STEP – Science, Technology, and Education in Pakistan

The Learning and Educational Achievement in Punjab Schools (LEAPS) is a comprehensive four year survey of primary schools in Punjab that is being carried out by a team from the World Bank, Pomona College and Harvard University in collaboration with the Government of Punjab. The survey report for the first year has recently been published. The report measures learning outcomes of students, in grades I to III, by administering detailed exams on English, Math and Urdu. A major finding of the report is that the students in private schools perform better in all three subjects as compared to the students attending public school. The performance advantage holds even if factors such as literacy rate of parents and the educational qualifications of the teachers are taken into account. The public-private schooling gap is large, according to the LEAPS report. Children in private schools score significantly higher than those in government schools even when they are from the same village. Overall, the gap between public and private schools is 8-18 times that gap between different socio-economic backgrounds. It takes around 1.5-2.5 years for a child attending public school to catch up to their counterparts in private schools. Read the rest of this entry »