Improving Student Outcomes by Calling Parents
Introduction
Yedomiffi (2025) studies an intervention targeted at parents of eighth grade students in the Atlantique region of Benin. The intervention was designed to help low educated parents become more involved in managing their child’s time and effort related to schoolwork. Treated parents received ten structured phone calls over the course of four months from trained facilitators.
The intervention was implemented through a randomized controlled trial in which 20 public secondary schools were randomly chosen for the pure control group and 20 were assigned the treatment group. Within treated schools, student level randomization was done within classroom and within observed parental literacy levels, so that treated students could be compared to control students in a similar school and home environment. The paper finds the intervention improves GPA, reduces absenteeism, increases grade completion, and reduces dropout. The MVPF is calculated for the policy of scaling the program to 1000 at risk students.
Pays for Itself
Net Cost
Net cost is calculated as the direct cost to implement the intervention minus the government savings from fewer students needing to repeat a grade. The intervention costs $9.50 per student, so the direct cost for 1,000 students would be $9,500. The treatment has a twelve-percentage point reduction in grade repetition, so for every 1,000 students, an estimated 120 additional students would not need to repeat a grade. The paper estimates that each year of secondary schools costs the government $149 per student. Thus the government saves 120*$149 = $17,880 from reduced grade repetition.
The net government cost is then $9,500 + (-$17,880) = -$8,380.
Willingness to Pay
The paper estimates the willingness-to-pay as the private savings for the students who are induced not to repeat a grade. The paper takes a conservative approach and only includes the tuition fees, though notes that there are likely other savings due to not repeating a grade related to the costs of transportation, materials, or foregone earnings from delayed labor market entry. The paper estimates tuition fees are $30 per year. As 120 additional students are induced to pass their grade, this leads to a willingness to pay of 120*$30 = $3,600.
MVPF Summary
As the net government cost is negative and the willingness-to-pay is positive, Yedomiffi (2025) finds that this intervention targeted at parents has an infinite MVPF.
References
Yedomiffi, Mahounan (2025). “Activating Parental Managerial Capital: How Role Clarity Improves Education Outcomes.” Working Paper. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aRqICXVs8mqmv4tC05Q_XWymeSLIlh4O/view
Policy Features
- Category
- Education
- Sub-Category
- Child Education
- Beneficiary Type(s)
- Children and Youth, Parents
- Average Age
- 14 (students) 42 (parents)
- Country of Implementation
- Benin
- Year of Implementation
- 2022
- Empirical Method
- RCT
- Research Type
- Primary
- Peer Reviewed
- No
- MVPF Publication Link
- drive.google.com/file/d/1aRqICXVs8mqmv4tC05Q_XWymeSLIlh4O/view