Estimating the Effectiveness of Education Policy on Reducing Inequality in Education: the Case of Belgium

The following paper presents an empirical estimation of the long-term effect of the Parliamentary Act of 2008 in Flanders. According to the policy, schools with at least 25% of disadvantaged students became eligible for additional financial support. Using the data on the school composition, I have implemented a quasi-experimental research design to estimate, whether the program was successful in reducing the inequality in education. To assess the effect of the policy on inequality, I have constructed two dependent variables – a diversity index and a concentration index. Then, two models were built for each index – a regression discontinuity model and a difference-in-differences model. The use of the two different methods allows us to thoroughly investigate the influence of the funding on the outcome variables. I conclude that the policy had a negative effect on the diversity in Flemish schools. It created an incentive for further concentration of disadvantaged students thus limiting the equality of opportunities for children from different socioeconomic groups. Therefore, the Parliamentary Act of 2008 did not reduce inequality in education in Flanders.