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Religious School Enrollment in Pakistan: A Look at the Data by T Andrabi et al


Religious School Enrollment in Pakistan: A Look at the Data

TAHIR ANDRABI
Pomona College - Department of Economics
JISHNU DAS
World Bank
ASIM IJAZ KHWAJA
Harvard University - John F. Kennedy School of Government
TRISTAN ZAJONC
Harvard University



March 2005

KSG Working Paper No. RWP05-024; World Bank Policy Research Working Paper No. 3521



Abstract:
Bold assertions have been made in policy reports and popular articles on the high and increasing enrollment in Pakistani religious schools, commonly known as madrassas. Given the importance placed on the subject by policy makers in Pakistan and those internationally, it is troubling that none of the reports and articles reviewed based their analysis on publicly available data or established statistical methodologies. This paper uses published data sources and a census of schooling choice to show that existing estimates are inflated by an order of magnitude. Madrassas account for less than 1 percent of all enrollment in the country and there is no evidence of a dramatic increase in recent years. The educational landscape in Pakistan has changed substantially in the last decade, but this is due to an explosion of private schools, an important fact that has been left out of the debate on Pakistani education. Moreover, when we look at school choice, we find that no one explanation fits the data. While most existing theories of madrassa enrollment are based on household attributes (for instance, a preference for religious schooling or the household's access to other schooling options) the data show that among households with at least one child enrolled in a madrassa, 75 percent send their second (and/or third) child to a public or private school or both. Widely promoted theories simply do not explain this substantial variation within households.




EXHIBITS
Data.pdf Description

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