Private schools in rural Andhra Pradesh operate at substantially lower per-child cost than government schools and deliver slightly better learning outcomes, according to results from the Andhra Pradesh School Choice Project, a study designed to measure the educational outcome differences between private schools and government schools. The findings were presented by the study’s author Professor Karthik Muralidharan at a NCAER-hosted lecture chaired by Shekhar Shah, Director-General NCAER, with Guest of Honour Montek Ahluwalia, Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, and Dr Rukmini Banerji, Director of ASER, providing comments. “This project represents one of the most comprehensive and rigorous studies on school choice and private schooling globally, and has been described as a landmark study that will shape the debate on an important policy question for years to come,” said Shekhar Shah. The study tracked 10,245 children across 180 villages in five Andhra Pradesh districts over four years.
The study finds that private school teachers have lower levels of formal education and training than their government counterparts and earn significantly less (on average less than a sixth of government teacher salaries). But private schools have better measures of teaching effort: lower teacher absence, higher teacher activity, longer school days and less multi-grade teaching. At a substantially lower cost per student (less than a third of per-child government spending), private schools deliver slightly better test score gains, suggesting that private schools could deliver even better education outcomes if they have the same per-child spending as government schools.
The study also reveals important implications for India’s Right to Education Act (RTE). Clause 12 of the RTE mandates 25% reservation in private schools for economically disadvantaged students, which has raised concerns that the influx of these students could have an adverse effect on existing private school students. The study finds no such negative effect. “Clause 12 of the RTE is a rare example of policy that could improve both equity and efficiency. But substantial efforts need to be made to implement this in a transparent and systematic way at all levels,” said Professor Muralidharan. A summary for the lecture can be found here, while the paper can be read here.
Karthik Muralidharan is Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of California, San Diego, and a Non-resident Fellow at NCAER. He is also a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research, a Junior Affiliate at the Bureau for Research and Economic Analysis of Development, and a Member of the J-PAL network. Karthik has an MPhil from Cambridge and a PhD from Harvard, both in economics.
This exploratory research workshop was built around the question of whether the gap between India and its East Asian neighbours would be smaller or larger by 2025. It focused on what India must do to o close the gap, and how the expectations of the role of India in this Asian Century can be fulfilled. A key question motivating the workshop was how India will find the jobs for the large number of young people entering the labour force over the next 20 years.
The distinguised speakers at the workshop included Shekhar Shah, Rajesh Chadha, Premila Nazareth, Shashanka Bhide, Anil Sharma, NCAER, Arvind Panagariya,Columbia, Wing Thye Woo, University of California, Davis, Ajay Shankar, Nation Manufacturing Competitiveness Council,Wendy Dobson, University of Toronto, Manish Sabharwal, TeamLease, Peter Drysdale, ANU, Sisira Jayasuriya, Monash, Alan Deardorff, Michigan, Rupa Chanda,IIM, Bangalore, Kaliappa Kalirajan, ANU, Rajesh Chakrabarti, ISB, Pramod Kumar,ISEC, and other invited guests.
Shri B J Panda, MP, Lok Sabha delivered a special address on the occassion of this workshop.
At this Seminar on ‘State of the Economy’ and forecast for 2013-14, the NCAER QRE team presented its quarterly forecast of the major macroeconomic variables based on NCAER’s modelling work. It included NCAER’s observations, reviews and projections for 2013-14 covering various sectors including agriculture; industry and services; public finance, money; credit and finance; external sector as well as the GDP forecasts. On this occasion NCAER released its widely-reported Quarterly Review of the Economy or QRE as it is poularly known.
This seminar hosted a special presentation by Kaushik Brahma, Tata Steel and invited discussions by Dr Basanta Pradhan, IEG and Dr Abhijit Sengupta, ADB.
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This seminar, organized by the NCAER brought together researchers from various institutions across Delhi. The presentation by Jeffrey Hammer, Princeton University and NCAER dwelled on three studies on sanitation and their comparisons with primary health care.
These three studies were:
• Cross state illustration of the damage done by poor sanitation
• A randomised control trail of the Maharashtra Total Sanitation Campaign
• Some preliminary results on drainage and health in Delhi slums
The presentation by Jeffery highlighted the kind of policy-related factors that contribute to good health. The seminar invited in comments and active participation from discussants including Dr Surjit Bhalla, O[x]us Investment Ltd; the NCAER research community as well as other participants. Professor Jeffery concluded his session with some policy recommendations on primary health care and sanitation in India.
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This one day workshop brought together a number of practicing urban planners and economists, policy analysts and researchers from both the government and academic institutions to explore and identify possible areas of priority research in land economics and urbanisation in India, including land supply, demand, land valuation and pricing, regulation, and the role of the private sector. The workshop began with inaugural remarks by Shri Kamal Nath, Minister for Urban Development and Parliamentary Affairs in conversation with Dr Shekhar Shah, Director General, NCAER. Reflecting on challenges faced in urban development, he emphasised the need for research, particularly on economic perspectives, on land-, which is a scarce resource. This was followed by brief remarks by Professor Jeffrey S. Hammer, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University and Non-resident Fellow at NCAER. Prof. Hammer provided perspectives on public health issues relating to urban India. Dr. Shashanka Bhide then provided a detailed background to the workshop, highlighting the need for analytical research in the area of land economics in India where urbanisation is taking place at a fairly rapid rate and land prices are soaring, making affordable housing beyond the reach of many.
The workshop included two technical sessions and a round table on research on land economics. The first technical session, chaired by Prof. Edgar Ribeiro, was devoted to issues and challenges for land supply for urban development where two commissioned papers were presented. The first paper was by Mr. Vidyadhar Phatak an eminent urban planner and former Chief Town Planner of Mumbai Municipal Corporation. He focused on issues of land supply. The second paper was by Dr. Kala Sridhar who provided insights into the impact of land-use regulations on land supply. The second technical session, chaired by Prof. Partha Mukhopadhyay, focused on issues relating to demand for urban space. The first paper by Prof. Chetan Vaidya, Director, School of Planning and Architecture, Delhi was devoted to issues relating to demand for living space as well as for other uses. This was followed by a detailed presentation on trends and patterns of land prices by Ms. Jayashree Kurup, Magicbricks.
The concluding session was a roundtable chaired by Mrs. N. Jayaseelan, Member Secretary, NCR Planning Board. To begin with, Mr. K. C. Sivaramakrishnan, Centre for Policy Research in his address underlined the need to explore and identify the key issues for further research on issues of land management and governance. This was followed by brief presentations by a panel comprising of Prof. D B Gupta, Prof. Edgar Ribeiro and Ms. Ritu Anand.. There was a general consensus on the priority areas for work. These broadly related to study of land prices, a relook at the land use regulations as well as regulations relating to transactions in land for urban use, and an analysis of inclusive nature of urban housing development. A need was also expressed for some work on governance and land management and also on urban infrastructure especially studies relating to transport infrastructure as part of urban development.
The Workshop concluded with a vote of thanks by Dr Shashanka Bhide.
