Basic health and education remain remarkably scarce in developing countries. In 2007,
more than one-third of children in developing countries were not enrolled in school and a
quarter of children were not immunized. South Asia lagged behind the developing
country average with a combined gross enrolment ratio of 60% and an immunization rate
of 65% (UNDP 2007, Tables 1 and 6). While these measures varied across the countries
of South Asia—primary school enrolment rates varied from 97% in Sri Lanka to 68% in
Pakistan—considerable regional differences existed within the countries of South Asia.
In India, nearly every village had access to a school in the state of Kerala, while only
39% of villages in Bihar had the same benefit. In Pakistan, 57% of children in Punjab
were enrolled in primary schools in 2005, while the figure for Balochistan was only 34%.
Rates of full immunization varied from 76% in Punjab to 48% in Balochistan
(Government of Pakistan 2007). In Nepal, access to schools is ten times better in the best
districts compared to the worst (see Banerjee, Iyer and Somanathan 2008 for a broader
range of within-country comparisons of public goods availability). On the other hand, Sri
Lanka presented a case of relative equality in educational attainment: the fraction of
people completing secondary school varied across districts in from 35% to 41%
(Government of Sri Lanka 2006, Table 14.2b).
We should note that simply providing access to a school or enrolling a
child in school is not enough to ensure an educated population. The quality of the
services provided through these physical facilities is also quite low in many South Asian
countries and regions. A nationally representative survey found that 25% of primary
school teachers in India and 16% of those in Bangladesh are likely to be absent on any
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given day. Similarly, 40% of health workers in India and 35% of those in Bangladesh are
likely to be absent (Chaudhury and others 2006). In Pakistan, a detailed study of schools
in Punjab found that teachers in government schools are absent approximately 4 days a
month, and that by the end of Class III, just over 50 percent of children had mastered the
Mathematics curriculum for Class I (Andrabi and others 2007). The quality of service
provision also varies considerably across regions within countries: teacher absence across
Indian states varied from 15% in Maharashtra to 42% in Jharkhand (Kremer and others
2005).