ABSTRACT
Education is a cornerstone of economic and social development and a principal means for enhancing the welfare of individuals in society. Although there is not much consensus about why school effectiveness varies and what factors enhance student achievement, researchers agree that schools differ dramatically in quality. Differences in schooling quality matter because of their implications for economic mobility and social inequality. One of the most important questions facing education policymakers, thus, is what factors boost school quality most. In many countries, from an economist’s perspective, the school quality debate has tended to be defined in terms of the relative effectiveness of public and private schools where effectiveness is often measured in terms of student’s achievement in standardised tests. There is now empirical support from various studies conducted worldwide that private school pupils perform better in tests of academic achievement and that graduates of private schools have better labour market outcomes compared to government school counterparts. The objective of the research project described in this study is to find the data to investigate some of the aforementioned issues in the context of Pakistan where large inequalities exist in access to good quality education.
