Public-private partnerships for school-based ICT programs: Two randomized prospective evaluations

Background The research will evaluate the impact of school- based ICT use by secondary school students in Colombia and the Philippines, how information through this medium can affect the expectations that youths have about their future life transitions and the choices that they make

Programs Colombia: The Computadores para Educar (CPE) program (2002 by the Minister of Communications) refurbishes computers donated by the private sector and installs them in public schools; covers 83,092 teachers and more than 2m students in 6,386 public schools in 1,018 municipalities. Philippines: Gearing up Internet Literacy and Access for Students (GILAS) is a private consortium that provides computers to public secondary schools, connects them to the Internet, gives free Internet access for one year, complete Internet laboratory with software, hardware and basic computer, and basic Internet training for one teacher. As of December 2006, the program had connected 1,059 public high schools.

Objectives Specifically, the research will examine: Nature and frequency of computer use by students, such as the ways in which they use ICT to study, acquire information, and communicate; Students’ probability of completing high school and doing so at a good level of performance; Students’ knowledge, attitudes and expectations about their life transitions—further schooling, health-related behaviors, sexuality and family formation, work, and citizenship; Quality of students’ decision-making, such as the sources of information and advice they rely on; and Youth choices and behaviors regarding these transitions

Percentage of households with computers Philippines, 2000 and 2003

Philippine GILAS program Program expansion influenced by two factors: the availability of the telecommunications infrastructure (business considerations external to schools) and of donor funds to areas Explored randomized expansion of Internet connection but ran into infrastructure constraints Will randomize intervention to guide Internet use by (4 th year) secondary students Guides to websites on selected topics (e.g., environmental issues, science, life transitions)

Treatment and control groups Control GILAS-basic Treatment 1 GILAS-lite Treatment 2 GILAS-plus School computers & Internet connection (DSL) Printed guides to websites distributed to students & teacher School computers & Internet connection (DSL) Printed guides to websites plus one-half day training for students & teacher

Randomized evaluation design Match GILAS list of schools with BEIS school codes in order to get school variables Match schools on the basis of enrollment size, urban/rural location, 2005 NAT test scores (using quantiles within population of schools), Internet access type Form triads of schools on basis of nearest matches. For each triad, randomly choose which schools will be treatment and which will be control

Study regions Region 6 Region 7 Region 8 Study areas: Regions 4A (124 schools) Regions 6, 7, 8 (370 schools) Region 4A

Some outcome indicators

Computers in schools

Youth transitions