Invisible China by Scott Rozelle & Natalie Hell

Author:Scott Rozelle & Natalie Hell [Rozelle, Scott & Hell, Natalie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: BUS000000 Business & Economics / General
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 2020-10-12T00:00:00+00:00

A National Policy Plan

Today, despite the best intentions, China’s huge investment in rural education is in some sense being wasted. It will cost billions of dollars to get all children into high school. Hence it only makes sense to prepare them as much as possible before they are high school age so that they will be ready to learn—and thrive.

Researchers have shown again and again in countries around that world that many of the popular educational programs that are expected to improve students’ learning do not work well. Policymakers can invest in reducing class size, upgrading equipment, or improving student health, yet students’ learning will not change. The reason so many programs fail is usually that the other resources students need to succeed—good schools, good teachers, and good curricula—are lacking. In China all those building blocks are there. The only major thing still missing is student health. So for once the solution to the problem of poor learning is actually simple and even cost effective.23

In fact, my research team has proved through the highest standard of experimental evidence—the randomized controlled trial (RCT)—that all three health epidemics could be easily and cheaply addressed within the school system. What’s more, the interventions not only improved health and nutrition, they also led to significant rises in students’ academic achievement.

Randomized controlled trials have become increasingly common in social science research during the past decade. The theory and utility are easy to understand. We work with local policymakers and international experts in health, nutrition, and education to develop scalable, low-cost interventions that might improve student health. Then we randomly sample a group of schools in the very communities we’re trying to help. Half of those schools are randomly chosen to receive the pilot policy, and half act as a control group. After a year (or two) of implementing the policy, we return to all the schools to see whether the policy was effective, by comparing outcomes in the treatment and control groups. RCTs are considered the gold standard in public policy because they allow for potential policies to be rigorously tested in real-world settings.

In the course of our research on anemia, intestinal worms, and visual health, we have conducted fifteen RCTs in the field to find the best, most cost-effective policies that can resolve these conditions. For each study, we administered the proposed solution in one group of schools (the treatment group) while leaving another group of schools unchanged (the control group). We have successfully identified real-world, workable solutions that can be brought to scale and are proved not only to improve health but also to boost educational performance. If the government decides to take responsibility for student health, to fix the last major barrier to students’ learning in rural elementary schools, we have a toolbox ready for them to make big improvements very quickly.

Since my team began working on anemia in 2008, we have conducted a total of eight RCTs. We tested the effectiveness of several varieties of multivitamins, of supplementing students’ diets with a range of food items, and of giving school principals incentives to improve student nutrition.

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