The Longer-Term Impacts of Foundational Learning on the Transition to Tertiary Education and the Labor Market

Utkarsh is a foundational and remedial education program conducted during the school day, with existing teachers, for Class 9 students. The program covers English, Math, and Science. A previous randomized evaluation finds it improves learning by 60% relative to status quo; following our evaluation, the program has been scaled to 6 states in India. We conduct a longer-term follow-up to analyze whether the improvements in learning translate into higher pass rates on Class XII board exams, and transitions to tertiary education. We extend the analysis period by 8 years through tracking and collecting another round of surveys with the original respondent sample of approximately 6,000 students as well as administrative test score data on the 19,000 students in both treatment and control schools who were in Class 9 during the evaluation year. Students with on-time progression would graduate from tertiary education in either 2026 or 2027, depending upon field of study. This project will assess whether the observed improvements in human capital persisted by: 1)higher scores on the Class XII Board exam, a requirement for secondary school graduation; 2) attendance in tertiary education; 3) labor market and marriage outcomes as students transition to the labor market.