Abstract

After-school care policies have been considered as a tool that can improve vulnerable students’ outcomes. The evidence of after-school programs is incomplete and concentrated in developed countries. In this paper, we experimentally evaluate the impact of a publicly run after-school program in Chile. We found that the program had on average no effect upon academic outcomes (school attendance and grades). However, if the after-school programs are of good quality and replace other forms of non-paternal care, they positively affect grades, increasing the average GPA in 0.8-1 decimals and the probability of having a GPA above the median in around 10 pp. This evidence suggests that the program’s impacts on children are determined both by the quality of institutionalized care and the nature of the alternative care available to them.