Efficacité relative des écoles publiques et privées à Madagascar : étude d’une période de restriction budgétaire

In this paper we attempt to analyze whether the apparent decline of the public system in terms of frequentation has gone along with a relative decline in the quality of public school education, in Madagascar. We develop an estimation method which is a variation of Heckman's procedure. A probit is estimated to account for the selection of children that enroll in private schools, jointly with a second equation that analyzes the determinants of school success assessed through the number of years of schooling completed, the obtaining of diploma, or the repetition grade. It appears that as far as primary schools are concerned, Malagasy parents seems to significantly enhance their children's chances to succeed in school when favoring the private system. Moreover comparing school results of different cohorts shows that the effectiveness of public schools declined compared to the effectiveness of private schools.