School quality and cognitive achievement production: A case study for rural Pakistan

A critical question: what schooling inputs other than students' time are important in schooling effectiveness? This paper examines the importance of school inputs in rural Pakistan-both measured and unobserved. The sample integrates individual and household data with school information to control for selective school attainment and mitigate omitted variable biases. Estimates indicate substantial variation in school effectiveness. Varying student exposure to teachers and teacher quality both are important factors. However, availability of school equipment and infrastructure have little influence on school effectiveness. Investments that improve teacher quality and increase student exposure to teachers are thus likely to have higher returns than those that improve physical infrastructure and equipment. Teacher pay is not significantly related to student cognitive achievement. Thus, there may be substantial efficiency gains from changing the mix of schooling inputs, perhaps through better incentives. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.