Muralidharan and Sundararaman report a randomised controlled trial of a school voucher experiment in Andhra Pradesh, India. The headline findings are that there are no significant academic differences between voucher winners and losers in Telugu, mathematics, English, and science/social studies, although because the private schools appear to use…

There is widespread concern about differences in the quality of state-run and private schooling. The concerns are especially severe in the numerous developing countries where much of the population has left state-provided schooling for private schooling, including many private schools not recognized by the government. The fees charged by the…

This article provides an update on our earlier paper on the introduction by the Kenyan government in 2003 of free primary education (FPE), and its impact on low-fee private schools. First, published papers that have used our contribution as a springboard for discussion are critically reviewed. The argument and supporting evidence that the poor are…

Free primary education (FPE) is widely assumed to be required to ensure that the poor gain enrolment. After the introduction of FPE (from January 2003) in Kenyan schools, huge increases in enrolment were officially reported. However, our research, conducted 10 months after the introduction of FPE in and around the informal settlement of Kibera,…

A low-cost private education sector is acknowledged to be serving the poor in developing countries, including India. However, it is widely accepted that this sector cannot provide a route towards "education for all". This conclusion is explored in the light of case study evidence from low-income areas of Hyderabad, India. Private…

Three types of privatisation are identified--involving demand-side financing, reforms to the educational supply-side and "de facto" privatisation, where responsibilities are transferred to the private sector, through the rapid growth of private schools, rather than through reform or legislation. Although "de facto"…

The accepted wisdom is that private schools serve the privileged. Everyone else, especially the poor, requires public school. The poor, so this logic goes, needs government assistance if they are to get a good education, which helps explain why, in the United States, many school choice enthusiasts believe that the only way the poor can get the…