Abstract

The education laws of each country establish starting cutoff dates for compulsory education which could, potentially, affect students’ academic achievement. Specifically, they could be detrimental for those students whose birthday is just before the school entry cutoff, as they will be the youngest in their classroom, while it could boost the academic performance of those whose birthday is just after (the eldest ones). The present research paper analyses this issue in respect to students’ academic achievement using census and longitudinal data for the most populated region of Spain (Andalusia) with a regression discontinuity methodology. Our results show that those students who are the youngest in the classroom due to this school entry cutoff present lower academic achievement compared to the eldest students, an effect which is reduced while students advance in their education. This motivates policy recommendations aimed at checking students’ cognitive skills prior to their access to compulsory education and at letting parents choose whether or not to delay their children’s access to school in case they are not yet ready.

摘要

每个国家的教育法都规定了义务教育的开始截止日期，这可能会影响学生的学业成绩。具体来说，它们可能对那些生日正好在入学截止日期之前的学生不利，因为他们将是班上最小的学生，而它可以提高生日刚好在此之后的学生（最年长的学生）的学业成绩。本研究论文使用西班牙人口最多的地区（安达卢西亚）的人口普查和纵向数据，通过回归不连续性方法分析了学生学业成绩方面的这个问题。我们的结果表明，与年龄最大的学生相比，由于这个入学截止日期而在课堂上年龄最小的学生的学业成绩较低，这种影响随着学生接受教育的进步而减弱。这激发了政策建议，旨在在学生接受义务教育之前检查他们的认知技能，并让父母选择是否在孩子尚未做好准备时延迟他们的入学。