Evaluating the Effectiveness of Interventions to Promote the Education of Girls in Rural Cambodia

0 Abstract The use of educational interventions to increase female educational attainment in developing countries has the potential to both provide women with more advantageous economic opportunities and contribute to economic growth. Achieving gender equality in education is an important first step towards achieving gender equality in the labor market. This thesis examines educational intervention programs that promote female education in rural Cambodia, and focuses in particular on conditional cash transfers. One such conditional cash transfer program in Cambodia is examined in more detail to determine its effectiveness. A qualitative evaluation was conducted in the form of focus groups and interviews with students, parents, and community members in the villages where the program was implemented. While the results of the study confirm the effectiveness of conditional cash transfers in increasing female attendance in school, the evaluation also revealed other factors that influence girls to stay in school. The study concluded that increasing the number of university-educated females in a girl's life through a mentoring program could have a positive effect on female educational attainment. Though further quantitative study is needed to investigate the effectiveness of such an intervention, this approach..