Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

INTERPRETING RECENT RESEARCH ON SCHOOLING IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

INTERPRETING RECENT RESEARCH ON SCHOOLING IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES Abstract Policymakers in developing countries have long been troubled by the undesirable, but apparently unavoidable, choice between providing broad access to education and developing high-quality schools. Recent evidence, however, suggests that this is a bad way to think about human capital development. Grade repetition and high dropout rates lead to a significant waste of resources in many school systems. Students in quality schools, however, respond in ways that reduce such inefficiencies, perhaps even sufficiently to recoup immediately investments in quality. Promoting high-quality schools, however, is more difficult than many have thought, in part because research demonstrates that the traditional approach to providing quality—simply providing more inputs—is frequently ineffective. Existing inefficiencies are likely to be alleviated only by the introduction of substantially stronger performance incentives in schools and by more extensive experimentation and evaluation of educational programs and school organizations. Incentives, decentralized decisionmaking, and evaluation are alien terms to education, in both industrial and developing countries, but they hold the key to improvement that has eluded policymakers pursuing traditional practices. This content is only available as a PDF. © 1995 The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/THE WORLD BANK http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png The World Bank Research Observer Oxford University Press

INTERPRETING RECENT RESEARCH ON SCHOOLING IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

Hanushek, Eric, A.
The World Bank Research Observer , Volume 10 (2) – Aug 1, 1995
Download PDF
20 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/oxford-university-press/interpreting-recent-research-on-schooling-in-developing-countries-MvvZIEffKa

References (42)

Publisher
Oxford University Press
Copyright
© 1995 The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/THE WORLD BANK
ISSN
0257-3032
eISSN
1564-6971
DOI
10.1093/wbro/10.2.227
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Abstract Policymakers in developing countries have long been troubled by the undesirable, but apparently unavoidable, choice between providing broad access to education and developing high-quality schools. Recent evidence, however, suggests that this is a bad way to think about human capital development. Grade repetition and high dropout rates lead to a significant waste of resources in many school systems. Students in quality schools, however, respond in ways that reduce such inefficiencies, perhaps even sufficiently to recoup immediately investments in quality. Promoting high-quality schools, however, is more difficult than many have thought, in part because research demonstrates that the traditional approach to providing quality—simply providing more inputs—is frequently ineffective. Existing inefficiencies are likely to be alleviated only by the introduction of substantially stronger performance incentives in schools and by more extensive experimentation and evaluation of educational programs and school organizations. Incentives, decentralized decisionmaking, and evaluation are alien terms to education, in both industrial and developing countries, but they hold the key to improvement that has eluded policymakers pursuing traditional practices. This content is only available as a PDF. © 1995 The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/THE WORLD BANK

Journal

The World Bank Research Observer – Oxford University Press

Published: Aug 1, 1995

There are no references for this article.