Educate A Child (EAC) commissioned Results for Development (R4D) to evaluate the Save for School program and determine whether, and under which conditions, the approach could be scaled to improve the initial enrollment and continued attendance of out of school children (OOSC) in Côte d’Ivoire and worldwide. The evaluation is based on documentation provided by EAC and IRC, as well as a one-week field visit in June 2015 to meet the local International Rescue Committee (the organization operating the program) team, village savings and loans associations (VSLAs), education officials and other stakeholders in western Côte d’Ivoire.
R4D found that:
- The use of VSLAs in Côte d’Ivoire for education-specific purposes is medium innovative;
- The performance of Save for School VSLAs is satisfactory. Their operational performance is in line with African ratios. Although their savings per member are well above average, Save for School VSLAs deliver a disappointing annualized return on savings (20 percent versus an African average of 30 percent), mainly because of the underperformance of spontaneous VSLAs;
- It is difficult to assess the causal link between VSLAs and enrolled OOSC at this stage because i) the program cost per OOSC is higher than planned (US$146-$158 versus US$93)1; ii) there is no control group2; and iii) there is no specific monitoring of the loans and shareout funds that directly finance education; and
- The spontaneous replication of VSLAs and the formation of facilitator bureaus are promising in terms of the potential for low-cost scaling. However, several conditions are critical: i) there must be community interest in education and savings; ii) the supply of schools and teachers must be sufficient to absorb the resulting increased enrollment; and iii) there must be a capable implementing organization with a methodology simple enough to be utilized by illiterate populations.
