Is private education good for society?
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Published 2019-04-11
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There is a big boom in private education all over the world. You see it in schooling numbers. The numbers of people going to private primary has gone up from 10 to 17 percent over the last 15 years. Secondaries gone up from 9 to 27 percent. Then if you look in particular countries you find for instance in China, there's a big increase in people going to elite private schools. But also huge business in terms of people getting online tuition. Parents are finding ways to spend money on the great competition to improve their children's brains.
The resurgence is happening for a few different reasons and one of them is that incomes are going up, the birth rates are going down. So in families all over the world there is more money to spend on each child. If you look at the Chinese one-child policy you get six people: four grandparents, two parents, all of them willing to invest in the education of one child. At the same time you've had the whole of the world economy changing so that there are fewer unskilled jobs everywhere - almost all decent jobs require you to have a qualification of some sort.
The great advantage of private education is that it's fantastically good at getting children in school. In countries where people are moving around a lot, which is most of the developing world, and where populations are growing swiftly - you get this huge swift urbanization. Governments just can't keep up. You'll get governments like Pakistan struggling with fast growing cities and has partnered up with the with the private sector to send poor kids, who would otherwise not be getting schooling at all, into private schools - and they're doing that with over two million kids. Private schools can also be really really good because you know often parents are willing to spend masses of money and you get a really high quality of education.
It is a dilemma for society. Governments need to concern themselves about equality and about social mobility. Things that the private sector discourages rather than encourages. The problem with private schools is that they do tend to increase inequality. When parents are allowed to spend money on their children they will spend as much as they can so obviously rich kids go to better schools.
You see China which is increasingly putting controls on the expansion in the school's business. It's clearly pretty uncomfortable about it. Rather than trying to shut it down governments need to be trying to work with it. Now there is a cost. If you allow the private sector to operate you are going to get a higher level of inequality but I think that that is a price worth paying for the Liberty, for the resources, for the better brains, for the innovation for the quality of education, and the breadth of education that you get if you allow the private sector to operate. I think governments must look at the private sector as a potential partner, not as they do in some places as an enemy.
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All Comments (21)
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Like why do you think that countries like Norway, Finland or Sweden have so few of them ? Because the parents aren't interested about their kid's future? Of course not. It's just that their governments invest a fair amount of money to the public sector, so that people don't feel the need for "a higher education" .
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I agree. The goal should not be to shut down private schools, but to increase the quality of state education so there isn’t a need for them
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Finland has one of the best quality of education and it is completely public.
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End conclusion sounds to me like something a private sector educated person would say..
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I have been in the UK and was stunned by the level of inequality there and how this is accepted like a totally normal thing there, it is like they don't even try to make society fair anymore, it's just sad.
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I went to a private/parochial school from middle school to HS. It was my parents decision, but I’m glad they did it b/c the schools in my area were terrible and dangerous (lots of gangs, terribly underfunded schools, and occasionally violence). I’m grateful for the opportunity to go to the school I went to. Although I acknowledge the privilege that was afforded to me when doing so, and I try to give back as much as I can.
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Congratulations to the author for this edifying peace of information: it literally contained 0% of data or measure about the efficiency of private versus public and the good they comparatively bring to society. The author clearly has an idea but it is never put into question with data, Congratulations on an extraordinarily poor and inconsequential piece of journalism!
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I don’t agree with the claim that Chinese government is restricting the schooling industry. In fact, most students who enter the top universities in China are from the elite public schools. Most private schools in China provide more international education for students compared to public schools, which charges high tuition fees at the same time, and most students at the secondary private schools go abroad to study at foreign universities. Public schools are funded by the government which can maximise the equality among people from different backgrounds, so the competition is very fierce as well. Also, the public school is really affordable, in some regions it is even free.
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So many uneducated ppl are incorrectly correcting the video by claiming that at 1:54 it's the golden Temple of Amritsar, except it's not! It's the Badshahi Masjid in Lahore Pakistan!
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Its not about being in a private or public school. As long as the school is well managed with the right teaching force and facilities it wouldnt really matter. Also take into account the willingness of the student to learn.
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The piece utterly failed to address the fact that, because private schools in many places can pick and choose which students to keep, they can bias their success measurements dramatically. Hence one must take the phrase "better schools" with a large pinch of salt unless these demographic differences are taken into account. Secondly, private schools (in America, at least) may have serious drug problems that are rarely discussed because (a) schools work hard to protect their reputations, (b) parents and board members are often influential members of their community and (c) police spend less time on drug crimes in affluent areas than in poor areas.
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Could the Economist let us know if the person who included the Golden Temple in the Pakistan discussion was privately educated or state?
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Rising inequality can lead to increased mistrust within a society and thus political instability. I disagree with this woman. Although there are definit benifits about private school education, it is not worth it. Instead, I think we should focus on making public schools better than they currently and pump money into those institutions so more people will benifit from a better education without the split in society.
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I condemn public education in my country for not giving me a quality education, I had and I still have to improve cultural and intellectually by myself as teachers doesn't apply authority anymore, public schools have become truly prisons.
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I think the idea of banning private schools is a violation of rights. If parents have the money and want to pay for their child's education out of their own pocket, who are the government to force them to go to a state school? I think objections to private education come from bitterness against people with more money rather than genuine concern for the well-being of the country.
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As a south korean, whose country has been struggling with educations ever after the Korean war, private school has more value to parents than public school, because korea has a exam system that nobody can solve without private schooling.
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The best way forward I believe would be to introduce the voucher system and allow all schools to be administrated by private individuals. You'd have the competition between schools to increase quality of education while at the same time free education for the masses.
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Sometimes the private sector becomes a choice, not because the quality is higher, but because is safer than public schools.
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I studied in both and i did pretty well in private education: more time to take care of the student. Public education was ok but overcrowded class and not much time spend by teacher for the student. That why I was falling
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In China no matter how rich you are, you want to send your children to public schools where best teachers are. Private schools are mostly for children expelled by public schools. It's actually good, since children from different classes mix together and learn from each other when they have not developed class discretion. This is helpful even for rich kids because it lets them know the lives of ordinary people and appreciate their fortune. Public schools also offer the same curriculum, which is very strict. This makes sure that Chinese students are competitive in the world.
