Using Low-Cost Private Schools to Fill the Education Gap : An Impact Evaluation of a Program in Pakistan

Educating children is a priority across the globe, but developing countries can face enormous challenges. In Pakistans Sindh province, only about half of primary school age children go to school, making education a priority for the Sindh government. Through the International Development Association (IDA), the World Banks fund for the poorest, the Sindh government received assistance to develop and implement its Sindh education sector reform program to raise enrollment, improve student achievement, and reduce social disparities in education by improving school performance through more accountability and better governance. This included a program offering cash subsidies to private entrepreneurs to provide free, co-educational primary schools in villages in remote areas without local schools. To measure the effect, an impact evaluation was built into this program. The evaluation found that boys and girls in villages that received program-supported private schools were more likely to be in school and they did better on tests than children in villages without such schools. This Evidence to Policy note was jointly produced by the World Bank Group, the Strategic Impact Evaluation Fund (SIEF), and the British governments Department for International Development