Republic of Madagascar : Primary Education in Time of Crisis
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.