Education | South Asia
Education and the State: Seeking Balance
It is widely accepted that India’s education system has and continues to fail the vast majority of its population. Ironically, the country’s success in establishing a globally competitive service sector has, if anything, underscored that failure. Poor quality, however, is not the only problem. The other is access - vast numbers of children simply do not enter the primary education system or leave it too early. Literacy and enrollment are particularly low among women and other marginalized groups. This failure is most glaring when comparing India with China where illiteracy, at least, has been substantially eradicated.
These problems persist despite several initiatives by the Central government to improve outcomes. Increasingly, therefore, liberal economists, international development agencies, and philanthropies have called for a shift towards greater privatization of primary and higher education. In particular, calls emerge to disconnect the funding of education from its operation, through the provision of education vouchers.
Privatization has worked well in several situations in India. Yet as the belief that it works everywhere gains greater currency, there is a need to evaluate if education is also amenable to privatization.
The Basic Argument
The idea of private education vouchers was first put forth by Prof. Edwin G. West. More recently, high profile organizations such as the World Bank and the Orient Global Foundation (with committed funding of US$100 million) have given the idea new impetus.
The theory is simple – deregulate education and allow private operation of schools, giving parents the option to choose where they wish to send children (so called “school choice”). The resulting competition amongst schools for these “consumers” would lead them to improve quality and expand access. The obvious challenge of including poor students is solved by providing poor parents with vouchers funded by the government.
Voucher systems have been tested in several countries - developing and developed - and arguments exist for and against. But few have tested the underlying assumptions of the theory of privatization.
Testing the Assumptions
The success of a largely private system depends fundamentally on two things – a financial incentive and the natural competition of free-markets. The assumption of competition in turn assumes three things: a) that “school choice” is real, b) that it is not possible to cheat the system, and c) that information flows are reliable enough to evaluate quality.
Do these assumptions hold?
The fallacy of school choice: In a private system quality improves through competition. Yet, experience shows that true competition is unlikely here. This is first, and foremost, a matter of supply and demand. Demand for education vastly outstrips supply in India and will do so for the foreseeable future. This remains true in the most affluent areas of Delhi, where it is common for parents to apply to several schools to secure admission for their children. Further, the cost of switching schools is high, marked by a social cost to the child of readjusting to a new environment and the administrative/financial cost to parents of the process. Finally, and as pointed out by Charles Wheelan, schools tend to restrict supply simply to maintain quality. Consumer power, then, is so limited as to make “school choice” more of an illusion even in the most “privatization friendly” situations. And if it doesn’t work here what hope do parents in small, remote, poor villages have where exclusion is largely social and thus not corrected by vouchers?
The problem of cheating: The second assumption is that faced with strong incentives schools will improve actual outcomes rather than cheat the system. It is illustrative, here, to note that in response to the No Child Left Behind act, public schools in Chicago were found cheating on grades (they also underreported violence). That these were public schools is irrelevant – what is important is that faced with a top-down incentive to improve quality, schools preferred to cheat the system rather than make the necessary investments to improve actual quality.
Poor information for poorer consumers: This brings forth a final problem - that of evaluating quality. The education “market” is marked by poor information flows and by an inability of a large number of parents, who never went to school themselves, to evaluate objectively what a good school is. This again undermines the assumption that “school choice” exists. The truth is that we simply do not have a single definition of quality. Therefore, it is equally possible that schools that invest more in marketing and outreach - rather than in improving quality - will gain the most.
Unintended Consequences
There is one final test to which a private system must be put – even if private education were to improve quality, would it improve access and existing inequities in provision - or at least not make them worse? The two points cannot, of course, be delinked because any school’s outcome depends largely on the students it admits. Therefore, schools that receive students from academically poorer backgrounds must invest more to achieve the same outcomes. As Charles Wheelan said:
I expect that the Chicago Public Schools would be excellent if they had to accept only 1 of every 10 eligible students. (Indeed, the magnet schools in the system, which are allowed to select students competitively, are some of the best in the country.)
Second, education is often denied to children for a variety of causes and money or the absence of schools are only two of them. Others include the lack of roads, the lack of separate toilets for girls and boys (which prevents parents from sending girls), and the lack of “cultural capital” – such as supportive parents – which provides a select group of students with the skills to gain admission while depriving others of the same.
Can a largely private system ensure that schools help students overcome these barriers? Alternately, as education becomes a commodity, provided to the highest bidder, can its ill-effects be suppressed by ensuring necessary investments are made – such as arranging buses, building toilets, or helping disadvantaged students overcome their skills deficit through corrective courses? The obvious solution, of course, is oversight through regulation. Yet, to paraphrase economist Joan Robinson, “any State that has the capacity to prevent the ill-effects of the commoditization of education can also prevent the commoditization of education altogether; and any State that cannot prevent the commoditization of education lacks, ipso facto, the capacity to prevent its ill-effects.”
Is Privatization Necessary?
The preceding suggests that a private system is not a sufficient condition to better quality and access. Is it, however, a necessary condition? Or, is there another way of solving the problem through a public system?
There is no better argument that the same results are possible from a public system than China. As this comparison shows, China has done better than India both in providing quality and access to primary education, yet done so through a largely public system. Recent moves to privatize and deregulate education have been largely limited to higher education, with universities being encouraged to raise their own funds and endowments.
Clearly, then, privatization is not the only game in town. Nor is there any reason to believe that private schools are always preferred. For instance, a recent study in slums found that the vast majority of parents sent their children to “budget” private schools. This does not indicate a preference for private schools, but rather a lack of sufficient and good public schools. Moreover, very often in cases where both are present, private schools may be preferred not because of actual quality differences, but because of a social preference for private providers (seen as status symbols), or due to perceived rather than actual quality differences (bringing us back to the problem of defining quality).
Taking The Best of Privatization
It bears mentioning that despite its limitations, privatization does offer insight into the core problem – that public systems in India currently lack any compelling incentive to provide good education. The question should therefore be, how can incentives be built into public and private systems that ensure greater access and better quality without the negative consequences of a fully private system.
Clearly, this is possible. The American No Child Left Behind Act, despite its problems, is one example. In recent years, Delhi too has improved elementary education, largely by providing the right carrots and sticks to schools and teachers. Finally, one must also consider that the majority of government schools in India are poorly funded and managed. Simple measures such as a better working environment for teachers and basic infrastructure that indicate respect for their work would go far to provide non-financial incentives for improving quality. Indeed, without such changes comparing public and private schools is comparing apples to oranges.
Conclusion
The argument for privatization is at once political and ideological. It is political because it reflects how societies feel about the role of the state in providing “public” services such as healthcare and education. It is ideological because proponents often supplement demands for privatization with terms such as “economic freedom” or “choice” to justify their preference. Yet, this last confuses means with ends. The existence of choice can hardly be viewed as an end in itself in this discussion. Not only does such terminology presume that choice is informed but it is relevant in this debate only if it improves actual educational outcomes, rather than the perceived satisfaction of parents.
It would appear that privatization is neither necessary nor sufficient for better quality and access to education. Nor is money the only or even best incentive available to improve either. Yet, the debate does offer valuable insights into why our system has not worked and how to fix it. The current system can, therefore, gain much through greater competition (possibly internal) and better incentives (possibly non-financial).
Finally, this debate must recognize that quality is interlinked with access and equity. The two require clear tradeoffs – high quality can generally only come by selecting the best and conversely by denying access to the most needy. Therefore, no debate on privatization can occur without debating the balance between quality and equity that India wishes to achieve. It is as much a debate on what India’s system should be like, as it is a debate on what our national priorities are to be –to be a thoroughbred meritocracy or to offer equality of opportunity to the majority of our people.
Note: Throughout this text I have used the American English term “public school” to imply a “government school” (the British/Indian English equivalent).
Tags: Discussion
11 comments for “Education and the State: Seeking Balance”
Post a comment
[…] Dweep Chanana joins the debate on privatization of education and vouchers: The argument for privatization is at once political and ideological. It is political because it reflects how societies feel about the role of the state in providing “public” services such as healthcare and education. It is ideological because proponents often supplement demands for privatization with terms such as “economic freedom” or “choice” to justify their preference. Yet, this last confuses means with ends. The existence of choice can hardly be viewed as an end in itself in this discussion. Not only does such terminology presume that choice is informed but it is relevant in this debate only if it improves actual educational outcomes, rather than the perceived satisfaction of parents. […]
Dweep Chanana (DC) has written a critique of the role of private schools for the poor in developing countries and in India in particular. The thrust of the paper reproduces all the well known arguments for why markets allegedly cannot work and even when shown to work should not be allowed to work. Unfortunately DC’s critique is short of evidence. The evidence is available however (J. Tooley and P. Dixon, Private Education Is Good For The Poor, Cato Institute, 2005). Between 2003 and 2005 Tooley and Dixon’s research in Hyderabad, India compared performances of private schools for the poor with Government schools. Unaided private schools accounted for 64.6% of pupils compared with 24% of pupils in Government schools. Pupil teacher ratios in the private schools were about half those of the Government schools. It is true that facilities such as toilets, playgrounds, desks, blackboards and computers were inferior in the private schools by comparison with the Government schools but such measures (inputs) do not appear to have affected outcomes. In terms of performance private recognised (by the Government) and unrecognised schools substantially outperformed Government schools. In math the private schools achieved raw scores of about 61% as against 39% for Government schools. In English the private schools achieved scores of about 51% as against 22% for the Government schools. D. Chanana and others should cast aside their prejudices and celebrate what are astounding private educational developments in for the poor in some of the world’s poorest countries.
Dear B.M.Craven,
Thanks for your comment. Before you question my prejudice, I should mention that I used to be in favor of private education - but have changed my views after reviewing the arguments and evidence.
Your main critique is that the article lacks evidence. That is simply incorrect - several references back up the claims made (e.g. the comparison of India and China, or the improvement in performance of Delhi’s schools). Articles on the TDZ are objective and supported by evidence. Please read the references provided.
This evidence clearly points to the fact that private education is neither necessary, nor sufficient, for improved quality. If you want more, you might look here - CBSE results in India show Kendriya Vidyalaya schools outperforming private ones.
For your part, you refuse to acknowledge the substantial weakness of a private system. You sweep aside infrastructure deficiences (toilets, etc.) in private schools because they do not seem to affect outcomes. But infrastructure is important in and of itself (would you prefer to send your child to a school without toilets, or one with?), and because it has important impact on access (e.g. girls will be excluded in your system). Worse, you fail to acknowledge the link between access and quality - that a school’s quality depends on its incoming students, and therefore private schools have no incentives to correct existing inequities (through greater investment in infrastructure, outreach, etc.). You present evidence in support of my argument, yet choose to sweep it aside.
A belief that vouchers and financial incentives can solve all our problems is to oversimply the challenge. As Martin Carnoy writes: “I would like to believe, with Professor West, in a panacea that could make everyone learn more without investing enormous time and effort in improving children’s nutrition, home lives, and the way all schools deliver knowledge…Unfortunately, vouchers tend to divert attention from the overall complexity of the learning problem rather than providing a real solution.”
The basic point is simply this, that public schools can achieve the same outcomes, and provide a lot more besides. Clearly, if anyone is prejudiced here, it is you.
[…] response to my last article defending public, state-funded education - particularly primary education in India - a few people […]
Dear Dweep Chanana: Many thanks for your prompt response. I note that you direct me to a site which states:
“Among the different categories of schools, the government-run Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas topped the examinations with a 96.41 pass percentage followed by Kendriya Vidyalayas (Central Schools) with 95.64 percent.
While 92.33 percent of students at Tibetan Schools tasted success, private independent schools scored a pass percentage of 91.81 and the government schools were at the bottom of the pool with a 70.36 pass percentage.
From this, your evidence, you assert that Government schools are better than private schools. However, as you must know, Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya’s are Indian schools for talented children. They form a part of the system of gifted education. The objectives of the scheme are to provide good quality modern education to the talented children predominantly from the rural areas, without regard to their family’s socio-economic condition. So we are hardly comparing like with like!
In a large sample of government schools we would expect some in the tail of the distribution to outperform the average of the private schools (anything can be proved with a single sample) and we would expect selected gifted children in Government schools to outperform private schools whose intake took a cross section of the local children.
The website you refer me to states the government schools were at the bottom of the pool with a 70.36 pass percentage. So the issue is not that a few government schools that cherry pick pupils do well but why do the vast majority of government schools fail. More to the point, if the government initially intervened in education to help the poor, then why are the majority of failing government schools located within low income areas?
Incidentally I would prefer my children to go to a school which was good academically rather than one which had good toilets.
Dr. Craven,
You are cherry picking the evidence. That same article mentions Kendriya Vidyalayas, which outperform both private schools and Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas (JNV). How do you explain this? You don’t - you ignore it, focusing conveniently on the latter. The point is simply that public schools can - and do - outperform private ones.
Second, as you point out, schools with above average students will have good results. Have you factored in that private schools already have this selection bias? In fact, and ironically, a comparison between JNVs and private schools is better than one between private and government schools!
As noted by many commentators on Abi’s blog, Kendriya Vidyalayas are not “public schools” either. They are meant primarily for children of central government employees. This means that the “superior performance” of Kendriya Vidyalayas could be either due to the superior intake (children of central government employees in general would have better parental support, nutrition etc.) or due to the superiority of the schools themselves or a combination of both. Isolating the contribution of the schools themselves is an econometric problem which a mere glance at the numbers will not provide.
You could argue that since the comparison is with private schools, there should not much difference in the intake - in both cases, we would expect students to have better parental support etc. True, but there may be other things going on. In any case, the difference in pass percentages is not much - some 95.6% for KVs with 91.8% for private schools. Note that the government schools have a pass percentage of 70% or so.
The pass percentage itself may be hiding a lot. Between the pass mark of 40% and the maximum of 100% there is a big range. It might be interesting to look at other figures - median, mode, standard deviation and other measures of dispersion to get a better sense of the results.
Secondly, there is some dispersion with regards to the quality of KVs as pointed by many commentators, some from the KV system itself. They range from the bad to the very good. The general suggestion has been that there is a correlation between the percentage of “upper class” students and the quality of the school. A proper analysis of the functioning of KVs is yet to be done.
I am not arguing for privatization or anything - just for better analysis from all concerned. In any case, from what I can infer, the KVs, when they do function well, do so for particular reasons which are not really capable of replication.
Thanks Mooney, you’re absolutely right! The statistics don’t tell us much, besides underlying the old saying about three kind of lies.
However, isn’t everything you say about KVs also true about private schools (their variability in performance, the selection bias, etc.). Then, perhaps, the comparison of private schools should not be with government schools at all, for it is akin to comparing apples to oranges!
However, isn’t everything you say about KVs also true about private schools (their variability in performance, the selection bias, etc.).
Oh yes. It is because this is not easy that I asked for better analysis. Hope some academic takes a shot at it, it’s badly needed.
Incidentally, the point about selection bias also applies with regard to our much touted IITs. I would think that a substantial part - how much I don’t know - of the reason why IIT graduates do so well is that the IIT input is very selective in the first place. So comparing IITs with other engineering institutes is not straightforward either.
However, even if private schools are superior in terms of measurable output - test scores and the like - there is also a large “unmeasurable” output - externality in the economist’s jargon - which is very important and would tend to support the case for public schools. This externality comes in the form of benefits to society from having children of all sections (all castes, religions etc.) learn in a common environment.
Some may argue that this is not important. However, if one looks at the bitterness underlying the current quota debate - where each side seems to have the worst possible image of the other side - I can’t help but think that may be, some of that bitterness could have been reduced if only there had been more interaction at the school stage. In our current, more or less private education system, most times an urban “upper caste/class” student gets to meet someone from a rural background is when he/she goes to college by which time attitudes have hardened substantially.
I am not suggesting that a public school system will miraculously yield solutions to the caste-religion problem any more than “busing” has solved the American race problems. But the benefits should not be understated, either.
Just some random thoughts; apologies for the long comment.
Mooney - no apologies needed. In fact, that last point is really simple, yet surprisingly nobody has addressed it in this debate! Could you contact me offline on this discussion - to possibly contribute on a separate series?
[…] last two posts (here, here) on the role of the state in providing education and conversely questioning that of the […]