Pakistan suffers from an extensive education crisis. Millions of Pakistani children do not attend school, and those that do must deal with absent teachers and poor learning environments, among other challenges. While this crisis is frequently discussed in Pakistan and beyond, it is often misunderstood. This new Wilson Center report, based on…

A theoretical model is advanced that demonstrates that, if teacher and student attendance generate a shared good, then teacher and student attendance will be mutually reinforcing. Using data from the Northwest Frontier Province of Pakistan, empirical evidence supporting that proposition is advanced. Controlling for the endogeneity of teacher and…

In approximately 1,000 grade-4 and grade-5 classrooms in Pakistan, student mathematics and science achievement were not related to teacher absenteeism, aggregate student absenteeism, or minutes of instruction. The findings suggest the limits of educational policy interventions: that mandatory allocated instructional time is less relevant to…