In many rural economies, families rely heavily on seasonal farm work, and children’s labor can be essential during peak agricultural periods. When schools schedule high-stakes examinations during these peak seasons, parents choose between keeping their children in school or sending them to the fields to secure household income— facing the difficult task of weighing the immediate benefit of their children's labor against the potential long-term gains of continued schooling. This study finds that when national school examinations coincide with the main harvest season, dropout increases sharply among children from agricultural households—predominantly among boys of secondary-school age. This research highlights a largely overlooked constraint in education policy: the timing of the school year matters as much as the structure of schooling itself.
