Delivering Education to the Underserved through a Public-Private Partnership Program in Pakistan
This study experimentally evaluates the short-term impacts of public per-student subsidies to partnering local entrepreneurs to establish and operate tuition-free, coeducational, private primary schools in educationally underserved villages in Sind...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , |
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2017
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/868011504015520701/Delivering-education-to-the-underserved-through-a-public-private-partnership-program-in-Pakistan http://hdl.handle.net/10986/28354 |
| Summary: | This study experimentally evaluates the
short-term impacts of public per-student subsidies to
partnering local entrepreneurs to establish and operate
tuition-free, coeducational, private primary schools in
educationally underserved villages in Sindh province,
Pakistan. Two subsidy structures were tested, one in which
the subsidy amount did not differ by student gender, and the
other in which the subsidy amount was higher for female
students. The program administrator introduced the latter
structure with the aim of correcting for the gender
disparity in school enrollment in the general program
setting. The program increased school enrollment by 30
percentage points in treated villages, for boys and girls.
It increased test scores by 0.63 standard deviations in
treated villages. The gender-differentiated subsidy
structure did not have larger impacts on girls'
enrollment or test scores than the gender-uniform one.
Program schools proved more effective in raising test scores
than government schools located near the villages, with
program-school students scoring 0.16 standard deviations
higher, despite coming from more socioeconomically
disadvantaged backgrounds. Estimations of the demand for
schooling and education production suggest nearly efficient
choices on school inputs by the program administrator and
partnering entrepreneurs. |
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