This paper draws on a political economy model to hypothesize that the quality of education is likely to be lowered by both economic and political inequalities. In particular, we utilize a panel data set across countries and over time to test the applicability of the hypothesis to quality of education indicators at the primary level. Among the four specific indicators of primary education assigned priority in the World Millennium Development Goals, Gross Enrollment Rates, Net Enrollment Rates, Pupil-Teacher Ratios and Survival Rates from Grades 1 to 5, our focus is on Pupil-Teacher Ratio because of its close association with quality. Because of its considerable variation in political and economic inequality across countries as well as over time and its general reputation for high income inequality and gradual but uneven transition to democracy, our application is to countries of the Latin America and the Caribbean region. While the results do not support the economic inequality hypothesis, they do support the political inequality hypothesis. The latter results appear to be rather robust to alternative choices of estimation methods and empirical specifications.
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The private provision of educational services has been representing an increasing fraction of the Peruvian schooling system, especially in recent last decades. While there have been many claims about the differences in quality between private and public schools, there is no complete assessment of the different impacts of these two type of providers on the labor markets. This paper is an attempt to provide such a comprehensive overview. We explore private-public differences in the individual returns to education in Urban Peru. Exploiting a rich pair of data sets (ENNIV 1997 and 2000) that include questions on type of education (public vs. private) for each educational level (primary, secondary, technical tertiary and university tertiary) to a representative sample of adults we are able to measure the differences in labor earnings for all possible educational trajectories. The results indicate higher returns to education for those who attended private schools than those who attended the public system. Nonetheless, these higher returns also show higher dispersion, reflecting wider quality heterogeneity within the private system. The private-public differences in returns are more pronounced at the secondary than at any other educational level. On the other hand, the private-public differences in returns from technical education are almost non-existent. A cohort approach paired with a rollingwindows technique allows us to capture generational evolutions of the private-public differences. The results indicate that these differences have been increasing during the last two decades.
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We use the PISA 2003 student-level achievement database for Mexico to estimate state education production functions. Student characteristics, family background, home inputs, resources and institutions are controlled for. We take advantage of the state-level variation and representative sample to analyze the impact of institutional factors such as state accountability systems and the role of teachers unions on student achievement. Accountability, through increased use of state assessments, will improve learning outcomes. The paper also casts light on the role of teacher unions, namely their strength through appointments to the school and relations with state governments. It is shown that good relations between states and unions are important. Accountability systems are cost-effective measures for improving outcomes.
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In this paper we study the determinants and distribution of learning outcomes in Argentina measured by PISA 2000 reading and math test scores. To do that, we estimate education production functions at the mean of the distribution using survey regressions and at different parts of the score’s distribution with quantile regressions. In terms of educational policy aimed at improving learning outcomes, results point that educational policies should address gender issues, since girls perform significantly better than boys in reading but boys perform significantly better than girls in math. The availability of educational resources at home and good reading habits also contribute significantly to student’s better performance. Class size should not be excessive; schools should be provided with good-quality educational resources such as good libraries, laboratory equipment and multi-media technology. Teachers’ commitment and engagement to their work, their relationships with students and their openness to institutional change are also very significant determinants of students’ performance. The recently sanctioned law of education in Argentina addresses many of these issues in the direction proposed in this paper.
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Over the last decade, Argentina embarked on a broad education reform, the Federal Education Law (LFE), being its main objective to expand access to basic education, mainly, by a new organization of the schooling level structure with the extension of mandatory schooling from 7 to 10 years. The provinces reactions were heterogeneous. We try to evaluate the relationship among the LFE and access and its quality. We found that LFE provinces tend to a bigger access probability induced in a bigger retention of individuals with smaller achievements and a bigger promotion for the youngest cohorts. To identify the effect of its implementing we compute FGLS panel data estimates with fixed effects for province and year. In all case we found a positive and significant effect of the LFE on access (0.04 and 0.013 for an additional year) and its quality. Also we found a positive sign but of unclear magnitude for the implementation on quality but when we estimate the effect of intensity the value of coefficient is more stable, around 0.02 or 0.03.
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This study uses data from Colombia’s 2003 Encuesta de Calidad de Vida to examine how well do electricity strata (proxy for socioeconomic status) explain the choice decision for type of institution and session attended. In the model of choice by type – private vs. public universities – I find that as the electricity strata increases, the marginal probability of enrolling in a public university decreases up to stratum five after which the decreasing trend reverts. In the case of session attendance, the working variable plays an important role in the decision. As expected, if students work and study at the same time, it is difficult to be enrolled as a full-time student.
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