East Asia and Pacific remains the world’s growth engine despite a challenging external environment, with developing economies growing by 7.2% in 2013. The proportion of people living in poverty in the region has steadily declined—less than 10% of the population lives on $1.25 a day—but much more needs to be done as there are still close to half a billion people living on $2 a day.
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A tax funded voucher system exists when
governments make payments to families that enable their
children to enter public or private schools of their choice.
The pay... Show More +ments can be made directly to parents or indirectly
to the selected schools. The usually stated purpose is to
increase parental choice, to promote school competition and
to allow low income families access to private schools. Some
opponents object that vouchers will destroy the public
system, aggravate the poverty problem and encourage
segregation. Others fear that voucher-receiving independent
schools will be regulated out of recognition. Evidence
collected in this paper of 20 countries, provinces or
states, so far offers no clear support for the negative
predictions. The typical voucher system, which is one in
which governments subsidize "schools of choice" in
strict proportion to enrollment, appears to be contributing
to the growth in quantity and quality of schooling. This
type of voucher has been adopted by developing as well as
developed countries and notable examples of it are found in
Chile, Colombia, Bangladesh, Guatemala, Belize and Lesotho.
Elsewhere the most striking cases occur in the U.S.
(Milwaukee), Poland, the U.K. and Sweden. Show Less -