Community Campaigns to Improve Attitudes towards Girls' Education Can Increase Math Scores and Enrollment

We show that information campaigns intended to improve the attitudes and beliefs about girls’ education throughout communities can increase girls’ mathematics performance and school enrolment. These campaigns also increase caregiver support for girls’ education. Our analysis uses data from a large, randomized UKAid Girls’ Education Challenge (GEC) project in rural Zimbabwe, where the staggered roll out of the project allows for us to isolate the impact of a community-wide information campaign to promote girls’ education by shifting the attitudes and beliefs of girls, parents, teachers and other community members. An expansion of the program to provide resources including bicycles and books, and implement curriculum changes corresponded to improvements in literacy but did not correspond to any additional improvements in mathematics and enrolment beyond what was observed following the information campaign alone.