Pomona Professor Writes About Pakistan's Private Schools

You've heard the argument before: that Pakistan, a nation with nukes, is descending into chaos and that all of the children are going to madrasas. It's an argument that pervades our media, but is it true?

A web exclusive written in Foreign Policy magazine says, "no." The article is co-authored by none other than Pomona College economist, Tahir Andrabi. [Bolding is mine.]

Unfortunately, this well-intentioned approach risks failure. First, contrary to the public hysteria about madrasas serving as "weapons of mass instruction," in 2005,just 1.3 percent of children in Pakistan's four main provinces attended madrasas. Most students attend public schools (nearly 65 percent), and the remainder attend nonreligious private schools (34 percent). Nor are madrasas the last resort of the poor. In fact, the socioeconomic profiles of madrasa and public school students are quite similar -- except that madrasas have more rich students than public schools. Of the extremely small number of households enrolling at least one child full time in a madrasa, 75 percent use other types of schools to educate their other children.

. . .nonreligious private schools now enroll one third of Pakistani students, according to the 2005 education census. This sector is dramatically expanding. In 1983, there were roughly the same number of madrasas and private schools in the country -- 2,563 madrasas and 2,770 private schools. By 2005, there were five times as many private schools. Moreover, the growth in private schools has increased since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, while madrasa growth has stayed relatively flat.

Data collected by the authors as a part of the largest-ever longitudinal study of education in Pakistan find that private schools are cost-effective and affordable.They keep costs low because they are "mom and pop"-managed, for-profit, independent schools, unsubsidized by the government and responsive to local demands for education.

Although education standards all over Pakistan are poor, private schools outperform government schools at all income levels. In three districts of rural Punjab where the project team tested more than 25,000 primary-grade students, private school children outperformed those attending government schools by a large margin. Moreover, data show that the same students learn more when they switch from public to private schools and learn less when they leave private schools for public schools.

To make matters even better, listen to how they treat teachers.

Private schools take advantage of an important untapped supply of labor by relying upon moderately educated young women from local neighborhoods who are willing to work for low pay. In fact, private schools are one of the largest sources of regular, salaried employment for Pakistan's women. Private schools also boast lower teacher absenteeism than public schools, which minimizes wastage and increases time spent learning. They also use their compensation structures effectively to reward better teachers and punish those who don't perform well.

File this under the burgeoning category: "How Entrepreneurship Can Save the World."

It would seem to me that Obama, himself a scholarship winner at an elite prep school and a symbol for what good education can produce, has a great opportunity here to say to the world that America will help unlock those education entrepreneurs throughout the third world.

But America's State Department has largely ignored these private schools, according to the Cato Institute. Professor James Tooley has documented this trend of the poor to educate their children with private schools. Watch this 13 minute video and prepare to be blown away.

Despite an opportunity to really lead the world, Obama has allowed congressional Democrats to gut the hugely successful, D.C vouchers program. You watch that tragedy here.