To determine whether provision of free spectacles to rural-dwelling Chinese secondary school students with visually-significant refractive error, together with a teacher-based incentive to promote their use, increases the proportion of children going on to academic high school, as opposed to dropping out or pursuing a vocational track.
Year 1 students (about 12-15 years old) from schools in county-level cities and below in Liaoning Province
Uncorrected (self-glasses) visual acuity of ≤6/12 in both eyes
Refractive error meets cut-offs shown to be associated with significantly greater improvement in visual acuity when corrected7 (myopia ≤-0.75 diopters (D, or astigmatism (non-spherical refractive error) ≥1.00 D
Best corrected visual acuity ≥6/7.5 in either eye
Hyperopia ≥2.00 D
Presence of visually-significant ocular condition besides refractive error