Levels of child malnutrition in India fell only slowly during the 1990s, despite significant economic growth and large public spending on the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) program, of which the major component is supplementary feeding for malnourished children. To unravel this...

The authors compare changes in gender roles and women's empowerment in China, India, and the Republic of Korea. Around 1950, these newly formed states were largely poor and agrarian, with common cultural factors that placed similar severe constraints on women's autonomy. They adopted very...

This paper examines the phenomenon of the over-supply of teachers but shortage of qualified teachers in Indonesia. Using a theoretical framework of government-dominated market with government-set wage rate and demand for teachers, the analysis explores how teacher supply, particularly the...

Technical education and training has been dramatically expanding in Brazil recently. However, there remains no evidence on the cost effectiveness of this alternative track to a more general education. This paper quantifies the wage returns of completing technical and vocational education and...

Although there is a general agreement in the literature of the importance of social-emotional skills for labor market success, there is little consensus on the specific skills that should be acquired or how and when to teach them. The psychology, economics, policy research, and program...

This paper reviews the experience of the Middle East and North Africa region in education attainment over the past four decades (1970-2010). It documents the following main findings: (a) all countries in the region experienced significant improvements in educational attainment over this period;...

This paper assesses inequality of opportunity in educational achievement using the Human Opportunity Index methodology on data from the Programme for International Student Assessment. The findings suggest that there are large inequalities in learning outcomes as measured by demonstrated...

Despite impressive gains in increasing access to school over the past 20 years, an estimated 57 million children worldwide do not go to school. Abolishing school fees has increased enrollment rates in several countries where enrollments were low and school fees were high. However, such policies...

Good teachers are essential for high-quality educational systems. However, little is known about teachers'skills formation during college. By combining two standardized tests for Colombian students, one taken at the end of senior year in high school and the other when students are near...