income students generally did better on the tests.
In Busia, where the program worked best, scores rose by 0.19 standard deviations on average in schools with the scholarship program. Not only did the girls raise their scores, but also the boys' scores went up as well despite not having any financial incentives. This may be because providing incentives for the girls to aim higher contributed to a better learning environment that benefited everybody. Overall, during the program's run, test scores rose, attendance was up, and most students and their parents said they supported the scholarship program.
Shortly after the program concluded, the National Rainbow Coalition took power in Kenya and abolished school fees in 2003. Within in weeks of the removal of school fees, according to Unicef data, attendance skyrocketed with 1.3 million new enrollments. The massive influx caused some initial problems such as over-crowding, but showed, like the girls in the incentive program, that the children of Kenya have a desire to learn. (Unicef, 2006)
