Why are school systems in South Asia seriously under-performing?

South Asia countries have massively increased pupil enrolment but schools remain substandard in terms of performance. Why? This essay proposes three reasons: (i) low taxing effort, (ii) weak governance, and (iii) professional corruption. I discuss each, and argue that a prerequisite for significant reform is a prolonged commitment to reduce corruption on the part of governing political elites. The first task of this essay is to document that all South Asian countries, except Sri Lanka, have failed to fulfill the spirit of the second Millennium Development Goal, a commitment to achieve near-universal primary school completion by 2015. When the MDGs were launched in 2000, the expectation was that primary school completion meant universal ability to read and do arithmetic at basic levels. The second task is to survey credible explanations as to why South Asia has not fulfilled the commitment. The third is to emphasize the role of political economy.