Private school vouchers in developing countries: A survey of the evidence

Abstract

This paper provides a narrative review of the existing rigorous evaluations of private school vouchers in developing countries. The findings suggest that school vouchers can be an effective means of expanding access to education, particularly for underserved populations (e.g., poorer students, girls, and students in undersupplied rural and urban communities). However, there is insufficient empirical evidence to sustain the expectation that universal school voucher policies will substantially raise the performance of an education system by increasing school choice and competition; and, universal vouchers are likely to reinforce socioeconomic stratification. However, as a catalyst for increased school attendance, targeted school vouchers have been effective at improving the performance of students on the margins of participation in the education system; and these outcomes can be achieved at lower costs than in the traditional public school system.

Quantum Limitation to the Coherent Emission of Accelerated Charges

“…Moreover, recent theoretical studies indicate the feasibility of generating arbitrarily-delayed single-electron wave packets with GeV energies [44]. The extension of these techniques to few-electron wave packets seems possible [45], for instance by combining two single-electron pulses with the methods of [40][41][42] or via an ultracold gas source [46][47][48], where the electrons are already highly correlated from the beginning. Our results suggest that the development of similar techniques at higher energies would have important applications also in fundamental strong-field physics.…”

The growth of private actors in education in East Africa

“…Overall, countries do not appear to have significantly adopted ePPP arrangements save for Uganda, where interventions are more advanced; Uganda's school voucher programme was established in 2007 as part of its Universal Secondary Education initiative given the high demand for secondary education (Bous, 2019;ISER, 2016). While, some positive effects were found, these were not broadly shared across all PPP schools: for the majority of schools the impact of the model on learning outcomes remained inconclusive (Aslam et al, 2017;Barrera-Osorio et al, 2015;Baum, 2018;Brans, 2011;ISER 2016;Romero et al, 2017). Concerns were also raised over the State's limited capacity to monitor and regulate the situation, as well as the unequal or differential access to education for children from vulnerable groups and the poorest households caused by the intervention (Arinaitwe et al, 2019;ISER, 2016;Verger, 2012).…”

Reducing the constraints to school access and progress: Assessing the effects of a school scholarship program in Malawi

“…Private school vouchers involve the payment of state funds to cover the tuition (and sometimes non-tuition) costs of student attendance in fee-paying private schools. The interest of governments in funding school voucher programs is often related to one of a few desired outcomes: (i) increasing education access, particularly for cash-constrained households; (ii) increasing student learning outcomes; (iii) reducing strain on overburdened government schools; and (iv) reducing education system operating costs (Baum, 2018).…”