Electricity and education: The benefits, barriers, and recommendations for achieving the electrification of primary and secondary schools

Even though large-scale electricity networks have existed for more than a century, and hundreds of
millions of people have received reliable and affordable access to electricity over the past few decades,
many primary and secondary schools have no electricity whatsoever.

The first part of this report describes the current status of electrification and schools. As it reveals,
some of the specific numbers are dreadful. About 90 percent of children in Sub-Saharan Africa go to
primary schools that lack electricity, 27 percent of village schools in India lack electricity access, and
fewer than half of Peruvian schools are electrified. Collectively, 188 million children attend schools
not connected to any type of electricity supply—a number of people greater than the populations of
Nigeria, Bangladesh, Russia or Japan. Put another way, almost one child out of every three goes to a
school that lacks electricity and thus electric lights, refrigerators, fans, computers, and printers.

The second part of the report discusses the educational benefits of school electrification. Lighting can
enable classes to be taught early in the morning or late at night. Electricity enables the use of modern
mass media tools in the classroom such as the internet and televisions. Electrified schools have better
staff retention, outperform non-electrified schools on key educational indicators, and can in some cases
enable broader social and economic development of communities.

The third part of the report identifies a series of interconnected challenges to electrifying these schools.
Some barriers are technical and economic, such as the high upfront cost of a grid connection or the
expense of purchasing renewable energy technologies. Others are social or political, such as lack of
energy access at households interfering with school attendance or studying or urban bias and classism
in educational projects and partnerships.

The fourth part of the report presents recommendations for overcoming these barriers. It shows how
high upfront costs can be mitigated and overcome by tapping into financing streams and distributing
risk through public private partnerships (PPPs). Technical problems can be countered by stable policy
frameworks with strong standards and certification schemes. Electrification efforts can be coupled
with household and cooking programs and community capacity building and training efforts.

In sum, the report shows that primary and secondary schools can provide students with the light, heat,
comfort, and modern tools of teaching they deserve if planners, investors, and policymakers make a
determined, coordinated effort at promoting electricity for education.