Reducing gender gaps in school enrollment has been one of the most important goals for international education policy over the past decade, and has been enshrined as one of the United Nation's Millennium Development Goals. While considerable progress has been made in reducing gender gaps in primary schooling, there continue to be significant gaps in secondary schooling, with a noticeable increase in adolescent years. It is therefore of substantial policy interest to identify cost-effective and scalable strategies for increasing secondary school enrollment and completion rates for girls in developing countries.
Policies to improve female education attainment in developing countries have focused on both increasing the immediate benefits of schooling to families as well as on reducing the costs of attending school. The most prominent category of demand-side interventions have been conditional cash transfers (CCT's) to households for keeping girls enrolled in school. Several well-identified studies of CCT programs have found a positive impact on girls' school enrollment and attainment (Fiszbein and Schady 2009).
