Using Low-Cost Private Schools to Fill the Education Gap

Abstract

Educating children is a priority across
 the globe, but developing countries can face enormous
 challenges. In Pakistans Sindh province, only about half of
 primary school age children go to school, making education a
 priority for the Sindh government. Through the International
 Development Association (IDA), the World Banks fund for the
 poorest, the Sindh government received assistance to develop
 and implement its Sindh education sector reform program to
 raise enrollment, improve student achievement, and reduce
 social disparities in education by improving school
 performance through more accountability and better
 governance. This included a program offering cash subsidies
 to private entrepreneurs to provide free, co-educational
 primary schools in villages in remote areas without local
 schools. To measure the effect, an impact evaluation was
 built into this program. The evaluation found that boys and
 girls in villages that received program-supported private
 schools were more likely to be in school and they did better
 on tests than children in villages without such schools.
 This Evidence to Policy note was jointly produced by the
 World Bank Group, the Strategic Impact Evaluation Fund
 (SIEF), and the British governments Department for
 International Development.