Equal Access to Education: An Evaluation of the Roma Teaching Assistant Program in Serbia

•We evaluate the effects of a remedial education program targeting the Roma ethnic minority in Serbia.•We use first-hand collected data.•Absences fall for all children exposed to the program.•Children in the first grade benefited more through lower dropouts and better grades.•Well-targeted remedial education programs can boost outcomes of low performers. This paper investigates the effects of a remedial education program—the Roma Teaching Assistant Program—targeting the socially excluded Roma minority in Serbia. By using first-hand collected data, we find evidence that children exposed to the program went more to school. We do not find an effect on dropouts or marks for all grades. An examination of heterogeneous effects suggests that children in the first grade benefited more from the program as compared to their older peers through lower dropouts and better marks. Overall, our results suggest that well-targeted remedial education programs can boost outcomes of low performers.