We randomly assign applicants to over-subscribed programs to study the effects of teaching hard and soft skills in vocational training and examine their impacts on skills and labor market outcomes using both survey and administrative data. We find that providing vocational training that either...

In 1999 the city of Bogota, Colombia launched the concession school program designed to broaden the coverage and quality of basic education. It consists of a contract between a group of private schools and the public educational system such that private agents provide education for low-income...

This paper evaluates a primary school scholarship program in Cambodia with two different targeting mechanisms, one based on poverty level and the other on baseline test scores ("merit"). Both targeting mechanisms increased enrollment and attendance. However, only the merit-based targeting...

The book examines five ways through which public-private contracts can help countries meet education goals. First, public-private partnerships can increase access to good quality education for all, especially for poor children who live in remote, underserved communities and for children in...

The school-based management (SBM) has become a very popular movement over the last decade. The World Bank's work on school-based management emerged from a need to better define the concept, review the evidence, support impact assessments in various countries, and provide feedback to project...

The case studies in this book provide useful information on the characteristics of students and the performance of various types of schools that benefit from public-private partnerships. While these case studies are empirically grounded, their results are not necessarily of universal...

This paper evaluates the impact of water sector privatization in Colombia on access, price and water quality, as well as health outcomes using differences-in-differences methodology. The main findings of the impact of water privatization are: (i) an improvement in the quality of water and an...

We randomly assign applicants to over-subscribed programs to study the effects of teaching hard and soft skills in vocational training and examine their impacts on skills acquisition and labor market outcomes using both survey and administrative data. We find that providing vocational training...

Parental involvement programs aim to increase school-and-parent communication and support children's overall learning environment. This paper examines the effects of low-cost, group-based parental involvement interventions in Mexico using data from two randomized controlled trials. The first...

When one's treatment status affects the outcomes of others, experimental data are not sufficient to identify a treatment causal impact. In order to account for peer effects in program response, we use a social network model. We estimate and validate the model on experimental data collected for...