Should School Entry Age Be Lowered in Morocco? Evidence from TIMSS 2023

Ibrahim Allali (), Mohammed Bijou () and Lahboub Zouiri ()
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Ibrahim Allali: Mohammed V University of Rabat, PhD Candidate in Economics, Laboratory of Applied Economics, Faculty of Legal, Economic and Social Sciences – Agdal
Mohammed Bijou: Mohammed V University of Rabat, Assistant Professor, Department of Economics, Faculty of Legal, Economic and Social Sciences – Agdal
Lahboub Zouiri: Mohammed V University of Rabat, Professor of Higher Education, Department of Economics, Faculty of Legal, Economic and Social Sciences – Agdal

A chapter in Proceedings of the International Conference on Multidisciplinary Research in Management and Economics (ICMRME 2025), 2025, pp 631-654 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract This study examines the effect of early school entry on mathematics achievement among Moroccan fourth-grade students, using data from the 2023 TIMSS assessment. To address both endogeneity and the hierarchical structure of educational data, we implement a three-stage empirical strategy. We begin with an Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) model to explore baseline relationships between student characteristics and academic performance. To account for potential endogeneity of early entry (Started School at Age 5 or Younger), we estimate a Two-Stage Least Squares (2SLS) model using month of birth as an exogenous instrument. Finally, we integrate the corrected values from the 2SLS estimation into a multilevel model that accounts for the nested structure of students within schools. The results show that early entry has no significant impact in the OLS and 2SLS models. However, in the multilevel framework, once both student- and school-level heterogeneity are fully accounted for, starting school at age five becomes statistically significant with a modest negative effect on mathematics performance. These findings reinforce the rationale behind Morocco’s current entry age policy and suggest that early school entry, in its current form, may not be beneficial for student outcomes.

Keywords: School entry age; Educational achievement; Endogeneity; Two-stage least squares (2SLS); Multilevel modeling; TIMSS; Morocco (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:advbcp:978-94-6463-892-9_37

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DOI: 10.2991/978-94-6463-892-9_37

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