public education spending, especially at primary and lower<sup>secondary levels,isfundedatlocal</sup> levels as a result of decentralization process.

Moreover, poor students still have significantly lower<sup>enrolmentsthan richstudents,even</sup> after the recent surge in enrolment. Rural areas and some<sup>regionshaverelativelylowprimary</sup> enrolment rates. In general, the public sector share of total<sup>enrolmentisfairlyconstantacross</sup> quintiles, so public school enrolment rates are higher among<sup>the better-off than amongthe poor.</sup> This enrolment gap is particularly wide at higher levels of<sup>education.Thusthesmall partofthe</sup> population who obtain higher education, among whom<sup>thebetter-offareover-represented,</sup> receive a disproportionate share of the education budget.<sup>Inordertoexaminethechangesin</sup> benefits from public spending on education accrued to different<sup>groupsof populationandsee</sup> whether these changes are more pro-poor, this and the next<sup>sectionsanalyzethe distribution of</sup> per capita public spending across socio-economic groups,<sup>regions,andgenderforalleducation</sup> levels for 1993 and 1998.

This section uses the Benefit Incidence Analysis to<sup>measure how wellpublicservicesare</sup> targeted to certain groups in the population, for example<sup>the poor, particular regionsof interest</sup> and girls and women. The observed patterns of public<sup>spendingacrosssocio-economicgroups</sup> are determined by two factors. First, government spending<sup>allocations withinthe sector oneach</sup> level of public education and across region. Second, household<sup>behaviorregarding utilization</sup> rates of public education. Thus the incidence analysis integrates<sup>twosourcesof information:unit</sup> expenditure by level of education and by region (for example,<sup>theper studentannualpublic</sup> spending for primary education by region); and information<sup>onindividualutilizationratesof</sup> education at different levels disaggregated by socio-economic<sup>groups,regionand gender.Inthis</sup> way, public expenditure on education is distributed across socio-economic<sup>groupssubjectto their</sup> enrolment rates and the annual public expenditure per student by<sup>educationlevel.The incidence</sup> of public expenditure is the result of: (i) a public policy<sup>decision,the allocationof public</sup> expenditure to and within education sector across region, and<sup>(ii) a privatedecision,the behavior</sup> of households, to send their children to schools or not.

Assessing how well public spending on education is targeted<sup>to the poor requiresa profile</sup> of who uses publicly provided education, together with measures<sup>of thein-kindsubsidy received</sup> by these users. This analysis uses the VLSS93 and VLSS98<sup>data togeneratethedistributionof</sup> public school enrolment by per capita consumption,<sup>region,andgender,togetherwithper-</sup> student subsidies estimated from the public finance data.<sup>Ifpublicspendingwereequally</sup> distributed across the population, then every expenditure<sup>quintile,region,andgendergroup</sup> would receive an exact the same percentage share of total<sup>publicresourcesinthesectoras</sup> compared to their share in the total population. Lorenz Curve<sup>willbe usedtoillustratebenefit</sup> incidence of public spending for education.

In this paper, an adjusted Lorenz Curve will be used instead<sup>of normalone,as the number</sup> of school-age children was not equally distributed across quintiles.<sup>In Vietnam,the twopoorest</sup> quintiles have higher proportion of primary school children<sup>thantheir proportionin population.</sup> In 1998, 26 percent of total number of school-age children<sup>werefrom</sup> 20% of poorest households, compared to only 14% of school-age children<sup>from richest 20%households(top</sup> quintile). In contrast, the poorest households (bottom 20%) contained<sup>only18%ofupper</sup> 16