Using Subjective Measures to Better Understand How Public Schools Experience Competition: The Case of Nepal

• In Event: 72.065 - Roundtable Session 30
  In Roundtable Session: 72.065-8 - Thinking Anew About School Choice and Competition: Multiple Perspectives and Emerging Avenues for Research

Abstract

Purpose

Since 1990, there has been massive expansion of the public school system, and a near doubling of the private share in primary education in developing countries (World Bank, 2013). The important consequences of these evolutions on the public system’s experience of competition remain largely uninvestigated in low-income contexts. To contribute to the literature, this paper uses public school principals’ declarations of competing and best schools to explore the experience of competition in the case of Nepal.

Theoretical Perspective

In the economics of education tradition, public schools’ experiences with competition are defined using measures such as private market share, geographic proximity, the percentage of students switching schools, or the concentration of schooling (Betts, 2009; Zimmer & Buddin, 2010). However, initial conditions and school and location characteristics influence the actual experiences of competition, regardless of the number of schools nearby (Hess, Maranto, & Milliman, 2001; Ni & Arsen, 2013). I argue that subjective measures, defined using principals’ identification of other schools, will be reflective of the multi-dimensional nature of competition, filtered through the experiences of the main decision-makers, the public school principals.

Research Questions, Data, and Method

I utilize a principal survey of a census of 212 public secondary schools from two urbanizing districts (Kathmandu and Chitwan) of Nepal, and national administrative records. In the survey, I asked principals to name 3 competing schools and 3 of the best quality schools in the district. I define two types of subjective competition measures. The private competition measures are categorical variables which equal 1 if the school principal mentions at least 1 private school among competing or best schools. The public competition measures are categorical variables which equal 1 if the public school was mentioned as a competitor or one of the best schools by at least one other public school. I run logistic regression analysis using these measures as the dependent variable, and a set of community, school and principal perception measures as independent variables.
I address the following research questions:
1) How do public schools that identify private schools as competing or best schools differ from public schools that do not identify private schools as competing or best schools?

2) How do public schools that are mentioned as competing or best schools differ from public schools that are not mentioned as competing or best schools by other public schools?

Results and Significance

The logistic analysis suggests that public schools whose principals perceived private schools to be competition were more likely to agree that their experienced teachers were of excellent quality compared to principals who had not identified private schools as competition. The public schools mentioned as being among the best in the district have higher enrolment, are more likely to be selective, and have higher mathematics test scores. The findings suggest that subjective measures of competition may capture the multidimensional nature of competition more effectively than the exclusive utilization of quantitative competition measures, and should be used more regularly in exploring the processes and impacts of competition.

Author

• Priyadarshani Joshi, University of Pennsylvania