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Abstract:
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In 1994, the newly elected Government in Malawi abolished primary school fees. Using household survey data from 1990/91 and 1997/98 this paper assesses the impact this major policy change, combined with increased Government spending on education, has had on access to schooling by the poor. This paper shows that enrolment rates have increased dramatically over the 1990s, at both the primary and secondary levels, and that crucially these gains have been greatest for the poor. Marginal incidence analysis also shows that the distribution of public education expenditure has shifted towards the poor during the nineties. However, dropout rates at primary remain high and the gains in access and unit costs have been uneven across regional and gender lines. In order to build-on these gains in access, the paper argues that Malawi needs to redress existing inequities in public education expenditure and implement measures that raises the quality of education. |