The Impact of Terrorism on Educational Outcomes: The Case of Pakistan

Abstract

Adverse shocks can bring unrest in the most vulnerable communities. These negative stimuli have been associated with educational and health investment, thus restricting the development of a society. This thesis will provide an empirical insight into the influence of extreme, adverse events in the form of a terrorist attack on the learning outcomes for children in Pakistan. We use data from the Annual Status of Education Report and Global Terrorism Database for 2013- 2016 to look at the effects of terrorism on learning outcomes. We test for the impact of terrorism conditional on students who are enrolled in school by employing a Hurdle model (Cragg, 1971) for analysis. We conducted a range of robustness checks to show these results are valid across a variety of context. This study finds that that the intensity of exposure is a significant determinant of learning outcomes – children belonging to districts that have encountered severe intensity of attacks perform worse on standardized tests. Furthermore, girls are affected significantly more than boys, while younger children (those aged 10 and below) are more vulnerable to terrorist attacks. Our results deduce that the decline in the educational attainment of children is directly influenced by extremely traumatic events.