IMPACT OF CHILDFUND’S BASIC EDUCATION PROGARME ON ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE OF GRADE NINE STUDENTS IN BUEE SECONDARY AND PREPARATORY SCHOOL, BUEE TOWN, SODO WOREDA

Abstract

The overall objective this research was to measure impact of ChildFund-Ethiopia‘s education program on academic performance of grade nine students in Buee secondary and preparatory school, Buee Town, SodoWoreda of Guraghe Zone, SNNPR. The sampling strategy employed in this study was both random and purposive sampling. One school out of four secondary schools in the Woreda selected randomly and then a purposive sampling technique was employed to select sample students from the selected school in the program area. The sample students were purposively selected from a population of 589 secondary school students in Buee secondary school that were enrolled in the ninth grade during the 2017–2018 academic years. In total, the size of the sample includes 120 students (57 Program participants and 63 non program participants) and their families which is around 20% of the sample population. The study focused on grade nine students‘ first semester scores; the scores for this class are based on a single school that is standardized across the students. Besides; other questions were prepared and asked to create variables to control for other observed factors that might be expected to affect academic performance of each student. The first includes the following student-level characteristics: gender, age, whether or not they were student cadres (club leaders) etc. The second include characteristics on students‘ parents and family: the total number of household members, the educational attainment of each parent, and the household‘s income level Based on the analysis of both descriptive statistic and inferential statistics, there are evidences supporting the significant positive impact of ChildFund support in improving the academic performance of grade nine students in the study area.  The performance of grade nine students is better in ChildFund supported schools than in the comparison non-support schools as observed in the previous academic mean performance (Grade five to Eight) 65.41 with SD 13.14 and 60.32 with SD 12.33 respectively. In other words, a typical student from a ChildFund support school does have a better academic performance compared to a typical student in a control nonsupport school in general.  The mean scores of the first semester grade nine students under study are 62.14 with SD 11.74 and 57.75 with SD 11.98 for program participants and non-program participants viii respectively, which are by and large greater than the expected minimum of 50% for the sample students participated in the study.  The PSM estimation result shows that participation in ChildFund basic education program had brought a significant impact on students‘ academic performance in the study area on both the general sample students and on the treated students. The estimated ATE of participation on the average score of grade nine students was 5.4. Thus, the average score if all students were to participate in ChildFund basic education program would be 5.4 more scores than the average that would occur if none of the students had participated.  On the other hand the estimated ATET of participation on the average score of grade nine students was 6.98. Thus the average students in the treated group will take 6.98 more score than it would if it did not participate in ChildFund basic education program.