Skip to main content

The High return to private schooling in a low-income country

Submitted by admin on
Abstract

Studies from the United States, Latin America, and Asia tend to show no dramatic difference in student performance between private schools and public schools. The situation in Kenya—a poor country with weak public institutions—is different: the authors of this working paper find a large effect of private schooling on test scores, equivalent to one full standard deviation. The effect dwarfs the impact of any rigorously tested intervention to raise performance within public schools. Nearly two-thirds of private schools operate at lower cost than the median government school, leading the authors to suggest that expanding access to private schools may be a relatively inexpensive way to improve education in low-income countries with weak public school systems.

Author
Bold, Tessa
Kimenyi, Mwangi
Mwabu, Germano
Sandefur, Justin
Corporate Author
Center for Global Development (USA)(CGD)
Year of publication
2011
Imprint
Washington, D.C. (CGD, 2011, p.12)
Linguistic region
Country (Geographical area)
Source database
curatED
Language