Impact of the Child-optimized Financial Education (COFE) Curriculum among Savings Group Participants in Uganda: A Cluster Randomised Controlled Trial

"Child-centered household-level financial planning and saving may support the educational needs of Ugandan children and potentially Uganda's national-level education targets."

Household poverty, including a caregiver's ability to pay school fees and to buy uniforms and other school supplies, is an important factor affecting school attendance and completion. The savings group methodology is one type of community-based poverty reduction programme that has been implemented in places like Uganda, which is struggling to meet primary and secondary education goals. These community-based groups aim to increase financial inclusion, access to appropriate financial services, financial education, and self-efficacy among economically poor and marginalised populations who otherwise may not have had access to appropriate and affordable financial services. This research assessed the impact of exposure to Catholic Relief Services' (CRS) Child-Optimized Financial Education (COFE) curriculum, delivered within Savings and Lending Communities (SILC) in Uganda, on caregivers' spending on school and healthcare expenses for children, as well as on caregivers' financial self-efficacy.

This study is a post-test-only parallel cluster randomised controlled trial (RCT) of 28 community-based fee-for-service delivery agents called private service providers (PSPs) randomly assigned to the intervention or control arm, with each PSP facilitating 2-3 SILC groups in the study. The 28 PSPs were selected from Gomba and Mityana districts of Uganda, where 2017 data indicated high attendance in primary school in both districts (Gomba: 86%; Mityana: 84%). Every week, members of the SILC group make savings deposits that are added to a main fund, from which members can take short-term loans for investment or consumption. Members further contribute to a separate group social fund (for unexpected financial emergencies affecting members) and an Edufund (dedicated to children's education expenses). Groups record all financial transactions in ledger books, and all financial transactions are carried out in view of all members. At the end of each 12-month SILC cycle, all loans have been repaid and members recover their entire savings (along with any balance of their contributions to the group Edufund), with a share of group profit.

Intervention groups were randomly assigned to have their respective PSPs implement the COFE programme. These PSPs were trained by SILC supervisors who, themselves, had completed a total of 20 days of COFE training conducted by a CRS master trainer. COFE was delivered every other week, after the regular SILC meeting, for a total of 13 sessions between September 2020 and March 2021. Each COFE session lasted between 45 and 60 minutes. The curriculum was designed to help caregivers: (i) set financial goals that are sensitive to children's basic needs including education, health care, and proper nutrition; (ii) learn money management skills; (iii) create a succession plan and, if interested, a written will; (iv) ensure that a family's financial challenges do not force children to miss school for labour; and (v) practice good parenting, child protection, and HIV prevention, care, and treatment.

Among the 1,374 study participants from 28 PSPs (representing 4,598 children in their care), 918 (66.8%) had at least one child eligible for measurement on the primary outcome of full school-fee payment (i.e., the child is school-aged and his/her school is not closed due to COVID-19 restrictions). The primary outcome was defined at the child level, resulting in 1,956 eligible children under the care of the SILC participants recruited in the study (i.e., schools were closed due to COVID-19 restrictions for 1,268 of the 3,224 school-aged children). For the secondary outcomes on health expenses and financial self-efficacy, 1,088 children and 1,372 SILC participants were included in the analyses, respectively.

Regression analyses show that the prevalence of paying children's school fees in the intervention arm was 8% higher, on average, than the prevalence in the control arm [absolute difference: 0.08, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.01 to 0.16, p-value: 0.03]. This corresponds to a relative difference of 1.17 [95% CI: 1.04 to 1.31, p-value: 0.01], or 17% higher relative to the control arm. Observed differences in the secondary outcomes between the intervention and control arms were relatively small.

Thus, participation in SILCs with COFE was significantly associated with caregivers paying for children's required school expenses compared to SILCs that did not receive COFE. The researchers believe that COFE's targeted messaging on financial planning and saving for children's education needs likely led to the behaviour change seen in the study. They observed the effect with nearly half of the sample participating in the Edufund, which was specifically designed to help with paying for anticipated education fees. The findings, therefore, "suggest that child-focused financial education can bring added value to services that are specifically designed to facilitate spending on children's education (i.e. SILC and Edufund)."

With regard to secondary outcomes, the researchers examine why COFE was not associated with caregivers' financial self-efficacy or with paying for children's health expenses. For example, it is possible that there was not enough time between the intervention and data collection for participants to practice learned skills (e.g. sticking to a financial plan and meeting goals) and subsequently develop financial self-efficacy. Also, there could be many reasons beyond individual knowledge and skills why health expenses could not be paid. Many of these are structural and financial barriers.

The researchers conclude that the overall findings "have important programmatic implications for child-focused financial education integrated into savings groups in Uganda and may be relevant for similar low-resource settings....We encourage future studies to examine whether participants are able to retain acquired financial knowledge, skills and practices over a longer time horizon and if such knowledge was being transferred to their children."