Abstract:

A safe learning environment is a place where structured learning is free from environmental, internal, and external threats to learners and educators’ well-being; where both the infrastructure of the organization and the people within that environment are deemed safe (USAID, 2016). Safe learning environments can be threatened by internal threats, such as bullying, corporal punishment, and gang recruitment, external threats, such as attacks on schools, and environmental threats, such as natural disasters. The objective of this study is to identify the causal direction and magnitudes of student and teacher perception of safety on learning outcomes in Rwanda, Tanzania, and Zambia through a quasi-experimental analysis.

Data for this study is tabulated from USAID’s Global Reading Network: EdData Initiative.The key dependent variables in this study are standardized learning outcomes in English reading fluency and math addition problems. The key independent variables are the perception of school safety from students in Rwanda, and from head teachers in Tanzania and Zambia. The dataset also consist of control variables encompassing students, teacher, school, and family specific attributes.

We initiate our estimation by conducting an Ordinary Least Square (OLS) analysis. Subsequently, we use a quasi-experimental design to estimate the effect of school safety on learning outcomes. Specifically, we apply Propensity Score Matching (PSM) and Doubly Robust Estimator (DRE) methods.

We find negative effects of an unsafe school environment on learning outcomes for reading and math in all aforementioned estimation procedures of Rwandan students, who self-reported their perception of school safety. Results show that for 6th grade math evaluations, a student who feels unsafe solves seven fewer addition problems correctly per minute compared to peers who feel safe at school. For 4th grade math evaluations, the difference is about two problems per minute when compared to students of similar characteristics, who only differ through the perception of school safety. Also, 6th grade English reading fluency is significantly affected, with students who feel unsafe reading about five fewer words per minute than comparable peers. Negative effects are found both in regression and quasi-experimental estimation for Tanzania, where head teachers reported perceptions of school safety among students. Specifically, quasi-experimental estimation shows that Tanzanian students who reportedly had an unsafe learning environment solved 0.7 fewer problems correctly per minute in math addition. Also, English reading fluency is significantly affected, with students who had an unsafe environment reading about eight fewer words per minute than comparable peers.For Zambia, where a head teacher reported safety, we do not find statistically significant effects of school safety, except for 3rd grade English reading.

We draw two major and consistent conclusions from our analysis. First, the effect of student-perceived school safety on academic performance in Rwanda is significantly negative. Second, similar with the findings in Rwanda, the effect of head teacher-perceived students’ school safety on academic performance is not as consistent.

Keywords:

School Safety, Academic Performance.