The Effect of School Type on Academic Achievement: Evidence from Indonesia

Using data from Indonesia, this paper evaluates the impact of school type on academic achievement of junior secondary school students (grades 7-9). Students that graduate from public junior secondary schools, controlling for a variety of other characteristics, score 0.15 to 0.3 standard deviations higher on the national exit exam than comparable privately-schooled peers. This finding is robust to OLS, fixed-effects, and instrumental variable estimation strategies. Students attending Muslim private schools, including Madrassahs, fare no worse on average than students attending secular priva te schools. Our results provide indirect evidence that higher quality inputs at public junior secondary schools promote higher test scores.