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Experiencing Private Sector Competition: The Case Of Nepal's Public Schools, Priyadarshani Joshi

Priyadarshani Joshi

This paper describes how public schools experience competition from private schools in the context of a low-income country: Nepal. I argue that experiencing competitive pressures is a necessary starting point for public schools to feel the need to initiate competitive reforms. I use qualitative analysis to illuminate how the experience of competition is linked to school and community characteristics, and principal perceptions. I find that there are key temporal and demographic dimensions that determine the public school’s experience of competition and their ability to respond with reforms. I find that public schools were shielded from private competition for well over …