Note on the Word ‘Baren’ for the British East India Company by John Crawfurd

This is a brief note drawn from Crawfurd’s 1826 Journal. Although brief, it offers an account of the origin of the use of ‘Baren’ that Burmese sometimes used to refer to the British

An Account of Martaban in March and April 1826 by John Crawfurd

In the last sections of his account of his mission to Ava in 1827, John Crawfurd included his journal of his visit to Martaban in the previous year, in order to fill a gap in his 1827 narrative. As he explained: “Our return to Bengal having hindered our excursion to the Saluen and Gain rivers, as well as prevented us from visiting other parts of the province, I shall endeavour in some measure to supply the deficiency, by the insertion of the journal of a voyage to Martaban, which, I performed about ten months before the time of which I am now writing. It is as follows...

Account of Rangoon in the Summer of 1826

During his stay at Rangoon in the summer of 1826, Crawfurd drew up his account of this town, although it was not published until he included it in his account of his embassy made to the Burmese court in 1827, which was published in 1829. As Crawfurd explains: “The following account of Rangoon was collected by me while I resided there in civil, charge of Pegu, a period of more than six months.

Contracting out schools at scale: evidence from Pakistan

Can governments contract out the management of schools to private operators at scale? This paper estimates the effect of a school reform in Punjab, Pakistan, in which 4,276 poorly performing public primary schools (around 10 percent of the total) were contracted out to private operators in a single school year. These schools remain free to students and the private operator receives a per-student subsidy equivalent to less than half of spending in government schools. Using a difference-in-difference framework we estimate that enrolment in converted schools increased by over 60 percent. Converted schools see a slight decline in overall average test scores, but this may be a composition effect rather than a treatment effect. Schools with the same number or fewer students as in the previous year saw no change in average test scores

Connectivity and ecological networks : Technical Information Note 01/2016

This Information Note introduces connectivity and ecological networks within the context of landscape planning, design and management and should assist discussions members typically hold with professional ecologists

School Management and Public-Private Partnerships in Uganda

Can the quality of school management explain differences in student test scores? In this paper I present the first internationally benchmarked estimates of school management quality in Africa (based on the “World Management Survey”). The level and distribution of management quality is similar to that found in other low and middle- income countries (India and Brazil). I combine this data with individual student panel data, and demonstrate that differences in school management quality matter for student value-added - a standard deviation difference in management is associated with a 0.06 standard deviation difference in test scores. Finally I contribute to understanding the role of the private sector in education in a low-income setting. Contrary to common perception, I find no difference between the quality of school management in government, private, or public-private partnership (PPP) schools (despite the higher level of autonomy available to them). An exception is an internationally-owned chain of PPP schools, which are as well managed as schools in the UK

Essays on the economics of education in developing countries

This thesis is comprised of three essays on the economics of education in developing countries, focused on the analysis of public financing of schools operated by non-state actors. Chapter One focuses on publicly subsidised private secondary schools in Uganda. Student value-added is higher in these schools than in government schools. The chapter explores the role of the quality of school management as a mediating factor in the performance differential, finding that private schools are on average no better managed than government schools, with the exception of those managed by an international charity. Chapter Two evaluates a five-year private school voucher lottery programme in Delhi. This lottery was designed as a test of India’s national Right to Education Act Section 12(1)(c), which reserves 25 percent of places at private schools nationwide for students from “economically weaker sections”, with funding coming from government. Students who won the lottery and attended low-cost private schools performed slightly worse in Hindi and no different in Maths and English, or on various non-cognitive skills. Chapter Three evaluates a large-scale contracting out of public schools to private management in Punjab, Pakistan. Using a difference-in-difference framework, I estimate that failing government schools that are contracted out to private operators dramatically increase their enrolment, but that the effect on student learning is ambiguous. Overall these three studies highlight the variability in forms of public financing for independently operated schools, and the variability in quality. In all three policies, financing for non-state schools costs significantly less than equivalent spending in government schools