Regional Favouritism, Elections, and Legacies of Inequality: The Dynamics of Education Redistribution in Post-War Burundi

ABSTRACT Addressing education inequalities is important for institution building post-war. Yet, tensions exist in education development between persistent institutional legacies of inequality and changing ethnoregional power after violence. I analyse the distribution of national exam participation in post-war Burundi to explore this tension. I find that while marginalized groups have gained access to political power, inequalities in access to education have increased over time. I argue that redistributive education priorities are not directly able to overcome legacies of institutional inequality in the short- and long-term without policies that look holistically and beyond education access in resource poor-countries such as Burundi.