Insufficient resources and inadequate public expenditure management often prevent governments in low-income countries from providing quality basic education free of charge. User payments by parents are an alternative means of financing basic education. This paper assesses how user payments affect educational opportunities and quality of education for children of poor families in low-income countries. Conditions are identified under which user payments can or cannot improve educational outcomes. User payments, whether taking the form of compulsory benefit taxation or voluntary user fees, are a temporary solution and second-best compared with free-access, publicly financed quality education that is consistent with macroeconomic stability.
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Paper provided by International Monetary Fund in its series IMF Working Papers with number
02/182.
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Reinikka, Ritva & Svensson, Jakob, 2001.
"Explaining Leakage of Public Funds,"
Working Papers
UNU-WIDER Research Paper , World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
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