IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/lje/journl/v18y2013ispp129-160.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Analyzing the Market for Shadow Education in Pakistan: Does Private Tuition Affect the Learning Gap between Private and Public Schools?

Author

Listed:
  • Bisma Haseeb Khan

    () (Research Associate, Institute for Development and Economic Alternatives (IDEAS), Pakistan.)

  • Sahar Amjad Shaikh

    () (Teaching Fellow, Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS), Pakistan.)

Abstract

Over the past decade, Pakistan has seen the rapid growth of a third sector in education: shadow education. According to the Annual Survey of Education Report (2013), 34 percent of private school students and 17 percent of public school students undertake private tuition in Punjab. Anecdotal evidence suggests that private tuition has a positive impact on learning outcomes. Keeping this in view, it is possible that private tuition, rather than a difference inschooling quality, is driving the observed learning gap between public and private schools? This study employs a fixed-effects framework, using panel data from the Learning and Educational Achievement in Punjab Schools (LEAPS) survey, to quantify the impact of private tuition on learning outcomes in public and private schools. We analyze the demand and supply dynamics of the shadow education market in Punjab, and find that private tuition has a positive significant effect on learning outcomes, specifically for public school students. For English, much of the learning gap between public and private schools is explained by the higher incidence of private tuition among private school students, but this is not the case for mathematics and Urdu. We also find thatprivate tuition is predominantly supplied by private school teachers, but that they do not shirk their regular class hours to create demand for their tuition classes, as is normally believed. On the demand side, private tuition acts as a substitute for receiving help at home. Moreover, it supplements formal education rather than substituting for low-quality formal schooling.

Suggested Citation

  • Bisma Haseeb Khan & Sahar Amjad Shaikh, 2013. "Analyzing the Market for Shadow Education in Pakistan: Does Private Tuition Affect the Learning Gap between Private and Public Schools?," Lahore Journal of Economics, Department of Economics, The Lahore School of Economics, vol. 18(Special E), pages 129-160, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:lje:journl:v:18:y:2013:i:sp:p:129-160
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://121.52.153.179/JOURNAL/LJE%20vol%2018%20se/06%20Khan%20and%20Shaikh.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Tansel, AysIt & Bircan, Fatma, 2006. "Demand for education in Turkey: A tobit analysis of private tutoring expenditures," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 303-313, June.
    2. Brian A. Jacob & Lars Lefgren, 2004. "Remedial Education and Student Achievement: A Regression-Discontinuity Analysis," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 86(1), pages 226-244, February.
    3. Monazza Aslam, 2003. "The Determinants of Student Achievement in Government and Private Schools in Pakistan," The Pakistan Development Review, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, vol. 42(4), pages 841-876.
    4. Changhui Kang, 2007. "Does Money Matter? The Effect of Private Educational Expenditures on Academic Performance," Departmental Working Papers wp0704, National University of Singapore, Department of Economics.
    5. Gurun, Ayfer & Millimet, Daniel L., 2008. "Does Private Tutoring Payoff?," IZA Discussion Papers 3637, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Monazza Aslam, 2009. "The relative effectiveness of government and private schools in Pakistan: are girls worse off?," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(3), pages 329-354.
    7. Barro, Robert J. & Lee, Jong Wha, 2013. "A new data set of educational attainment in the world, 1950–2010," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 184-198.
    8. Dang, Hai-Anh, 2007. "The determinants and impact of private tutoring classes in Vietnam," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 26(6), pages 683-698, December.
    9. Lloyd, Cynthia B & Mete, Cem & Sathar, Zeba A, 2005. "The Effect of Gender Differences in Primary School Access, Type, and Quality on the Decision to Enroll in Rural Pakistan," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 53(3), pages 685-710, April.
    10. Das, Jishnu & Pandey, Priyanka & Zajonc, Tristan, 2006. "Learning levels and gaps in Pakistan," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4067, The World Bank.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Public versus private education; education quality; tutoring; Pakistan.;

    JEL classification:

    • I00 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - General - - - General
    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • I28 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Government Policy

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:lje:journl:v:18:y:2013:i:sp:p:129-160. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Shahid Salahuddin). General contact details of provider: http://edirc.repec.org/data/lsecopk.html .

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.