Paper Abstract
Many developing countries provide cash to low-income families to encourage children to attend school. These initiatives have increased student participation in school, but they have rarely increased student achievement. One potential reason may be that the beneficiaries of these programs lack the ?soft? skills to succeed in school. We conducted a randomized evaluation of a program that provides seventh graders in the Province of Buenos Aires, Argentina with a scholarship and non-academic mentoring. After one year, the program reduced the share of students who failed language and math, reduced the number of subjects that students failed, the share of students who failed the grade, and the total number of absences. However, we find little evidence that these improvements in school performance occurred concurrently with increases in general socio-emotional skills (e.g., self-control or grit). Instead, we find evidence that the program positively impacted a wide range of more specific school navigation skills (e.g., asking teachers for clarifications on incorrect homework answers or catching up with assignments when absent to school).

Alejandro J. Ganimian is an Education Post-Doctoral Fellow at J-PAL South Asia in New Delhi, India and the Scientific Director of the Programa de Evaluación de Impacto en Educación at the Universidad Torcuato Di Tella in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Alejandro's research employs randomized controlled trials to answer questions that are of interest to both economists and psychometricians in low- and middle-income countries.  Alejandro holds a doctorate in Quantitative Policy Analysis in Education from Harvard University, where he was a fellow in the Multidisciplinary Program in Inequality and Social Policy, a master’s in Educational Research from the University of Cambridge, and a bachelor’s in International Politics from Georgetown University.