Do Private Schools Produce More Productive Workers?

Education has positive links with economic development as it raises the productivity of the work force. Beside private rates of returns, the social returns of education are also high. Because of the gains to society, education is subsidised in many countries. Pakistan, where only 2.5 percent of the GDP is spent on education, provides subsidised education in the form of a public school system.1 Government pays for the major expenditures such as construction of infrastructure for education and salaries to the teaching and related staff. Household cost is kept low to attract more people to send their children to schools. Therefore only a nominal tuition fee is being charged for attending these schools. From the social point of view these schools are doing a good job in achieving the goal of universal education. But quality of education is a serious problem with this school system. In the majority of the cases, these are crowded with students and most of the time without adequate number of teaching staff.2 The standards set for the employment of teaching staff are not properly observed in the presence of a low literacy in the country.