Religious school enrollment in Pakistan : a look at the data, Vol. 1 of 1

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Religious school enrollment in Pakistan : a look at the data

Author:	Andrabi, Tahir; Das, Jishnu; Khwaja, Asim Ijaz; Zajonc, Tristan;	Collection Title:	Policy, Research working paper series ; no. WPS 3521
Country:	Pakistan;	Date Stored:	2005/02/28
Document Date:	2005/02/01	Document Type:	Policy Research Working Paper
Language:	English	Region:	South Asia
Report Number:	WPS3521	SubTopics:	Primary Education; Teaching and Learning; Education Reform and Management; Health Monitoring & Evaluation; Youth and Governance; Public Health Promotion
Volume No:	1 of 1

Summary: 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 policymakers 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. The authors of this paper use 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 past 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 the authors look at school choice, they 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 households 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.


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