Many kids and parents, especially in rural areas, are simply unaware of the long-term benefits that may come from a better education. In Madagascar, for instance, providing children and their parents with accurate information on the value of schooling has been achieved at a cost of $2.30 per child, resulting in total benefits of possibly 600 times the cost.
Although the costs vary across countries, such an intervention could conceivably be built into the standard curriculum at relatively low cost and has the potential of increasing academic effort while in school as well as increasing years of schooling. However, because of the very few studies, the benefits from a large-scale information campaign are less certain.
Finally, Orazem argues that the most consistent evidence of success in recent years comes from making payments to underprivileged parents conditional on their children attending school.