We Have to Protect the Kids

Interruptions to the accumulation of human capital due to disasters and subsequent disruptions to economies and schooling can be severe, even when households receive compensation to tide them over in difficult times. Following a study of the 2005 Pakistan earthquake, a seemingly full recovery for adults and infrastructure, hid deep and lasting scars on children. The losses to human capital may well continue to accumulate further after children returned to school. In the example given of the earhtquake, children that fell behind were not able to catch up with the curriculum. The earthquake also widened inequalities as children whose mothers were more educated, were insulated from learning losses

Forum: Why and How the Public vs. Private Schooling Debate Needs to Change

“Are private schools better than public schools?” This ubiquitous debate in low- and middle-income countries is the wrong one to have. The foreword and three essays collected in this Forum each explore how to move past the stuck “public vs. private” binary

Heterogeneity in School Value-Added and the Private Premium

Using rich panel data from Pakistan, this paper examines the extent to which private and public schools vary in quality, and if they do, whether this variation affects the understanding of the relative effectiveness of private schools and is recognized and acted upon by parents

Helping Schools Survive: Experimental Evidence on the Impact of Financial and Educational Support to Private Schools

Private schools provide affordable education in low-income countries but they often face higher closure rates, leading to disruption for students. This paper provides experimental evidence from Pakistan that shows financial and educational support substantially aids school survival

Cognitive and Socioemotional Skills in Low-Income Countries: Measurement and Associations with Schooling and Earnings

Based on primary data from Pakistan, this paper assesses the reliability and validity of cognitive and socioemotional skills measures and investigates the correlation between schooling, skills acquisition, and labor earnings in low-income countries

Crowding in Private Quality: The Equilibrium Effects of Public Spending in Education

This paper estimates the equilibrium effects of a public school grant program administered through school councils in Pakistani villages with multiple public and private schools and clearly defined catchment boundaries

Know-do gap: Comparison of data from vignettes versus SP interaction among the same providers.

<p>For all items, the prefix "E" indicates examinations and laboratory evaluations; the prefix "Q" indicates history questions. The gap calculation is the result of a <i>t</i> test comparing the average vignette performance with the average SP performance. <i>P</i> values are in brackets. AFB, acid-fast bacillus; SP, standardized patient; TB, tuberculosis.</p

Estimated patient pathways under status quo (patients freely selecting into tiers).

<p>Percentages at bottom of figure show the percentage of patients selecting into each health system tier based on survey responses (<a href="http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.1002405#pmed.1002405.s006" target="_blank">S5 Table</a>). For each referral pathway, figure shows percentage of total patient population following each path calculated using SP results for subsample of complete health systems.</p

Simulation of system-level management outcomes with and without managed referrals.

<p>Simulation of system-level management outcomes with and without managed referrals.</p

STROBE flowchart.

<p>SPs were randomly assigned to facilities and within each facility, SPs visited the doctor following the normal procedures for any walk-in patient. Given a choice of which doctor to visit, SPs randomly chose a doctor following a pre-determined randomization protocol. In county hospitals, where patients can choose doctors by specialty, SPs visited generalists. Our results, therefore, are designed to approach the care a walk-in patient would receive at each of the sampled facilities.</p