For the past decade, South Asian governments have been investing heavily to achieve the education millennium development goals (MDGs). The region has also made great progress in enrolling girls in both primary and secondary school. The rapid gains in enrollment have not been accompanied by...

"While decentralization of education in DMCs has largely been driven by fiscal constraints, it has also been motivated by concerns about the effectiveness of a centralized system in delivering education services. The statistics are revealing: while virtually all DMCs have made impressive gains...

"Among developing member countries (DMCs), Indonesia and the Philippines rank fairly high in the distribution of real GDP per capita in PPP dollars while Bangladesh ranks much lower. In terms of aggregate schooling, the Philippines has secondary and tertiary enrollment rates that are...