Demand, supply, and learning in a very low-income context

In very low-income settings, how much does family demand matter for child learning? In rural Gambia, caregivers with high aspirations for their children’s future education and career, measured before children start school, invest substantially more than other families in their children’s education. Despite this, essentially no children are literate or numerate three years later. In contrast, in villages receiving a highly impactful, teacher-focused supply-side intervention, children of high-aspirations caregivers are 25 percent more likely to achieve literacy and numeracy than other children. In such settings, greater demand can map onto developmentally meaningful learning differences, but only with adequate complementary inputs.