School kits are a widely used intervention in cocoa-growing communities, often provided as support within CLMRS. However, until now, there has been little evidence on whether school kits are effective in reducing child labour.
To address this gap, ICI partnered with researchers from ETH Zürich (NADEL) and the University of Ghana to conduct an experimental study in cocoa-growing communities in Ghana. The study examined whether providing school kits (in isolation) to primary school children could reduce their involvement in child labour and improve education-related outcomes.
The results show that school kits significantly improved children’s access to school materials, reduced household spending on education, and led to better learning outcomes in mathematics. Some modest improvements were also observed in school attendance and household labour allocation. However, effects on child labour were limited and mainly confined to reductions in hazardous cocoa-related activities.
The report below presents a summary of the results. The full study is available as a Working Paper on the ETH Zürich web portal.
