"Inequalities in access to education pose a significant barrier to development. It has been argued that this reflects, in part, borrowing constraints that inhibit private investment in human capital by the poor. One promise of the recent proposals to open international labor markets to allow for...

One of the eight Millennium Development Goals is that all children in developing countries should complete primary education. Much progress has been made toward this goal, but completing primary school does not ensure that students attain basic literacy and numeracy skills. Indeed, there is...

This paper examines two education programs in Sri Lanka: the Programme for School Improvement (PSI), which decentralizes decision-making power, and the School Report Card Programme (SRCP), which was designed to provide parents and other community members with information on the characteristics...

Sri Lanka is increasingly seeking to ensure that its public school system not only delivers greater shares of students who have completed higher secondary and tertiary education, but also that all students obtain a much better education. Raising teacher effectiveness is considered as crucial for...

Private tutoring (shadow education or informal fee-paid out-of-school classes) is escalating in the presence of free school education. However, according to research conducted so far, the significance of the contribution made by private tutoring to students' academic performance is still...

Inequalities in access to education pose a significant barrier to development. It has been argued that this reflects, in part, borrowing constraints that inhibit private investment in human capital by the poor. One promise of the recent proposals to open international labor markets to allow for...