In 1997, Zambia instituted a School Re-Entry Policy, which officially states that girls who
become pregnant as students should be allowed to return to school after giving birth. This policy
is part of an effort by the Zambian government to increase education rates among the population
and close the gender gap in education by addressing one of the barriers to education that some
girls face. This paper uses difference-in-differences models to assess the impact of Zambia’s
School Re-entry Policy on educational attainment and adolescent fertility among females in
Zambia. Data were drawn from the 2000 and 2010 Zambia Censuses. The results indicate that
though educational attainment has increased for adolescent mothers since the policy was
implemented, the rate of increase is lower than for females overall. There has been a slight
decrease in the likelihood of giving birth as an adolescent since the policy was implemented for
females with six or more years of education, while this likelihood has risen for females women
with less than six years of education.