Primary Education Expansion and Quality of Schooling

Abstract The rapid increases in enrollment seen in many developing countries might further worsen the poor schooling quality found in these countries. I estimate the effect of enrollment growth following the removal of primary school fees in Tanzania and find evidence of a sizeable increase in pupil-teacher ratios and a reduction in observable teacher quality, but rule out a substantial effect on test scores overall. These results are robust to instrumenting enrollment growth using predetermined fertility and migration decisions, and to a number of checks including the use of baseline enrollment rates as an alternative source of variation in enrollment growth. However, when investigating the possibility of heterogeneous effects for urban and rural areas, I find evidence of a deterioration of test scores in urban areas.