Evaluating Education Reforms: Four Cases in Developing Countries

This symposium features four studies of education reforms and their impact on enrollment and learning. Three are part of a research project funded by the World Bank's Development Research Group and its Research Support Budget to evaluate innovations in the education systems of selected developing countries. Two of the articles focus on Latin America, where decentralization reforms have been in place since the early 1990s. El Salvador has implemented a program that involves community education councils in the operation of public schools, and Colombia ran a voucher program that subsidized poor students, enabling them to attend private secondary schools. The third article analyzes a government subsidy program in Pakistan that encourages communities to establish nongovernmental schools that enroll girls. The symposium's fourth study evaluates a pilot project in the Philippines that uses different school inputs to improve student enrollment and performance in primary school.'