The Asian Trends Monitoring team has launched their newest report in the series on urban poverty, Bulletin 20: Educating the Urban Poor.
Despite efforts by nearly all governments across Southeast Asia to provide access to free education until secondary level, there remain several stumbling blocks that lead to low enrollment rates and unsatisfactory educational outcomes. For example, there are often additional costs beyond the tuition expenses, including the opportunity cost of foregone income from the child working to support a parents business or engage in independent economic activity. Poor service delivery represents another problem, where subsidies and other forms of assistance do not reach the poorest households.
