In determining whether a country's higher education system should be expanded, it is important for policymakers first to determine the extent to which high private returns to post-secondary education are an indication of the scarcity of graduates instead of the high unobserved ability of...

This paper reviews the experience of Armenia with the displacement of more than 7,000 teachers during 2003-07 as part of structural reforms in general education. In addition to supplementary severance payments, a variety of services were needed to address difficulties commonly experienced by...

Education systems in developing countries are often centrally managed in a top-down structure. In environments where schools have different needs and where localized information plays an important role, empowerment of the local community may be attractive, but low levels of human capital at the...

This paper studies study the impact of providing school and child test scores on subsequent test scores, prices, and enrollment in markets with multiple public and private providers. A randomly selected half of the sample villages (markets) received report cards. This increased test scores by...

This paper studies the relative academic performance of students tracked or randomly assigned to South African university dormitories. Tracked or streamed assignment creates dormitories where all students obtained similar scores on high school graduation examinations. Random assignment creates...

The authors use the reverse tracer study technique to identify alternative training paths for selected skilled and semi-skilled occupations in Colombia. The study, confirming earlier research for the United States, shows that workers pursue many different training paths to acquire the skills...

This paper uses student answers to publicly released questions from an international testing agency together with statistical methods from Item Response Theory to place secondary students from two Indian states -Orissa and Rajasthan -on a worldwide distribution of mathematics achievement. These...

This paper describes and analyzes different financial schemes to promote lifelong learning. Considered are financial instruments to stimulate successful early learning, financial aid schemes and subsidization mechanisms. Theoretical analyses about funding of early learning have mainly focused on...

Graduate education in business administration was developed in the U.S. around the turn of the twentieth century. MBA and similar graduate-level business programs took hold more slowly in other countries, but the number of such programs expanded more rapidly from the 1960s onward. In an effort...

Fe y Alegria is a catholic network of schools that started operations in Colombia in 1971, and in 2009 served more than 72,000 students in 61 schools. This paper assesses the performance of Fe y Alegria secondary schools in Colombia using test scores for Spanish and mathematics, as well as...