What do private schools imply for educational provision? Insights from the LEAPS report Jishnu Das (CPR & World Bank) Tahir Andrabi (Pomona College) Asim Khwaja and Tristan Zajonc (Harvard U.) Tara Vishwanath (World Bank)

Here come private schools Huge private sector growth starting from 1995 Currently 30 percent of all primary enrollment 3 Things about the private sector Doubled (# schools) every 5 years from 1995 Highest current growth in rural areas Schools are cheap: A dime a day Similar patterns in India HP (darling of the “you can have good government schools” crowd) shows rapid private sector growth between 2000 and 2005

Question: What should policy look like in this new environment? Two issues discussed here The grounds for regulation and certification Arguments for and against “money following the child” (voucher schemes) (Not surprisingly, the two are related) DATA: Pakistan LEAPS study. Multi-year study of 24,000 children over 4 years in 800 public and private schools with lots of data LEAPS report uses only 1 st year of data

Regulation and Certification The arguments for regulation and certification “Parents cannot tell what schools are good and what are bad: private schools are fleecing parents” “A minimal quality standard is required since parents may not care about their children’s education” “Private Schools earn excessive profits in a monopolistic environment” NONE of these are true in the data

& what you need for vouchers Parents are informed Parents care about what governments care about The supply curve of private schools is sufficiently elastic #1 is probably not a problem, #2 and #3 are

Picture 1: Parents know how well their kids are doing

Picture 2: Parents know how good schools are

Picture 3: Private Schools are better

Picture 3: ….way better

Picture 4: …the worst private schools are much better than the worst govt. schools

Picture 5: Private schools are primarily located in competitive clusters

So, profits are low. The median profit in a private school is the annual wage of a male teacher—this is the opportunity cost for the principal of the school

But: Competitive clustering also means that private schools can be far from the poor

This matters: parents care about distance

….and teacher supply is a huge issue

Concluding thoughts Find little evidence for regulating private schools But are cautiously optimistic about vouchers… New schools will need to set up in poor areas Which may be an issue given teacher supply constraints

A longer term plan Vouchers, but transitioning (and perhaps permanent govt. schools) By the way… What should we do about those govt. schools?

Teachers, teachers, teachers

The English Test score of a teacher with secondary education The English Test score of a teacher with a bachelors

Teachers, teachers, teachers This is the gap in child test-scores between children with teachers who have a secondary- education versus a bachelor’s degree This is the gap in child test-scores between children in public and private schools, both with teachers who have a secondary education This is the average salary of a teacher in the public sector This is the average salary of a teacher in the private sector

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