the outcome of a longer-term process. There is growing evidence that crime and violence have a causal impact on student attendance, which can lead to lower attainment and dropout, and also that large-scale violent conflict substantially reduces educational attainment for affected youth (Smith 2003; Bruck, Di Maio, and Miaari 2014).

## **4.8 Outstanding questions and challenges for Central America**

Many approaches have shown some success in reducing dropout at different levels, but the knowledge base is far from complete. In Central America, many programs and policies that have shown success globally have been tried, and some in the region have been rigorously evaluated. However, additional information is needed to inform program design going forward. As discussed by Almeida, Fitzsimons, and Rogers, dropout is an outcome that is often not included in many evaluations, and when it is, it is often only measured over the course of 1-2 years. This is likely because dropout is a medium to long-term outcome, while evaluations have limited time horizons, and repeated data collection from the same individuals over time is costly. Certain aspects of promising interventions are in need of additional research, including how to accurately identify those most at risk of dropping out early on; how to maximize the impacts of cash transfers at the lower and upper secondary levels; and what programs work in local contexts that combine academic, socio-emotional, and labor market-relevant supports.

While the knowledge base on what works is growing, much less is known about which approaches to reducing dropout are most cost-effective. This is hugely important for governments in Central America, where education spending relative to GDP is generally low, and resources available to target this particular group are limited (World Bank 2014b, 2014c, 2014d, and 2014e). Some programs have been costed and are known to be relatively inexpensive with light implementation requirements, such as information campaigns, while others are much more costly and demanding in terms of implementation, such as extending school hours (Holland, Evans, and Alfaro 2014). However, we are still far from having systematically comparable cost data across different types of programs and contexts, which would facilitate decision-making for policy makers (Evans and Popova 2014).

Across all six Central American countries, there are common policy priorities which would likely contribute to reducing dropout, including improving the quality of education at all levels, addressing remaining gaps in access at the preprimary and secondary levels, and strengthening the coverage, targeting, and coherence of existing programs aimed at improving education outcomes. Beyond this broad set, each country’s particular circumstances can inform specific priorities – initial ideas are discussed below in the concluding section.

# **5. Conclusions**

While substantial progress in educational attainment has been made in Central America over the last several decades, dropout remains a major challenge to building the skills of the workforce and human capital of the population. As detailed in Section 1, each country has a unique history of education progress, but today the sub-region faces some similar dropout problems. In Panama and Costa Rica, most youth remain in school through US ages, but many are over age for their grade, and most drop out before completing US. In Honduras, Guatemala, and Nicaragua, only a minority 27