Contracting Out Schools at Scale: Evidence from Pakistan

Crawfurd, Lee

doi:10.35489/bsg-rise-wp_2018/022

Cited by 4 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…Although remote learning strategies were implemented in the region and could mitigate the extent of dropouts, 66% of the region’s population lives in rural areas, where access to remote learning is estimated to be less than 30% [ 57 ]. Recent data from Pakistan indicates that some 86% of children returned to school [ 58 ].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We also faced limitations with data availability on exact rates of school dropouts in South Asia, as these were not measured. We were therefore constrained to apply the assumptions on rates of school dropouts from Indonesia during the 1997 Asian financial crisis, across all six countries, but believe that these represent relatively conservative figures, given data from Pakistan [ 58 ]. Finally, our results are based on models estimating the impact of COVID-19 related restrictions on morbidity and mortality among women and children, and the increase and gendered impact of school dropouts, and are therefore approximations.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Assessing the hidden burden and costs of COVID-19 pandemic in South Asia: Implications for health and well-being of women, children and adolescents

Owais

Rizvi

Jawwad

et al. 2023

PLOS Glob Public Health

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The COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately affected vulnerable populations. With its intensity expected to be cyclical over the foreseeable future, and much of the impact estimates still modeled, it is imperative that we accurately assess the impact to date, to help with the process of targeted rebuilding of services. We collected data from administrative health information systems in six South Asian countries (Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka), to determine essential health services coverage disruptions between January–December 2020, and January–June 2021, compared to the same calendar months in 2019, and estimated the impact of this disruption on maternal and child mortality using the Lives Saved Tool. We also modelled impact of prolonged school closures on continued enrollment, as well as potential sequelae for the cohort of girls who have likely dropped out. Coverage of key maternal and child health interventions, including antenatal care and immunizations, decreased by up to 60%, with the largest disruptions observed between April and June 2020. This was followed by a period of recovery from July 2020 to March 2021, but a reversal of most of these gains in April/May 2021, likely due to the delta variant-fueled surge in South Asia at the same time. We estimated that disruption of essential health services between January 2020 and June 2021 potentially resulted in an additional 19,000 maternal and 317,000 child deaths, an increase of 19% and 13% respectively, compared to 2019. Extended school closures likely resulted in 9 million adolescents dropping out permanently, with 40% likely being from poorest households, resulting in decreased lifetime earnings. A projected increase in early marriages for girls who dropped out could result in an additional 500,000 adolescent pregnancies, 153,000 low birthweight births, and 27,000 additional children becoming stunted by age two years. To date, the increase in maternal and child mortality due to health services disruption has likely exceeded the overall number of COVID-19 deaths in South Asia. The indirect effects of the pandemic were disproportionately borne by the most vulnerable populations, and effects are likely to be long-lasting, permanent and in some cases inter-generational, unless policies aimed at alleviating these impacts are instituted at scale and targeted to reach the poorest of the poor. There are also implications for future pandemic preparedness.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessing the hidden burden and costs of COVID-19 pandemic in South Asia: Implications for health and well-being of women, children and adolescents

Owais

Rizvi

Jawwad

et al. 2023

PLOS Glob Public Health

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…This finding is consistent with the lack of observed impact on teacher effort with no improvement in teachers' presence at school. It is also possible that, while individual students did experience some benefit in learning, these effects were offset by the impacts of increased retention of lower-performing students, reducing average performance; this is aligned with Crawfurd (2018) where the authors find null effects on learning from contracting-out of public schools in Punjab, Pakistan to a private company, despite significant impacts on access. Taking this variable cost as a starting point, Table 13 presents cost effectiveness estimates of the intervention.…”

Section: Teacher Attendance and Learning Outcomesmentioning

confidence: 91%

“…Learning outcomes: We anticipate potential improvements in learning outcomes primarily as a result of improvement in teacher availability and reductions in teacher absenteeism. However, given the expectation of improved enrollment, we also anticipate a potential reduction in average learning outcomes because of compositional change in the student body (Crawfurd, 2018).…”

Section: Theory Of Change and Anticipated Impactsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Community Engagement in Schools: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Pakistan

Asim¹,

Riaz²

2020

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The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent.

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The Impact of Private Schools, School Chains and PPPs in Developing Countries

Crawfurd¹,

Hares²,

Todd³

2023

The World Bank Research Observer

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The private school sector has expanded with almost no public intervention to educate half of primary school children in many urban centers in Africa and Asia. Simple comparisons of test scores would suggest that these private schools may provide better quality than public schools, but how much of this difference is due to selection effects is unclear. Much donor and policymaker attention has proceeded on the basis that private schools do perform better, and focused on models of public subsidy to expand access, and investment in networks or chains to encourage expansion. We review the evidence of the effects of private schools on learning, and how that effect translates to public-private partnerships (PPPs). We also study the effects of private school chains. We conduct a systematic review for eligible studies, with transparent search criteria. The search resulted in over 100 studies on low-cost private schools and PPPs, with a large majority being on low-cost private schools. Our meta-analysis shows moderately strong effects from private schooling, although the limited number of experimental studies find much smaller effects than quasi-experimental studies. This advantage, though, is not nearly enough to help most children reach important learning goals. Turning to policy goals, we find that the private school advantage has not translated to public private partnerships, which have shown limited value in improving quality. They can however represent a lower-cost means of increasing access to school. We also find that private school chains perform little better than individual private schools and have little scope for achieving meaningful scale.

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Contracting Out Schools at Scale: Evidence from Pakistan

Cited by 4 publications

References 22 publications

Assessing the hidden burden and costs of COVID-19 pandemic in South Asia: Implications for health and well-being of women, children and adolescents

Assessing the hidden burden and costs of COVID-19 pandemic in South Asia: Implications for health and well-being of women, children and adolescents

Community Engagement in Schools: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Pakistan

The Impact of Private Schools, School Chains and PPPs in Developing Countries

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