Leveraging the Private Sector to Improve Primary School Enrolment

Abstract

This study evaluates the effects of publicly funded private primary schools on child enrolment in a sample of 199 villages in 10 underserved districts of rural Sindh province, Pakistan. The program is found to significantly increase child enrolment, which increases by 30 percentage points in treated villages. There is no overall differential effect of the intervention for boys and girls, due to similar enrolment rates in control villages. The study finds no evidence that providing greater financial incentives to entrepreneurs for the recruitment of girls leads to a greater increase in female enrolment than does an equal compensation scheme for boys and girls. Test scores improve dramatically in treatment villages, rising by 0.67 standard deviations relative to control villages.

Citation

Barrera-Osorio, F.; Blakeslee, D.S.; Hoover, M.; Linden, L.L.; Raju, D.; Ryan, S. Leveraging the Private Sector to Improve Primary School Enrolment. Presented at RISE Launch Event on 18-19 June 2015 in Washington DC, USA. (2015) 37 pp.

Leveraging the Private Sector to Improve Primary School Enrolment

Published 1 January 2015