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This paper examines the distributional impact of public education in Greece using the micro-data of the 1993/94 Household Budget Survey. The aggregate distributional impact of public education is found to be progressive although the incidence varies according to the level of education under examination. In-kind transfers of education services in the fields of primary and secondary education lead to a considerable decline in inequality, whereas the distributional impact of tertiary education transfers is found to be regressive. The overall progressivity of public education transfers declined between 1988 and 1994, and almost the entire decline is driven by changes in the progressivity of tertiary education transfers. The main policy implications of the findings are outlined in the concluding section.

With more than ten million children out of school, Nigeria is the country furthest away from universal primary education. Low access to school is concentrated in the north of the country where a tradition of religious education has been seen as both a constraint and an opportunity. This paper uses recent survey data to explain household decisions related to secular and religious education. It demonstrates a shift in attitudes with unobserved household characteristics that favor religious education attendance being negatively correlated with secular school attendance after controlling for a rich set of background variables. The paper also provides quantitative evidence to support the argument that the poor quality of secular education acts as a disincentive to secular school attendance. This finding cast doubts at policy attempts to increase secular school enrolment through the integration of religious and secular school curricula.