Bilingual education in Peru: Evidence on how Quechua-medium education affects indigenous children's academic achievement

•Indigenous children in Quechua schools score 0.429σ higher in mathematics than Indigenous children in Spanish schools.•There is no evidence that these effects are caused by quantitative or language achievement acquired prior to entering school.•There is no evidence that students in Quechua schools have lower performance on Spanish tests than those in Spanish schools.

This study uses the Peruvian Young Lives International Study of Childhood Poverty's School Level data to investigate the effect of Quechua-medium instruction on academic achievement. We find that Indigenous children who attend Quechua-medium schools achieve 0.429 standard deviations higher scores in mathematics compared to Indigenous children who attend Spanish-medium schools. There is no evidence that these effects are caused by quantitative or language achievement acquired prior to entering school. Our findings suggest that Quechua-medium education for children of Quechua speaking parents may play a role in ameliorating the Indigenous test score gap.