Experiencing and responding to private competition: the importance of subjectivity and intermediate outcomes

Despite the substantial growth of private schooling in developing countries in the past three decades, there has been little attention paid to the question of how public schools are experiencing and responding to competition in these contexts. To address this research gap, I conduct a competitionfocused analysis using primary survey data collected from two districts with high private school market share (Kathmandu and Chitwan) in Nepal. Utilizing descriptive and logistic regression analysis methods I address the following research questions in this paper: How do public schools experience private competition, and how do they respond to it? There are two central findings: (i) measuring competition subjectively may better capture public schools’ proclivity to respond to private competition with policy changes than using objective measures that capture private sector growth alone; and (ii) public schools in Nepal are adopting a variety of strategies, especially transitioning from Nepali (national language) to English medium of instruction, which may be attributable to private competition and facilitation by the government. The analytical strategy developed in this paper may provide a feasible roadmap for related analysis for other developing countries.