Southwest Basic Education Project (SBEP)

The team was interested in parameter estimates of β6, α6 and γ6, and differences between them in order to establish evidence of the project impact on disadvantaged students in specific knowledge or skills in the two main subjects, Chinese and Maths.

4.1 Students’ overall performance in description

Tables 8 and 9 present the mean scores of students in project and non-project counties in three phases of the project for Chinese and Maths respectively. Several important observations can be made based on average test scores in the tables.

First, students’ average scores were increasing over time, which was more steady and apparent for students in project counties than for those in non-project counties.

Secondly, students in project counties scored markedly lower on average than those in non-project counties at the Baseline, and the gap decreased at the MTR, but reversed at the EoP for students of Grades 7 and 9. This seems to suggest that the achievement level of the students in project counties had improved more than for those in non-project counties.

Thirdly, the pattern in gender difference was as expected, with girls doing better than boys in Chinese and the other way round in Maths. However such gender difference was somewhat smaller among students in project counties that those in non-project counties.

Finally, the standard deviation of student average scores in primary schools or lower grades was larger than that in secondary schools. This may suggest that differences in teaching quality in the primary schools are still significant and issues of equity and imbalances remain, with no observable difference between project and non-project counties.