PRIVATE TUTORING AND PUBLIC CORRUPTION: A COST‐EFFECTIVE EDUCATION SYSTEM FOR DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

Abstract

N developing countries, public expenditure on school education increased from 2.9 per cent of GNP in 1970 to 4.1 per cent in the late 1980s. In most of these countries, more than 80 per cent of this public expenditure is used for paying salaries to the school teachers. Despite this, an ILO survey (1991) on “teachers’ salaries” during the mid-1980s collected from fifteen developing countries shows that the teachers do not occupy the same position in the wage hierarchy in comparison with other professions requiring similar qualifications and responsibilities. The overall conclusion is that the teachers in developing countries are poorly paid despite their status in the society. Second, developing country governments have difficulty in monitoring teachers’ activities at school. This is because developing countries often have harsh environments making communication and travel difficult. In addition, roads, railways, and telephones are often in poor condition or nonexistent. At the same time, it is also observed that the teachers are engaged in providing private tutoring to the students for a fee. We hypothesize from the above facts that the existence of a wage differential and the fact that classroom teaching can only be imperfectly monitored, are likely to encourage school teachers to teach school lessons poorly in order to create a demand for income-generating private tutoring. There are many reasons for the demand for private tutoring. It can be either due to the weaknesses of the students or due to the negligence of the teachers. In some cases, although the teachers may