Region: East Asia and Pacific (EAP)
Country: Pakistan
Keywords: Privatization
DocumentLink(s):
Document Details:
By Felipe Barrera-Osorio, David S. Blakeslee, Matthew Hoover, Leigh L. Linden, Dhushyanth Raju, May 2013.
The publication evaluates the effects of the Promoting Low-Cost Private Schooling in Rural Sindh (PPRS) program on child enrollment in a sample of 199 villages in 10 underserved districts of rural Sindh province, Pakistan. The PPRS program seeks to expand access to primary education in underserved rural communities through public-private partnerships (PPPs) with local entrepreneurs.
Enrollment is tuition-free and open to all children in the village between the ages of 5 and 9 with the entrepreneur receiving a per-student cash subsidy as well as additional, non-monetary assistance to improve the quality of the education provided. To explore strategies for reducing the gender-gap, two different subsidy schemes were introduced. In the first, the entrepreneur is provided a gender-uniform subsidy for each child enrolled, while, in the second, the entrepreneur receives a higher subsidy for each girl enrolled. It is hoped that the gender-differentiated subsidy scheme will encourage the school operators to take specific measures that will be attractive to the parents of girls, such as hiring female teachers, providing safe transportation and a safe schooling environment, or even offering small stipends to girls.
The program has significantly increased child enrollment by 30 percentage points with similar enrollment rates in the control villages for boys and girls. There is however no evidence that providing greater financial incentives to entrepreneurs for the recruitment of girls leads to a greater increase in female enrollment.
Related Information:
Impacts of PPPs on Gender Inclusion
Mainstreaming Gender in Education Projects
Tracking Reference:
Expanding_Educational_Opportunities_In_Remote_Parts_ Pakistan_2013_EN.pdf
Updated: August 25, 2020