New Delhi: Private schools in Pakistan are far better in quality and are providing education at much cheaper rates than the government schools, a top economist of the World Bank said here on Tuesday.

Jishnu Das, a senior economist in the Development Research Group at the World Bank said that education in Pakistan was going the US way.

"There is huge private sector growth in the school system since 1995. And interestingly only one percent of the school going kids are in religious schools as against nine percent in the US," Das said.

He was speaking at a symposium on 'Freedom in Education: International experience in Regulation, Access and Quality' here.

He said as per a study in which he was involved, 30 percent of the primary schools in Pakistan are now private schools and they are less expensive as well.

"Private schools in Pakistan are really cheap. For a medium level school, a student is only paying Rs.100," he said adding these private players are going to rural areas as well.

"Private schools are doing better than government schools. The worst private schools are much better than the worst government schools," he added.

"I find little evidence for regulating private schools," said the economist.

Speaking about the India, R. Govind, a professor at the National University of Educational Planning and Administration (NUEPA) said that the fight between private schools and government schools should come to an end.

"There is no point regulating a private school but what is required is independent professional bodies to check quality of education and of teachers," Govind said, adding that the need of teachers should also be taken care of.

"India needs to restructure its education system and government should disengage itself from every single school affair," said the professor, whose organisation is a body of the human resource development ministry.

He further pointed out that teachers' autonomy is embedded in school autonomy. IANS