Educational Voucher Scheme in Lahore: Serving the Underserved

The study aims to ascertain the impact of Educational Voucher Scheme in Lahore on enhancing accessibility of primary schooling through Levins’ criteria that revolves around choice, equity, productive efficiency and social cohesion. Document analysis and results of Punjab Education Foundation (PEF) survey reveals that EVS provides families with higher schooling choices as they are able to avail schooling options that were previously not available largely due to lack of finance. EVS is also responsible for enhancing equity as they allow poor families to access education provided by private schools that generally provide higher quality of education and better schooling facilities. However, student’s achievements do not show any marked improvements before or after the EVS policy. Nevertheless, productive efficiency can be enhanced in the long run as poor families switch to private schools that face a lower wage cost of teachers as opposed to public schools. Higher enrollment within private schools can allow an improvement in student achievement and a decrease in the teacher wage cost associated with the education sector.

The study is unable to provide conclusive evidence in regards to impact of EVS on social cohesion due to lack of regulation between schools. However, EVS is responsible for providing children with basic schooling facilities and this in turn can increase social cohesion. The study concludes that the success of the scheme can be gauged from the recent increase in EVS budget and believes that EVS can go a long way towards enhancing the accessibility of education in Pakistan.