US-Pakistan: Partnership-building and Pilot Research for an Evaluation on Strengthening Private Schools for the Rural Poor in Pakistan

美国-巴基斯坦：加强巴基斯坦农村贫困私立学校评估的伙伴关系建设和试点研究

• 批准号: 1201603
• 负责人: Asim Khwaja
• 金额: $ 7.29万
• 依托单位: Harvard University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2012
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2012-05-01 至 2013-04-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1201603&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: US; Pakistan; Partnership; building; Pilot

1201603 KhwajaDescription: This project by the Dr. Asim Khwaja, Harvard Kennedy School, Harvard University is to catalyze collaboration with scientists in Pakistan in the area of Evaluation and Strengthening Private Schools for the Rural Poor in Pakistan. The foreign collaborator is Ali Asjad Naqvi, Research Director at the Center for Economic Research in Pakistan (CERP). The emergence of low-cost, for-profit private schools serving the rural poor has transformed the education sector in Pakistan and low-income countries across the globe. Small rural private schools are among the fastest growing segments of the small-to-medium-sized enterprise (SME) sector in Pakistan. Recent research has demonstrated the power of these schools as they (i) serve the rural poor; (ii) employ, teach, and empower women; and (iii) outperform government schools in math, Urdu, English learning outcomes, in addition to (iv) producing higher levels of civic values among students. Despite the demonstrated strengths of private schools, constraints to continued growth of this sector are emerging. The PI plans a series of activities that will lay the groundwork for a rigorous empirical evaluation of new models for providing financing and education support to private schools in emerging economies. The project builds on existing work by the PI supported by NSF (SES 0962504: ?Understanding Education Markets Experimental and Observational Evidence from Pakistan?) and expands into the specific area of low-cost private schools. Research results have revealed that, in spite of their relative low cost, private schools in Pakistan outperform government schools, but they face constraints to continued growth and quality improvements. Motivated by a dearth of evidence on how best to support this dynamic sector, The PI will conduct the preliminary work that is needed to design, implement, and evaluate models to support private education entrepreneurs through the provision of financial, educational and operational support. This entails engaging with key international stakeholders and utilizing additional data sources to design a set of interventions and associated project evaluation methodology to support the sector and identify implementation partners for the interventions. Dr. Naqvi will play a key role in partnership development, designing project activities and providing local input to inform the research evaluation. Intellectual Merit: Cognizant of both the rapid rise of low-cost private schooling and the emerging constraints this sector faces, the PIs aim to fill a gap in the existing knowledge: how to interface, support, and enable the success of the private education sector. They plan to address a number questions still left unanswered by existing literature. What needs of private schools are the greatest, or which constraints are binding? What are the returns to investments in the low-cost private education sector, in terms of profitability and social outcomes? What financial mechanism (grants, loans, or equity investments) will generate the maximum return on investment and improvement in social outcomes? And finally, what is the optimal combination of financial and access to educational support to further strengthen this dynamic sector? Broader Impact: The empirical evidence generated by this study has the potential to make unique contributions to academia, and to also generate significant reaction among policymakers and practitioners in the NGO and private sectors. Should the model prove sustainable and generate the envisioned results, the limits for potential impact extend well beyond the evaluation areas. There is a potential for these models to be replicated, sustained, and scaled to similar contexts where un- and under-served school age children can be supported by unleashing the power of markets and these free enterprises to dramatically improve education outcomes across the country and ultimately across similar countries globally.

1201603 Khwajadescription：哈佛大学哈佛大学肯尼迪学校的Asim Khwaja博士的该项目将在评估和加强巴基斯坦农村贫困人口的私立学校领域与巴基斯坦的科学家促进合作。 外国合作者是巴基斯坦经济研究中心（CERP）研究总监Ali Asjad Naqvi。为农村穷人服务的低成本，营利性私立学校的出现改变了巴基斯坦和全球低收入国家的教育部门。小型农村私立学校是巴基斯坦中小型企业（SME）部门增长最快的领域之一。最近的研究证明了这些学校（i）为农村穷人服务时的力量； （ii）雇用，教导和授权妇女； （iii）除了（iv）在学生之间产生更高水平的公民价值观外，超过数学，乌尔都语，英语学习成果的公立学校的表现。尽管私立学校具有明显的优势，但该部门持续增长的限制仍在出现。 PI计划进行一系列活动，为新模式的新模型进行严格的经验评估奠定基础，以便为新兴经济体的私立学校提供融资和教育支持。该项目基于NSF支持的PI（SES 0962504：？了解教育市场的实验和观察证据？），并扩展到低成本私立学校的特定领域。研究结果表明，尽管他们相对低成本，但巴基斯坦的私立学校表现要比公立学校的私立学校面临着持续增长和质量改善的限制。 PI将受到有关如何最好地支持这个动态部门的大量证据的动机，PI将通过提供财务，教育和运营支持，进行设计，实施和评估模型所需的初步工作，以支持私立教育企业家。这需要与关键的国际利益相关者互动，并利用其他数据源来设计一组干预措施和相关的项目评估方法，以支持该行业并确定干预措施的实施合作伙伴。 Naqvi博士将在伙伴关系发展，设计项目活动并提供本地投入以告知研究评估中发挥关键作用。知识分子的优点：认识到低成本私立学教育的迅速增长和该部门面临的新兴限制，PI旨在填补现有知识的空白：如何互动，支持和使私立教育部门的成功。他们计划解决现有文献仍然没有解决的许多问题。私立学校的需求最大，或者哪些约束具有约束力？从盈利能力和社会成果方面，低成本私立教育部门的投资回报是什么？哪些财务机制（赠款，贷款或股票投资）将产生最大的投资回报和社会成果的改善？最后，财务和获得教育支持的最佳组合是什么？更广泛的影响：这项研究产生的经验证据有可能对学术界做出独特的贡献，并在非政府组织和私营部门的决策者和从业者之间产生重大反应。如果该模型证明可持续并产生设想的结果，那么潜在影响的限制远远超出了评估领域。这些模型有可能通过释放市场的力量和这些自由企业来大大改善全国各地的教育成果，并最终在全球范围内的类似国家中大大改善教育成果，从而支持这些模型，并缩放到类似的上下文中。