Enhancing Excellence: Socially Motivated Private Schools of Nepal

Social motivation can promote efficiency of public service delivery though its role in providing schooling is little understood. We provide both theoretical and empirical insights as to why not-for-profit private schools could enhance excellence in schooling, using Nepal as a case study. Results suggest that socially motivated trust schools outperform all other types of schools irrespective of whether we consider standardised test scores, absolute or relative to school expenditure per student. Results are robust and highlight that trust school’s social objective, coupled with private financing, ownership, and management that minimises its agency costs, is key to their value for money.