Student performance and school costs in the Philippines' high schools

PoNoy, Planning, and Reesarak WORKING PAPERS Education and Empoyment Population and Human Resources Department The World Bank August 1988 WP3 61 Student Performance and School Costs in the Philippines' High Schools Emmanuel Jimenez, Vicente Paqueo, and Ma. Lourdes de Vera Private schools in the Philippines are substantially more effec- tive than their public counterparts in teaching language skills, marginally less effective in teaching mathematics skills, and much less costly per pupil than public schools. 3 Policy, Plng, and R mRchCanplex diatsbutsPFRWoiingPapentodatntethefindingpof wokin pweu andto ancange dithe exangeof ideu among Bank ataff and al othem intead in devlopmnent ismes. Thus papea cam the names of the anthua, rellea aly their views, and ad be used and cited accoringly. Te findings, intitatiams. and cmncuhions ar the autbW own. They shold not be atitd to the World Bank, it Boad of Dirmctis, itmanagemen, or tany of its member em.  PoNcy, Pbnnin, a*d R_euech Edotn and Employmentn A key consideration in the policy debate on the tion, and innate ability, the private schools show appropriate role of private schools in preuomi- a significant edge over public schools in both nantly public school systems is cost effective- English and Pilipino (about 15 percent of the ness. The questions are: Do private school sample mean achievement scores). Public students leam more than their public school schools, on the other hand, had a slight (roughly counterparts? And is it more or less expensive 4 percent) advantage in mathematics. to educate students in private schools? A comparison of cost per student reveals a Past studies in the Philippines and elsewhere substanlial ad, antage for private schools: public have claimed that the educational achievement schools in the Philippines spend on average of students in the private schools is higher than roughly twice as much as private schools. These that of students in public schools. These studies findings strongly suggest that private schools are provide, however, only weak evidence regarding an efficient purveyor of secondary education in the relative cost effectiveness of public and the Philippines, a conclusion that should be private schools. A fundamental weakness is the taken into account in the formulation of policy potentially serious problem of selectivity due to measures that could threaten the existence of unobserved differences between the student such schools. population of each type of school. Most of the studies do not compare costs in the two types of This paper is a product of the Education and institutions. Employment Division, Population and Human Resources Department. Copies are available Taking selectivity into account, the paper free from the World Bank, 1818 H Street NW, finds that controlling for the effects of students' Washington, DC 20433. Please contact Teresa socioeconomic background, individual motiva- Hawkins, ir,,m S6-224. extension 33678. The PPR Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work under way in the Bank-s Policy, Plarning, and Research Complex. An objec'ave of the series is to get these fmdings out quickly, even if presentations are less than fully polished. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions in these papers do not necessarily represent official policy of the Bank. Copyright