and increase schooling as a result.<sup>5</sup> The implicit goal was also to improve learning outcomes through the additional schooling. This paper reports the results of the impact evaluation of that pilot program.

The basic design of the primary school scholarship pilot was to select participating schools; assign them randomly to offer scholarships based on poverty or merit; and then, within each school, identify candidates for scholarships based on transparent, clearly articulated criteria. Once selected, scholarship recipients were required to stay enrolled, attend school regularly, and maintain passing grades to keep the scholarship until they graduated from primary school.<sup>6</sup> In Cambodia, primary school consists of Grades 1 through 6, and the program targeted students entering the upper-primary level (Grades 4, 5, and 6). The scholarship was equivalent to US$ 20 per student annually.<sup>7</sup> Through a follow-up survey, we determined that the mean household expenditure per capita per year in our sample was US$ 610.24;<sup>8</sup> as such, the scholarship represents 3.3% of the yearly per capita expenditure. The scholarships were intended to be disbursed in two tranches of US$ 10—the first in the beginning of the year, and the second in the middle of the school year. In the first year of the program, however, scholarships were distributed in one lump sum due to delays in implementation.<sup>9</sup> The pilot program was implemented in three provinces—Mondulkiri, Ratanakiri, and Preah Vihear— where average dropout rates between Grades 3 and 6 were highest, according to an analysis of Cambodia’s Education Management Information System (EMIS). To narrow the geographic scope of the program, only seven districts in Ratanakiri (those with the highest dropout rates) were selected for participation, out of a total of nine districts. In the other two provinces, all districts were included. Within these selected districts, all primary schools that offered classes through Grade 6 participated in the program.

The program offered scholarships to approximately 5,162 students from a pool of 12,078 individuals in 208 schools. Of the 208 schools, 103 were randomly assigned to join the program in Phase 1 (the

> 5 Primary schools are officially non-fee based. Opportunity costs include various forms of child labor which are relatively prevalent in the study area—although typically labor is combined with schooling at the primary school ages.

> 6 There requirements are moderately enforced. Students absent for many days are followed up by school officials and if they return to school they remain eligible for the scholarship. After a student is absent for too many days they are classified as having dropped out and no longer are eligible for the scholarship.

> 7 The previous lower-secondary scholarships were in the amounts of $45 and $60 per year—however, the evaluation found little impact on enrollment and attendance of $60 over and above that of $45 (Filmer and Schady,  2011) 8 GNI per capita in Cambodia was, approximately, UD$700 for 2008 (World Development Indicators). 9 Scholarships distributions for the cohort of recipients analyzed here (Phase 1) took place in July 2009 (US$ 20), November 2009 (US$ 10), April 2010 (US$ 10), November 2010 (US$ 10); and April 2011 (US$ 10).

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