With an estimated one hundred and fifteen million children not attending primary school in the
developing world, increasing access to education is critical. Resource constraints limit the extent to
which demand based subsidies can do so. This paper focuses on a supply-side factor—the availability
of low cost teachers—and the resulting ability of the market to offer affordable education. We use data
from Pakistan together with official public school construction guidelines to present an Instrumental
Variables estimate of the effect of government school construction on private school formation. We
find that private schools are three times more likely to emerge in villages with government girls’
secondary schools. In contrast, there is little or no relationship between the presence of a private
school and pre-existing girls’ primary, or boys’ primary and secondary schools. Moreover, there are
twice as many educated women and private school teachers’ wages are 18 percent lower in villages
that received a government girls’ secondary school. In an environment with poor female education
and low mobility, government girls’ secondary schools substantially increase the local supply of
skilled women. This lowers wages for women in the local labor market and allows the market to offer
affordable education. These findings highlight the prominent role of women as teachers in facilitating
educational access and resonates with similar historical evidence from developed economies—the
students of today are the teachers of tomorrow.
