The effect of grade retention on secondary school performance: Evidence from a natural experiment

Sergio Parra-Cely, Bart H H Golsteyn and Maria Ferreira-Sequeda

PLOS ONE, 2026, vol. 21, issue 3, 1-24

Abstract: We study the effects of grade retention on secondary school performance using a change in legislation in Colombia. In 2010, the rule that allowed schools to retain a maximum of 5 percent of their students was abolished. We exploit variation in changes in schools’ retention rates across time in a difference-in-differences framework, and find that higher school retention rates improved performance on high-school exit tests scores. While gains in learning did not differ between STEM and non-STEM subjects, increased retention disproportionately benefited non-retained students, students from higher socioeconomic backgrounds, private schools, and schools operating under a full day shift.

Date: 2026
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0345322 (text/html)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id= ... 45322&type=printable (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pone00:0345322

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0345322

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in PLOS ONE from Public Library of Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by plosone ().