# 3. Data

For national statistics, the paper relies on data from the Ministry of Education, Science, and Training (MoEST) Basic Education Statistics (BEST) and the World Bank’s World Development Indicators (WDI). Other data come from three sources.

**1. 2013 school survey undertaken as the baseline of an impact evaluation** (IE) by the World Bank. This is referred to henceforth as the _<u>2013 IE data.</u>_ The study sample includes 396 lower secondary schools from five regions of Tanzania: Simiyu, Shinyanga, Morogoro, Lindi and Geita.<sup>1</sup> Around 16 percent of the interviewed schools are private and the remaining are public. The survey includes information from head-teacher and teacher surveys, along with tests for Form III (Grade 9) students. As a part of data collection, students were tested in independently-created curriculumbased tests on English, Mathematics and Kiswahili. For the purposes of this analysis, we include only schools from the Morogoro region (166 schools), as we can merge it with other data sources, including administrative data on student performance.

**2. 2015 school survey in Morogoro** undertaken by the World Bank. This is referred to henceforth as the _<u>2015 Morogoro data</u>_ <u>. This survey collected information from 142 schools in the</u> Morogoro region of Tanzania, 53 of which were public schools and 89 of which were private schools. Roughly, 62 percent of the schools were at pre-primary/primary level and the remaining (38 percent) were at the secondary level (lower secondary, upper secondary or both). It included interviews with head-teachers on school demographics, operational costs, management and student outcomes. The survey was not designed to be nationally representative.

For private schools, an additional module on possible partnership with the government was included. Private schools were randomly selected to be administered one of two versions of this module. The first version phrases questions in a personalized manner, asking respondents directly their opinions on partnering with the government. The second version phrases questions in a generalized manner, asking respondents their opinions on partnerships of the average private entrepreneur.

Average PSLE marks and CSEE grade point averages (GPA) from 2013 to 2016 were merged with the 2015 Morogoro data to assess differences between public and private schools over time. PSLE marks and CSEE GPAs were provided by the National Examination Council of Tanzania (NECTA).

**3. 2017 SMS survey of parents** undertaken by TWAWEZA, a prominent civil society organization focused on improving education service delivery in Tanzania.  This is referred to henceforth as the _<u>2017 SMS data</u>_ <u>. Every year TWAWEZA conducts a Sauti za Wananchi (Voices of</u> Citizens) survey using mobile phones to regularly collect information from a nationally representative panel of mainland Tanzanian citizens. To help avoid bias toward the wealthiest households (who are more likely to own mobile phones) and those in urban areas (who are more reliably able to charge them), all respondents recruited for the survey were offered a simple mobile phone and solar charger.

The 2017 survey, used in this paper, collected information from 1,396 households across Tanzania who had a child in primary school and/or a child in secondary school. The respondent for the questionnaire was the head of the household. Of the households surveyed, 1,251 had at least one child in public school, 77 had at least one child in private school, and 68 households had children in both public and private schools. This was the 23<sup>rd</sup> round of calls made to the panel of households.

> 1 At the time of sampling (2012), old regional demarcations applied, due to which the schools sampled from Simiyu and Geita belong originally to Shinyanga. This means that data from Simiyu and Geita are not regionally representative.

5