Policy Wise

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There is little doubt that primary education in India is in doldrums and needs urgent reforms. Our public schools lack basic facilities, have outdated curriculum and suffer from crumbling infrastructure. Primary education is a public good and hence a fit case for public investment. This is not merely a utilitarian argument but a moral imperative-no child, irrespective of his ability to pay should be deprived of the benefits of education.

However, direct public investment is plagued by inefficiency, corruption and wastage. This is as true for schools as it is for almost every sector of the economy. The system of school vouchers offers an alternative. By giving parents a chance to choose schools, it fosters competition, incentivizes innovation and increases efficiency. Most importantly, it bridges the gulf between rich and poor allowing the latter access to quality education at no cost to themselves. Sadly, many of our educationists still refuse to accept the advantages of school vouchers.

In an article in Frontline, Professor Jayati Ghosh attacks the concept of school vouchers calling them a farce. Professor Ghosh bases her criticism on two arguments a) large number of Indians never go to school and if they do, they drop off before the minimum Eight years of education b) Discrimination based on non-economic factors like caste/region/religion e.t.c wouldn’t be solved by vouchers. Quite naturally, Professor Ghosh is dismissive of the voucher system entirely and advocates greater public investment in the primary education sector.

I don’t disagree with the professor on increasing funding for primary education, however I entirely disagree that it should result in greater investment in government schools.First, I fail to see how poor not going to schools is an argument against school vouchers. The reason for their disinterest has less to do with poverty than with the sub-standard public education system Even if for argument’s sake we accept this premise, how will investing more in public education help? Why are the poor who keep their kids away from the school system due to economic reasons more likely to send them to public schools when even the private schools would cost the same? Infact, private schools perform better and that is why in cities they are more popular with the poor than the free public schools. Coming to the issue of social discrimination, citing the examples of elite schools is fallacious. Due to over-regulation, for example, till a year back you couldn’t open an unaided private school in Delhi without government’s permission, there is a severe shortage of quality schools. Quite naturally, existing elite schools, which are much in demand, design their policies to benefit the select few. The correct public policy response should be to de-regulate the education sector and welcome for-profit entrepreneurs. The argument against profit is more ideological than utilitarian. De-regulation and competition has worked elsewhere,most noticeably in the telecoms sector-there is no reason why it won’t work in education. In fact, government policies designed to promote equality have harmed the cause of poor by creating an artificial scarcity of resources.

There is one important point which quite conveniently finds no mention in Professor Ghosh’s article, that of teachers. Unionized teachers who cannot be fired and have little incentive to teach remain the biggest stumbling block in educational reforms. Recently, there have been some efforts to grant panchyats some degree of control over teachers but that is only true for temprary employees, there is nothing anyone can do about permanent government employees. As Swaminomics points out, increasing politicization of the teachers makes them electroally important and political parties are loath to take them on. This is not only true for India, even in America, powerful teacher unions have managed to thwart reforms. Recently, Steve Jobs went as far as to say that (they are) ”what’s wrong with our schools.”[link]

Further, while public goods like primary education and health needs government funds, the delivery system needs to be delinked from funding. Private sector does a much better job when it comes to delivering products at a reasonable price and this efficiency is important if we want to ensure that every kid has access to quality education. Even in states like Sweden with their strong social policies, the voucher system has worked well and is popular. Second, we need to redfine equality. There is little doubt every Indian should have access to quality education, however this doesn’t automatically mean that everyone will have access to education of equal quality. There should be a certain minimum standards enforced by the paying authority(in this the government), beyond that if someone wants to spend his own money, state shouldn’t interfere. Perfect equality is an impossible dream and sooner we understand it, better it will be for India’s poor.

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