private educational trade-offs in developing countries

Inr 1. Educononai Devrlopment. Pnnred in Great Britain

Vol.

13. NO. 1. pp. 373-386.

1993 0

0738-0593193 56.00 + ,130 lW3 Pergnmon Press Lrd

THE EVIDENCE ON PUBLIC/ PRIVATE EDUCATIONAL TRADE-OFFS IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES ABBY R. RIDDELL Harvard Institute for International Development,

1 Eliot Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.

Abstract - Developing countries have been urged to diversify their sources of educational finance since the early 1980s. Claims of the greater efficiency of private schools have been advanced as part of the argument supporting such advice, though the main thrust has been the financial stringency of central government. Nonetheless, reflecting a similar debate within industrialized countries. several studies have attempted to test the waters regarding the efficiency (as well as effectiveness) of private vs public schools. This paper examines the evidence and concludes that on grounds of efficiency, some of the findings are suspect.

INTRODUCTION The current debate on alternative forms of educational finance is heavily biased in favor of decentralized and private alternatives, almost as if the norm were public, centralized educational systems, although these are more the exception than the rule.’ This bias, however, relates to the origin of the debate, at least insofar as it is played out with respect to the Third World: the stringency of government finance for social sector development and the search for alternative sources of funding. Comparisons of public and private school types have been a hotly debated topic in modern industrialized nations as well, though stemming from rather different concerns, namely, the decline in national levels of achievement, and more generally, disillusionment with the ability of the public school system to raise achievement under current operating conditions. Efficiency, thus, has been a focal point of educational policy debates in industrialized and Third World countries, but from two different perspectives. In industrialized countries, the search has been not necessarily for the least costly alternative, but certainly the most effective one, in terms of achievement levels. In Third World countries, the search has been for the cheapest form of educational production, even if quality deteriorates, for access to education has been the greatest concern. The pendulum is turning, however. This 373

greater emphasis on access has constrained the quality of education in many developing countries, and policymakers are concerned to maximize not only the numbers of students attending ‘schools’ by any name, but also what is being learnt in those schools2 It is, therefore, appropriate to examine the evidence concerning the differential effectiveness and efficiency of public vs private schools in developing countries. Efficiency is understood in this context as the production of greater achievement for lower costs. This is a limited goal, not only because the literature is small, but also because the focus of most of the case studies is narrow. The implications of educational privatization go beyond any ostensible efficiency gains ascribed to private schools, and concern the broader issues of socialization, access, equality of opportunity, etc. In particular, however, because privatization has acquired an ideological ring, it is all the more important to examine the concrete evidence for the claims made on its behalf. In the case of education, the efficiency focus is especially relevant because it is the reduction of the burden of central government expenditure which has been the driving force behind advocates of educational privatization. Therefore, if the greater or at least comparative efficiency of the private sector is not proven, its merit must be evaluated in a wider context. Five studies focus on the relative efficiency of private vs public schools in developing

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countries, but data have had to be tailored to answer this question in most cases. These five studies concern secondary schools, exclusively, in Kenya, Thailand, the Philippines, the Dominican Republic, and Zimbabwe. The focus of these five studies on secondary schools as opposed to primary schools may seem appropriate for considering the educational efficiency question, given that the private sector historically has played a larger part in the provision of secondary education, whereas the role of the state in providing basic education has been more dominant. This reflects the view of the state’s use of basic education to instill national values and a national culture more than secondary education which is geared more towards the development of skills for the job market. Whilst the efficiency aspects of the provision of primary education, of course, are relevant, they are less pressing, from the state’s perspective. Besides the five studies, several other studies go only as far as the effectiveness domain, but lack castings for answering the efficiency question. These cover Colombia and Tanzania, Malawi, and Brazil. The area of school type comparisons is a methodological minefield. In order to evaluate the different studies, considerable attention will have to be paid to research design as well as data quality. KENYA Probably the most comprehensive comparison of the public and private educational sectors in a developing country is that which was carried out in Kenya (Knight and Sabot, 1990). In a study which otherwise documents the differences between Kenya’s and Tanzania’s educational systems, evaluating their respective contributions toward labor productivity, economic growth and income inequality, one chapter focuses on a comparison of Kenya’s public and private secondary schools.3 The range of public and private school types across different countries necessitates an explanation of what these labels mean in the Kenyan context. The public secondary schools in Kenya are highly subsidized, relatively highquality schools, particularly with respect to the private sector, which mainly comprises underresourced, harambee schools developed by local communities, only partially subsidized by

government, and having tuition costs higher than government schools. Interestingly, whereas the research comes out in favor of Kenyan government schools re: their cost effectiveness relative to private schools, the study nonetheless purports to show that overall. Kenya produced a more efficient and a more equitable system than Tanzania (which had a much smaller private educational sector) by allowing private schools (albeit less efficient) to flourish. There is excess demand for places in Kenya’s government secondary schools, accounted for in the study by the much higher private rate of return at these schools (the basis of their greater external ‘efficiency’). These higher rates of return are attributed to the greater cognitive skills of government school graduates and not to school type, it is argued. The authors suggest that raising user fees in the subsidized government sector could provide the means to improve the quality of private secondary schools and given the disparity in rates of return to the two sectors, would not lead to an under-utilization of government secondary school places. On grounds of external efficiency, government schools merit public investment. More is produced in output (achievement and consequent higher wages) for every unit of input, relative to private schools. On grounds of of user fees is equity, the introduction indicated at government schools, both because more advantaged students have a higher probability of attending these schools and because higher private rates of return are attendant upon graduation from government schools. Related to concerns of educational quality, more investment is required in private schools to bring them up to the standards of government schools. The imposition of user fees at the government schools is one means of acquiring additional resources for such investment, it is argued. On grounds of access, the evidence can be interpreted from at least two different perspectives. On the one hand, the study shows how the probability of children of uneducated parents gaining access to secondary school increased from 0.21 in 1960 to 0.73 in 1975. This is attributed to the free rein given to the development of the private educational sector. However, on the other hand, the study also shows that the probability of a government

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school student attaining a high score on the Form 4 examination is nearly five times as great as the probability for a harambee school student. Given the differentiation by quality of education between the two sectors, this discrepancy in achievement raises the question of whether access to education in general is the appropriate measure. Another way of looking at the quesion of access would be from the standpoint of access to obtaining enhanced cognitive skills. While Kenya is lauded for allowing the private sector to substantially increase access to secondary education, particularly with respect to Tanzania,-’ it is important to note the cost of this increased access in terms of the much greater social differentiation produced.5 Indeed, the pessimistic conclusion regarding the lack of intergenerational mobility evidenced by the Kenyan system makes one reconsider the praise meted out: The relative rate of promotion into the tertiary system of children from less privileged backgrounds . . . declines as the secondary system expands. This tendency counterbalances greater equality in the composition of demand for tertiary schooling . . . Increased inequality in the distribution of places in the tertiary system will tend to offset the effect on intergenerational mobility of the decrease in inequality in the secondary system. (Knight and Sabot, 1990, p. 220)

It is debatable whether increased access to an inferior education in a job market requiring escalating credentials is really the increase in access as intended (or at least as desired by the majority population!). Inequality of opportunity in Kenya is deflected to the next educational level in a system which provides access to larger numbers to what is clearly a second-best education. On methodological grounds. nhilst the Kenyan study of Givate and public secondan, schools goes a long way touards explaining the different sectoral contributions to cognitive skill development and proven. related earning power, as one is not able to measure gains in achievement which then can be attributed to learning at the particular school, the measures of ‘efficiency’ are biased.6 Similarly, the adjustments made for family background are a step in the right direction, but are not always wielded appropriately.’ The Knight and Sabot study is probably the best ‘economists’ ’ view of the situation, and

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ironically comes up with government schools being more efficient than private schools in the Kenyan context - contrary to the assertions made in the general literature concerning these sectoral comparisons. Much of the educational reality is missing from the analysis, however. What are the school type differences in practice? If one were able to channel more funds to the private sector, what further expenditure would lessen the differences between the two sectors? The jury is still out regarding real school type differences with proper accounting for prior achievement and real castings enabling one to measure the efficiency of the two sectors. How big are the efficiency differences between the two systems? It is still unclear, despite the evidence provided, for one is not measuring gains divorced from prior ability, nor are the corrections for selectivity bias sufficient to avoid further bias in the estimates due to the absence of modelling important covariances within schools. For a subsample of the returns to cognitive the respondents, ability, as opposed to school type are clearer, but the relationship between the two is still clouded. The benefits of more widespread access to education resulting from a greater reliance on the private sector may well be offset by inequalities further down the line, as clearly expressed by one author on the subject: Despite opening up access to education to a high percentage of the school age population, there remain, however, fundamental questions associated both with the quality and equity of systems dependent upon community financing. . Reliance on community selfhelp certainly exacerbates, and may well create inequalities between communities . . . Only in exceptional circumstances (related mostly to levels of personal political patronage) can schools claim to be offering much more than an educational facade. (Lillis, 1987, p. 115) Different studies concerned with privatizing education concentrate on different aspects of the privatization terrain. In the Kenyan study, the focus is on the use of the private sector to increase educational provision. but the private sector is portrayed as the poor cousin to the government sector in terms of quality and achievement. The conclusion that one is intended to draw from the study is that the private sector can be used as a means of expanding educational provision under conditions of excess demand and financial stringency

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and that user fees at government schools should be increased in the direction, if not the full extent of equalizing private returns from the two sectors and used to improve the quality of private education. The case for further privatization of the Kenyan educational sector is not as strong as the case for the imposition of user fees at government secondary schools, however, given that the private sector is less effective as well as less efficient. The success of the final policy implication of raising user fees at government schools as a means of improving the quality of the private sector, however, rests on the feasibility of implementing such a transfer effectively. THAILAND It is not possible in the other four studies which address the relative efficiencies of the private and public educational sectors to draw out as comprehensive implications as for Kenya. A study of Thailand (Jimenez et al., 1988) draws on data from the IEA mathematics achievement survey and compares the achievement gains of some 3300 eighth-graders in nearly 100 private and public schools. Unlike the Kenyan study, in which the harambee schools comprise a particular category of ‘private’ school, namely, a poor relation of the well-endowed public schools, ‘private’ in the Thailand context comprises a range of school types of varying quality, catering to pupils of both high and low socioeconomic status. The Thailand study is able to focus on class level attributes which comprise some of the differences between the two sectors8 and has the advantage of a value-added measure of mathematics achievement, given that the pupils surveyed were examined at the beginning and the end of eighth grade. The study concludes that not only are private schools more effective, but they are also more efficient than public schools in eighth grade mathematics achievement. The results of the regressions on different student background variables and controlling for different class compositions (e.g. single-sex, co-educational) show a 15 point difference in favor of private schools. However, this 15point difference is reduced to 5 points when peer group effects are taken into consideration.9 The authors conclude emphatically that the

effectiveness of private schools is not at a cost disadvantage. although their costing data is for income alone, necessarily equated with presumed expenditure, and rough, on their own admission. The sectoral achievement differences are modest, after peer group effects have been considered. Whilst their methodology of comparison is improved, utilizing a longitudinal measure of achievement and adjusting for selectivity bias, doubts are still cast on the efficiency of their parameter estimation in uncovering the private school effectiveness advantage, no less the efficiency advantage, due to methodological and data limitations. The fact that peer group effects so greatly reduce the private school advantage makes one more suspicious of the effectiveness result, given that the covariances at the class level are not modelled explicitly, and could, as has been found elsewhere, turn the results on their head (see Raudenbush and Bryk, 1986 and Aitkin and Longford, 1986). What is of interest in the study is the finding that the choice of a private school was conditioned largely on the language of instruction used and the school type (single-sex or coeducational). Private schools are used in Thailand to offer alternative educational choices. If they are truly more effective than public schools, an increase in the number of private secondary schools may be an appropriate policy implication, as long as the issue of access to the private sector is played out for its equity implications. The differences in parental costs, as opposed to total costs at each school type is not made clear in the study, so it is not possible to entertain the notion of access in terms of greater equity across the school types as a result of the existence of private secondary schools. On the contrary, the conclusion drawn by the authors is: When the budgetary constraints limit the public sector’s ability to provide enough places for everybody at some levels of schooling, private schools can be considered as a cost-effective option to respond to growing demand, at least for those who can afford them. Subsidized public places could then be improved and directed to the needy. (Jimenez,

Lockheed

and Wattanawaha,

1988, p. 162)

There are assumptions regarding the implementation of such a scenario, however. Whilst private schools may be at least as effective if not more effective than public schools in the Thai context, their greater efficiency is not

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proven in this study. Advocacy on their behalf, in any event, should go beyond the realm of cost-effectiveness and consider the overall implications of the proliferation of private schools. PHILIPPINES There are three studies which address different aspects of the alternative funding debate in the context of the Philippines. Two of these studies (Jimenez et al., 1988a, b) start with data from a household level survey, and then follow the students to their particular schools. In the first study (Jimenez et al., 1988a), no individual school characteristics are analyzed, because the schools are not identified, apart from school type (as was the case with the Kenyan study). Three types of school are described, but only two are identified for the students - public or private. There are in fact public national high schools funded by the national government, public local schools funded mainly by local government units, and private schools run both by sectarian and nonsectarian institutions. Private schools in the Philippines constitute about 40% of the secondary educational sector and cater to higher socio-economic groups, relative to the government schools. No data are provided concerning school tuition fees. The achievement measure used is a grade level equivalency test for all the high school students surveyed at any grade. Results of a mental ability test were used to control for prior ability. Adjustment is made for the selectivity bias involved in school choice decisions, using distance from the school attended as the exogenous variable. After controlling for student background factors, the authors conclude that there is a private school advantage of about 15% of the sample mean achievement score in English and Filipino, but the reverse in mathematics of about 4% of the mean score. Given the importance of peer group effects in explaining public/private school differentials in other studies as well as the fact that the equations denoting the selectivity bias for choice of school in the Philippines demonstrate the significance of socio-economic background factors, the plausibility of the private school advantage is put into question because no school or class level covariances are modelled

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explicitly. Furthermore, because there are no school level variables at all, one is left guessing as to the reasons for the differences in sectoral advantages across subjuects. The claim of cost-effectiveness in the study is unfounded, given that no tuition, nor, indeed, any school level castings were gathered. It is based on the cross-level inference of the average school cost by sector in the country applied to the pupil level achievement data for the sample. It is not possible to evaluate the implications for equity, access and quality given the data available in this study. The next study dealing with cross-sectoral comparisons in the Philippines examines the question of whether local financing leads to greater efficiency (Jimenez et al., 1988b). As with the first study discussed above, a household survey was used to identify students, this time at primary level. Data were collected at their schools on costs and finance and other school characteristics. It was found that schools with the largest proportion of local finance had the lowest per capita costs, and an attempt was made to understand whether this greater ‘efficiency’ was related to lower school quality. A random sample of 20 grade 4 pupils at these schools were then given achievement tests in English, Filipino, and mathematics, and their average scores were used as an indicator of school quality. A cost function was estimated which showed no correlation with school quality, .and so the conclusion was drawn that schools with a greater proportion of local financing were, therefore, more efficient. While the question of whether local financing produces more efficient schools is of great interest, the statistics commanded to prove the point are inadequate to the task. The measure of school quality is poor. School level achievement data cannot be used to compare quality differences across school types (Woodhouse and Goldstein, 1988). A further study (Lockheed and Zhao, 1991) delves more thoroughly into the aspect of decentralization in the Philippines and whether greater achievement can be realized under conditions of greater local control. The study utilizes a multilevel regression model and analyzes the IEA science and mathematics achievement data for eighth grade students in three different school types: government (national), private, and baranguay (local government-controlled). There are no school

OLS

HLM

Secondary; public - national; public - local; private (higher SES)

Lockheed and Zhao (1991) Secondary; public - national; public - local; private (higher SES)

(1988b)

fimenez er al.

OLS f setectivity bias

Secondary; public - national; public - local; private (higher SES)

OLS + selectivity bias

OLS + selectivity bias

Jimenez E[ al. (1988a)

Secondary private (both high- and low-quality; public

OLS -t- selectivity bias

Philippines

Jimenez et al, (1988)

Thailand

Secondary; unsubsidized private; subsidized pubtic

Method

Secondary; private F (elitist, religious); private 0; public

Knight and Sabot (1990)

Kenya

Level/school types

Dominican Republic Jimenez et ul. (1991)

Study

Courltry

so&o-economic

Local cheapest (unproven)

Peer group effects explain most school type differences (math); decentralization not most effective

Centralized; no subsidy to private; secondary emphasis; U.S. model

Private > public (effectiveness); Engiish + Filipino; small public advantage in math questionable; efficiency unproven

Private > public (effectiveness and efficiency (math)); opposite effect found; peer group effect; efficiency unreliable

Private > govt (efficiency + effectiveness) for math but questionable; private as alternative choice (lang. and co-e&sing!+sex); equity (implem. *); peer group effects

differentiation

greater

Govt > private (efficiency); increased access by private; lack of equity (implcm.*);

Results

Centralized; no subsidy to private; secondary emphasis; U.S. model

Centralized; no subsidy to private; secondary emphasis; U.S. model

Centralized; no subsidy to private; secondary emphasis; Japanese model

Centralized; no subsidy to private; secondary emphasis; U.K. model

Centralized; no subsidy to private; secondary emphasis; U.K. model

Education system type

Table 1. Public/private school effectiveness and efficiency studies reviewed

g F:

g

z ;d

$

Decentralized; no subsidy to private; secondary emphasis; French model Decentralized; no subsidy to private; secondary emphasis; French model

OLS

OLS

OLS + selectivity bias

Govt. mission, community

Secondary; private, high fee

Secondary; private, high fee

Psacharopoulos (1987)

Jimenez and Cox (1989)

Secondary

Tan er al. (1984)

Lockheed and Bruns (1990) Secondary; federal technical; general secondary; SENAI (private)

Primary

HLM

OLS + selectivity bias

OLS + selectivity bias

Secondary; private, high fee

Jimenez and Cox (1989)

Thobani (1983)

OLS

Secondary; private, high fee

Psacharopoulos (1987)

Bon (1991)

Small private advantage (math); public advantage (Portuguese); peer group effect

Inequity increases; decentralization better (questionable) Centralized; subsidies to private; both primary and secondary emphasis; U.K. model Centralized; no subsidy to private; secondary emphasis; French model

User fees: greater access equity (implem.*)

Private > public academic; public > private vocational; both questionable; equity (implem.+)

Centralized; no subsidy to private; secondary emphasis; French model Centralized; subsidies to private; both primary and secondary emphasis; U.K. model

Private > public academic; public > private vocational; both questionable; equity (implem.*)

Centralized; no subsidy to private; secondary emphasis; socialist model

Private > public academic; public > private vocational; both questionable; equity (implem.*)

Private > public academic; public > private vocational; both questionable; equity (implem.*)

Decentralized; subsidies to Public and low-cost private private; secondary > high fee private (efficiency and emphasis; U.K. model effectiveness) English but, only high fee pass; access increased; equity not Decentralized; subsidies to Social differentiation; lack of choice for majority private; secondary emphasis; U.K. model

Secondary; govt A (white); ML3 govt B urban/rural (black); independent; mission; local govt (private)

Hiddell (1988, 1992)

*Capacity to implement program to address equity concerns questionable.

Brazil

Malawi

Tanzania

Colombia

Zimbabwe

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costs in the data set, so it is not possible to examine the efficiency of the different school types. However, school type differences in achievement in science and mathematics are found to be explained almost entirely by peer group effects, namely average SES at the schools. The study analyzes certain school management practices and finds that teachers in locally controlled schools ‘provided a less orderly environment, the academic emphasis was less and there was less local control over teaching and school management. The opportunities presented by decentralization were not employed to improve student achievement’ (Lockheed and Zhao, 1991, p. 31). These results cast further doubt over the use of decentralization as a sole means toward educational system change. In the world of analyzing simple dichotomies, this study reminds us that reality is more complex. DOMINICAN

REPUBLIC

In a study (Jimenez et al., 1991) which purports to conclude that private secondary schools in the Dominican Republic are both more effective and efficient in ‘producing’ mathematics achievement, closer examination of even the results reported provide evidence of the opposite effect, at least in the case of private elitist schools. Three school types are surveyed, two private, fee-paying school types, catering to the more economically advantaged urban groups, but of two types, ‘F’ type, being more elitist, and normally religiously affiliated, and the other ‘0’ type, and one type of tuitionfree, urban public school. Nearly 2500 eighth grade students in 76 schools were tested, using the IEA mathematics test at the beginning and end of the school year, one or two classes per school. Background pupil and certain, limited classroom and school variables were collected. The authors attempted to control for the selectivity bias of the sample by utilizing a Heckman statistic which reports the likelihood of particular families choosing one of the three school types on the basis of some of these measured background characteristics. The results reported allege to show an overall private school advantage. What is interesting, however, is that whilst the authors demonstrate the importance of peer group characteristics in explaining private/public school mathematics achievement differentials,

they do not choose to highlight this model when drawing their substantive conclusions about a private school advantage, despite the fact that the advantage is substantially reversed when peer group characteristics are included in the equations. Whereas the largest effect size reported in the study (2.16) is for the private elitist schools - from the unconditional model whose results are reported - this advantage is eroded in the peer group model in which both public and ‘0’ type private schools fare better. In the peer group model, public schools produce results of about one-third a standard deviation above private ‘F’ type schools, and private ‘0’ type schools produce mathematics achievement at about one-half a standard deviation above public schools. Not a lot can be drawn from the significance of the efficiency indicators, given that the cost data were gathered five years after the original data collection, and private school costs are assumed to be merely the sum of the tuition and fees charged. The conclusion that we would draw from the study of the Dominican Republic is that nonelitist private schools do remarkably well, given their relative under-resourcing in comparison with elitist, private and public schools. They produce 10% higher achievement than public schools, for 60% of the cost. On the other hand, private elitist schools are relatively inefficient institutions, producing 20% lower achievement than public schools at 46% more of the cost. While the authors reasonably question whether peer group effects may substitute for the rather complicated selection equations they apply to the data, I can see no reason for their reverting to the unconditional models when producing the final school types comparisons. Whilst the peer group models illustrate the extent to which the peer group effects account for the private elitist school advantage, they do not obviate the private school effect in terms of the ‘0’ type schools. ZIMBABWE Zimbabwe is the only country having a decentralized educational system for which we have data on which to compare the efficiency and effectiveness of different school types. Because of this decentralization, there are more school types to compare than in the other

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studies reviewed. Six school types, in fact are differentiated in the two Zimbabwean studies (Riddell, 1988,1992). English language achievement at Form 4 is the outcome measure. A pre-test at grade 7 controls for initial differences in achievement, and school level castings were available for the 27 schools in the efficiency analysis and the 29 schools in the effectiveness analysis, covering between 1200 and 1700 pupils.l” There were three different government school types: (1) Group A, primarily urban, and formerly catering solely to white children; (2) Group B, urban; and (3) Group B, rural schools, both of which catered for the black population. In addition, the three other private school types consisted of: (1) mission schools, run by different religious orders; (2) ‘independent’ schools, modelled on the elitist private schools of the United Kingdom; and (3) district council schools, which, while run by local government, received only the subsidies afforded other ‘private’ schools. This final category of school type accounted for the majority of the expansion in enrollments following Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980, and were built, primarily, with labor and bricks donated by the local communities. Both studies, whether for the purposes of investigating effectiveness or efficiency, show the discrepancies in analysis utilizing ordinary least squares, as opposed to multilevel regression analysis. The conclusion which would be reached according to OLS would be that independent and mission schools are both the most effective as well as the most efficient, producing the greatest increments in predicted grades for the least cost (by as much as one-quarter the cost of, for instance, the government Group A schools). In the alternative multilevel regression results, which adequately model the covariances within the clustering at the classroom and school levels, government and low-cost private schools (the district council schools) are identified as being both more effective and efficient on the basis of their residuals ranking. The use of predicted grades from a regression equation which models a relatively small proportion of the total variance in achievement is a highly questionable metric on which to place one’s bets for efficiency or effectiveness comparisons. Besides the greater statistical efficiency (and better portrayal of

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the hierarchical reality under investigation), the utilization of a broad-brush residuals analysis for the purpose of ranking the different schools, enables judgements of efficiency and effectiveness to reflect the total variance in the outome measure. Further investigation would have to be carried out to understand the school type basis of the differentiation in effectiveness and efficiency uncovered. Just as in the Kenyan study in which it was found that greater access to secondary education was provided by recourse to community schools, the same could be argued in the Zimbabwean case. Certainly the huge expansion in secondary school enrollments after Independence were largely accounted for by the proliferation of ‘cornmunity’ schools, namely, these district council schools. However, despite the fact that in Zimbabwe, relatively low-cost schools were not necessarily amongst the least efficient nor effective, it is important to recognize that only the high fee-paying independent schools were predicted to produce passing English ‘0’ level grades on average (5-7 being a pass). Therefore, the same question concerning equity, as that posed in Kenya, needs to be raised: is increased access to relatively lowquality institutions, though capable of raising achievement levels but still not to a passing level, sufficient?” Of course, this goes beyond the remit of this paper and becomes a philosophical question. What is being raised, however, is the whole question of social differentiation induced by the proliferation of school types. The different results in the Zimbabwe studies, depending on which form of analysis was utilized, should make one skeptical about the results of the other case studies under review. There is a certain irony in juxtaposing the above Zimbabwe studies with another carried out in 1989 which illustrates the limited choice parents have in making decisions on schooling for their children in Zimbabwe (Ilon, 1991). Whereas Riddell found that the high feepaying, elite schools may not have been the most cost-effective, it was only parents of children at such schools who were able to exercise significant choice in determining the school their children would attend, in the Ilon study. This, of course, is important in the context of these high fee-paying schools being

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the only ones predicted to pass in the Riddell (1992) study. In the Ilon study, schools are divided into three types: government, mission, and ‘community’ or, what were termed above, ‘district council’ (local government) schools. The major finding was that: Fully 70% of children attending the lowest quality of schooling (the district council schools) have little probability of changing schools . Providing schooling options ensures schooling choice only for those who have the private resources to afford all the choices. (Bon.

1991, pp. 2G21)

In the following three studies, it is possible to compare the differential effectiveness, if not the differential efficiency of private vs public school types, in contrast with the previous studies which all have had some measure of costing included. COLOMBIA

AND TANZANIA

A comparison of public and private schools in Colombia and Tanzania (Psacharopoulos, 1987) emerges with conflicting conclusions regarding which is more efficient. As the study was an offshoot of some research into the effects of diversified education in these two countries, a comparison of effectiveness across subjects is facilitated. Private schools, in both contexts, comprise relatively high fee-paying schools serving the more advantaged population, though because in Tanzania, the public schools are highly selective, there is a positive selection effect. These private schools are found to produce better academic results at lower cost, although the opposite holds true for vocational subjects in both countries. Whilst controls are made for cognitive ability and socio-economic background, the parameter estimates are probably inefficient because there is no modelling of the likely significant covariances at the school level, nor is selection into the different school types dealt with adequately. The study concludes that: of private schools relieves the state . encouragement of a budgetary constraint If the state subsidy now channelled indiscriminately to public school students were targetted to the most able and low family income students, the overall efficiency of the system would improve, as well as its equity. (Psacharopoulos,

1987, p. 67)

Like other such studies, concerns for equity can be addressed only by government specifically targeting scholarships to needy students.

The inequitable results outside of such policies are acknowledged. The context in which such policies are likely to be realized needs to be considered, therefore, in evaluating the full implications of allowing such educational differentiation to occur in one’s society. The issues of quality and access are addressed only indirectly in the study. As in the case of IMalawi (see below), with increased user charges, to the extent that the proliferation of private schools satisfies excess demand without further draining public resources, access will be improved over what it would have been in the absence of such schools, and similarly, increased funds ostensibly would be available for quality improvements in the public sector by the private sector meeting some of the excess demand for otherwise costly public places. A further study utilizing the same data was carried out (Jimenez and Cox, 1989) in which selectivity bias is tested in the achievement equations produced for both countries. The same conclusions were reached regarding the private school advantage, but a more sophisticated methodology was used. Although it is important to control for selectivity bias, there are problems in estimating its effect, as noted in the paper. We would allege, and further substantiate below, that the problem of choice, which determines the bias of parents’ selection, is particularly unaccommodating in many Third World countries, precisely because there may be little, if any choice. However, the selectivity bias problem aside, the alleged ‘major’ differences reported between public and private schools in their study are reduced considerably by the introduction of variables describing the different schools’ characteristics. In the case of Tanzania, it is reduced to two-thirds of one point, and in the case of Colombia, to just under two and a half points (relative to average scores of about 50, with standard deviations of between eight and ten). Given that neither the covariance structures nor the peer group effects are modelled in the equations presented, it is at least possible that the private school advantage could be reduced further if not reversed, as has been seen in other studies in which they are included in the model. There is the further problem that the control for intake achievement is actually a measure of ability and, therefore, not an appropriate control for prior achievement, as

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intended. Given the sort of differences across subjects between achievement at different school types, the combination of achievement scores in English and math makes for a peculiar outcome measure. It is not possible to derive efficiency measures for this study, as there were no cost data. The above problems make it difficult to reach the definitive conclusion of a private school advantage in Colombia and Tanzania.

MALAWI Two Malawi case studies (Thobani, 1983; Tan et al., 1984) do not comprise comparisons between the public and private educational sectors in the country, as in Kenya, but rather, focus on the use of increased tuition charges as a means of expanding enrolments.12 School quality is not taken into consideration, nor is cognitive achievement. The research investigates the willingness of parents to pay increased tuition charges. As is explained in one of the studies: . . the willingness to pay concept involves two main considerations: the responsiveness of the demand for schooling to increases in the private cost, burden, and the existence of excess demand at a given level of private cost. (Tan et al., 1984, p. 5)

The argument is that by tapping private resources by imposing increased charges, these fees can be used to create additional places; and even with a moderate drop-out due to higher fees, increased enrolments will result from excess demand. The argument goes on to state that as these fee increases are likely to have a stronger impact on lower income families, there should be a limited number of scholarships awarded on the basis of income and academic performance. So this is like the Kenyan study but focusing on the privatization of resources for education but not necessarily the private establishment of schools as has been discussed above. The major evidence supporting the Malawi case (Thobani, 1983) is that primary enrollments are higher in the poorest regions - but as is fairly obvious in any such aggregate comparisons, and as Lewin clearly states in his critique of the Malawi case study (Lewin, 1987, p. 79) this does not eliminate the likely possibility that within these regions there is

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tremendous disparity in participation rates by socio-economic background. Indeed, the Tan study shows that willingness to pay higher fees varies directly with socio-economic status, and further, that the expectation of staying in school, in the presence of increased school fees, is much lower for children of more disadvantaged backgrounds, as could be expected. No attempt is made to consider fully the equity implications of the conclusions of the Malawi study (Thobani, 1983). The distribution of educational places to the poorest is bound to be more restricted with the introduction of increased user charges, however, and is likely to have a cumulative effect. Those denied education at the primary level are then denied a secondary education, access to the university, and they then seriously disadvantage their own children in the next generational cycle. From the evidence provided in the Malawi studies, it is not possible to measure the efficiency of the post- and pre-increased user fee system, nor can one comment on the resulting quality of the education provided. In terms of equity, the conclusions are clear: outside a focused policy of means-based scholarships, the poorest will be further denied access to school. The effect on access in general could go either way. If increased funds are used for the expansion of capacity, access could be improved. However, the level of increased user fees will determine the extent to which prospective students will be denied access through inability to pay.

BRAZIL A study of school type and school level effects on achievement in mathematics and Portuguese secondary school students was carried out in 1988 in Brazil (Lockheed and Bruns, 1990). Sixty schools with more than 2600 students were surveyed across four different school types, federal technical schools, general secondary schools, teacher training colleges, and SENAI schools which, while federally financed, are administered by a confederation of industrialists. Federal technical schools were found to be at an advantage to the other school types, even after controlling for the backgrounds of the relatively advan-

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taged pupils in these schools. The interest in the paper, as in several others noted already, is the strength of the peer group effect (average SES at the schools) in explaining achievement differences. A small private school advantage in mathematics achievement was found, but not in Portuguese. However, this advantage was largely explained by the number of hours of math instruction given. The use of multilevel regression models for these analyses makes these results more credible than many other school type comparisons. CONCLUDING

REMARKS

A summary of the evidence of alternative modes of finance of education is made difficult by the differences in methodology, focus, and data utilized in the different studies. Table 1 puts together some of the vital details of the different studies under review here. What one can say with certainty is that there is no overwhelming conclusion regarding the advantages of private schools over public schools, notwithstanding statements to the contrary (Jimenez et al., 1988). Even if one accepted the private school advantage alleged in some of the studies reviewed above, a major pitfall of any such general conclusion would have to be the lack of necessary qualification of the private and public school categories by the country contexts in which they are found. For instance, the government schools which are costeffective in Zimbabwe, are relatively low-cost, whereas, the government schools which are found to be cost-effective in Kenya, are relativly high-cost - and exclusive. The exclusive, high-cost private schools, however, in Zimbabwe are not found to be cost-effective. A second conclusion that can be drawn from the studies reviewed is that the advantages of private or public schools have to be considered against a particular set of goals, and not in general. For instance, the findings of the Kenyan study are very different depending on one’s focus. If one were interested in the costeffectiveness of schools, one would want to replicate the government schools. However, if one were interested in achieving the greatest access to education, then one would want to replicate the harambee schools. A corollary to this, is that following one path of educational development rather than another will have ramifications that undoubtedly go

beyond the calculations of benefit from alternative forms of educational funding or control. Despite the remarkable record of increased access portrayed in the Kenyan study, the inequity of the system was also highlighted. Further, the difficulties in coping with the wider ramifications will be different in each context. For instance, in some countries, it would be easier than in others to implement a scheme of student loans that would afford the access of disadvantaged groups to high feepaying, private education. My desire to distill this literature review into some concise generalizations is made difficult by the necessary skepticism with which many of the reported results need to be viewed. Nonetheless, even if one cannot emerge with pat conclusions, there are certain lessons to be learned from the studies under discussion. First of all, while private schools may improve access, and in some instances offer greater choice, (e .g. in the case of Thailand, by offering single-sex and different home language alternatives), depending on the sophistication and capacity of the educational administration, there is likely to be a trade-off in terms of equity. This is likely to be the case not only in countries which do not subsidize private such as Kenya, and in which education, parental ability to pay is the main determinant of the proliferation of private schools, but also in the case of countries, such as Zimbabwe, which follow the United Kingdom paradigm of decentralized education, and go so far as to subsidize private schools. The Kenyan and the Zimbabwean cases are not very different, despite these systemic differences in school type differentiation. In Kenya, government schools were found to be more effective, but being relatively exclusive, provided a means of greater social differentiation. The increased access to secondary education afforded by the harambee schools was offset by the inequity inherent in the quality of education on offer at public and private schools. In Zimbabwe, despite the fact that private schools received government subsidies, and the low-cost private schools, the district council schools, were found to be both relatively effective and efficient in their use of resources, their graduates still did not pass on average, a situation not very different from Kenya. Although the high-cost private schools were relatively inefficient in their ‘production’

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of educational achievement, their students were able to achieve passing grades. Access was certainly increased in the Zimbabwean case, as in Kenya, but not access to sufficiently high quality institutions for the children to pass their English ‘0’ levels. The back door route to increasing access and equity, it would seem, relates to the implementation of programs designed specifically to address equity concerns. This is emphasized in several of the studies. It is stated, for instance, that special scholarships need to be directed at those students unable to afford the high-cost private alternatives. In the Zimbabwe case, it could be concluded that subsidization of the ‘new’ private schools was insufficient to overcome threshold pass rates. The important point is that in either case - each, an example of a different type of decentralization in fact, whether full-blown privatization, in the Kenyan case, or devolution to local authorities, in the Zimbabwean case - intervention by the state is essential to rectify imbalances. The corollary to this finding is that the success of such intervention will depend on the capacity of the system for such intervention, and the political desires of those at the helm. Further, the sanguine nature of many of the pleas for ‘special’ programs to address the equity concerns of the privatization of education is highly suspect, given the present capabilities of many Third World countries, no less their individual governments’ political ambitions. The Brazil study, virtually alone in examining local control as a variable having an influence on student achievement, also makes for depressing reading by those who have held up decentralization as a panacea for Third World educational problems. The importance of peer group effects in explaining school-type differentiation in several of the studies under review should also lead one to be skeptical of the horizon of alternatives, given that the social differentiation, which such a contextual variable highlights, is a zero-sum game. If some schools are highly selective, others will be less so, and educational effects are related to such differentiation. What these examples should at least illustrate is that the public/private dichotomy so often portrayed in policy discussions is really much greyer than black and white. The optimal decentralization/centralization divide is not

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clear-cut across countries, nor is the private/ public divide the stark contrast it is sometimes painted to be. As Mark Bray concludes an article on this topic, ‘. . . systems may be centralized in some respects but decentralized in others. Appropriate balances depend strongly on the political values of particular societies and the influence of specific contextual conditions’ (Bray, 1991, p. 384). NOTES 1. Only 17% (22) of the 127 countries for which data were available for 1975 had no private schools at the primary or secondary level, and only 12% (15) had neither private schools nor any decentralized funding below the national level (Cummings and Riddell, 1992, pp. 19-20). 2. Indeed, the failure of rapidly increasing access to meet parents’ demands for quality education is evident in Zimbabwe, where unmatched rapidity of educational expansion at Independence has now, 12 years later, left one-third of its secondary schools as ‘non-viable’. Parents have had their children vote with their feet for the ‘quality’ institutions. (Discussion with the former Minister of Education, Fay Chung, 11 September 1992.) 3. The data for the research came from an establishment survey of 2000 workers randomly selected (from within their firms) in urban wage employment. A small subset of these workers (200) were given tests measuring cognitive and reasoning ability. 4. Whereas

‘in 1960 the degree of inequality of access in to that then prevailing in Tanzania’, by 1975 ‘a child of uneducated farmers was 3.5 times more likely to attend secondary school if he was born in Kenya instead of Tanzania’ (Knight and Sabot, p. 34).

Kenya was similar

5. ‘In secondary form 4 parents; only 1.6 parents’

Kenya a form 4 leaver who has a parent with a education is 7.0 times as likely to attend postschooling as a form 4 leaver with uneducated in Tanzania a child of the most educated parents is times as likely to attend as one with uneducated (Knight and Sabot, p. 216).

6. Not only are average costs per school type applied, but no measure of achievement gain per se is possible with the data at hand. An attempt is made to measure the influence of cognitive ability on eventual achievement for a subsample of the group of respondents, but this is not the same as controlling for prior achievement. 7. For instance, in the simulation which was meant to control for government school selectivity, family background was set at the sample mean, thus limiting the variance possible between sectors due to parents’ educational level, itself, a rather poor indicator of socioeconomic background, given the restricted educational coverage of the Kenyan educational system at the time when the parents of the sampled students would have been the appropriate school ages. (See Knight and Sabot, Note 17, p. 302.) 8. However, the study does not appropriately model these class level variables. Instead of class level achievement being regressed on such variables as whether

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or not the teacher had in-service training, or the amount order in class, student of time soent on maintaining level achievement is regressed on them, resulting in inefficient parameter estimation and illegitimate cross level inferences. 9. The effect size of this private respectable, however, 0.61.

school advantage

is still

10. The deletion of missing data accounts for discrepancy in the sample sizes. Given the strength of costing variable, few other variables were able to included in the equation. The effectiveness study, on other hand, details more rigorous modelling.

the the be the

11. And this takes us back to the now non-viable parents’ decisions) schools reported in Note 2.

(by

12. There is only one private secondary &Ialawi which is included in the sample.

school

in

REFERENCES Aitkin, M. and Longford, N. (1986) Statistical modeling issues in school effectiveness studies. Journal of fhe Royal Statistical Society A. 149, 143. Bray, M. (1991) Centralization versus decentralization in educational administration: regional issues. Educational Policy 5,371-385. Cummings, W. K. and Riddell, A. R. (1992) Alternative policies for the finance, control, and delivery of basic education. Development Discussion Paper No. 422ES, Harvard Institute for International Development, Harvard University, May. Ilon, L. (1991) School choice in a privatized market: equity . implications in Zimbabwe. Draft paper. Jimenez. E. and Cox. D. (1989) The relative effectiveness of private and public schools: evidence from two developing countries. LSMS Working Paper No. 60, World Bank, Washington, D.C. Jimenez, E., Lockheed, M. E., Luna, E. and Paqueo, V. (1991) School effects and costs for private and public schools in the Dominican Republic. International Journal of Educational Research 15, 393410. Jimenez, E., Lockheed, M. E. and Paqueo, V. (1988) The relative efficiency of public schools in developing countries. World Bank Staff Working Paper No. 72, Population and Human Resources Department, Washington, D.C. Jimenez, E., Lockheed, M. E. and Wattanawaha, N. (1988) The relative efficiency of private and public schools: the case of Thailand. The World Bunk

Economic Review 2, 139-164. Jimenez, E., Paqueo, V. and de Vera, Ma. L. (1988a) Student performance and school costs in the Philippine high schools. World Bank Staff Working Paper No: 61. Pooulation and Human Resources Department, Washington. D.C. Jimenez, E.. Paqueo, V. and de Vera, Ma. L. (1988b) Does local financing make public primary schools more efficient?: the Philippine case. World Bank Staff Working Paper No. WPS 69, Population and Human Resources Department, Washington, D.C. Knight, J. B. and Sabot, R. H. (1990) Education, Productivity and Inequality: The East African National Experiment. Oxford University Press, New York. Lewin, K. M. (1987) Education in Austerity: Options for Planners. IIEP, Unesco, Paris. Lillis. K. M. (1987) Community financing of education: issues for Kenya. Journal of Education Policy 2. 99-117. Lockheed, M. E. and Bruns, B. (1990) School effects on achievement in secondary mathematics and Portuguese in Brazil. World Bank Staff Working Paper No. WPS 525, Population and Human Resources Department, Washington, D.C. Lockheed, M. E. and Zhao, Q. (1991) The effects of local control on student achievement and attitudes in secondary schools in the Philippines. World Bank Staff Working Paper, Population and Human Resources Department, Washington, D.C. Psacharopoulos, G. (1987) Public versus private schools in developing countries: evidence from Colombia and Tanzania. International Journal of Educational Development 7, 59-47. Raudenbush, S. and Bryk, A. S. (1986) A hierarchical model for studying school effects. Sociology of Education 59, 1-17. Riddell, A. (1988) School effectiveness in secondary education in Zimbabwe: a multilevel analysis. unpublished Ph.D. University of London Institute of Education. Riddell, A. (1992) Private vs public schools: an alternative measure of cost-effectiveness. Mimeo. Tan. J.-P.. Lee. K. H. and Mingat. A. (1984) User charges for edncation: the ability and willingness to pay-in Malawi. World Bank Staff Working Paper No. 66, Washington, D.C. Thobani, M. (1983) Charging user fees for social service: the case of education in Malawi. World Bank Staff Working Paper No. 572. Washington, D.C. Woodhouse, G. and Goldstein, H. (1988) Educational performance indicators and LEA league tables. Oxford Review of Education 14, 301-320.