The myth about private schools

Two weeks back, the NYU Reynolds Program in Social Entrepreneurship hosted Dr. Paul Farmer. After his humorous and thoughtful speech, we had the opportunity to have lunch with Dr. Farmer at a very nice east village restaurant combined with an informal discussion. One of the issues that came up during discussion was role of private sector in providing basic services like health and education. Proponents of this approach argue that the poor are willing to pay for good quality services which they value (like educating their children). Dr. Farmer refused to accept this dominant view, and further stated that most people who put forth this argument have failed to understand the poor, and they themselves are not poor; India has a swelling middle class, and thus frequently emerges as a shining example in any discussion on private schools (as an alternative for public schools), the same is not true about Africa.

The very next day I boarded my flight to the country with a swelling middle class, scorching economy and the country where primary education can be bought for a price, if you are willing to pay for it. At my home in Bangalore, we employ a part time maid, Sujatha, and apart from paying her a monthly salary, my mother also supports her with educating her two kids. The older one is moving to fifth grade and the younger one is entering the first grade. The day after I heard Dr. Farmer speak, our maid came in with a circular from the private school where her children have been studying. Neither she or her husband could read the circular, given that it was written in (not so good) English. The circular stated that the school was increasing the fees by three times since they were moving on to a CBSE schooling system (administered by the Central Government) from the current system (administered by the State Government). Consequently, the annual fees now is Rs. 9000 (approx. US $ 250, excluding books, uniform etc), for her younger kid who is entering first grade. It was a challenge, even for me (a lucky kid educated in English all through my life) to decipher this information given the number of grammar and spelling errors in the circular. Turns out the school lost its permission from the State Government and thus decided to move to a Central Government administered system (which they also don’t have the permission for). This was uncovered after a quick visit to the school.

So we had to find alternatives for Sujatha’s children to continue their education. There were no public schools in the neighborhood, and she was clear she wanted to educate her children in English. We found another private school in the neighborhood with a precarious name – Madonna English School. I seemed little less convinced about Madonna, which also charges the same amount of money (around $ 250) for a year’s education.

It no surprise that the worst quality private schools are targeted at the poor. Typically, a poor uneducated parent who has high aspirations for their children, has limited information to evaluate school quality, both in-terms of inputs as well as outputs. Sujatha’s older son, who is entering the fifth grade, struggles with basic addition and can hardly read a sentence. In our hurry in endorsing private education, we are not only forcing the poor to make hard choices in spending their money, but also creating false aspirations about their children’s education.