What The Rise In Private School Education Could Mean For Developing Countries

Developing countries such as Kenya, India and Nigeria have recently seen huge increases in affordable private school education. Children are able to get a primary school level education for as little as $1 a week.

As it has always been, education is seen as a government responsibility but reports suggest that private education is becoming a lot more popular with roughly a 10% increase of primary school children in private schools from 2006 to 2013 in India and now 12,000 private schools in Lagos. Recent studies have shown that 60% of six to fourteen year olds in India fail to read at the level of a child who has finished two years of schooling. In addition, another thorough study in a town in Southern India showed that private schools pupils significantly outperformed their public school counterparts in english and science.

This surge comes with plenty of benefits. The money brought from the investors who make this possible is used to purchase the required resources for effective and creative teaching using the latest technology which is definitely something not seen in the public schools. Most of the state schools have abhorrent conditions and bow down to powerful teacher unions which leads to large long term teacher absenteeism, many of whom, despite scarcely working due to dishonest intent are still on the payroll. Additionally, the activity of the investors and growth that could result from this could draw attention of other potential investors for other areas of the economy.

Despite the good private schools seem to be doing, their rising dominance may not be the fairytale parents and investors seem it to be.

The biggest issue I see is the fact that governments naturally would be against such an idea and thus it is unlikely to succeed long term without government cooperation. Unsurprisingly it has left governments frustrated and seeking heavy regulation. This regulation would likely be substantial tax levels and excessive government bureaucracy e.g. unfair inspections, unnecessary rules etc which will make running the school extremely difficult somewhat mirroring the problem private schools in the UK were facing around 2009. Investors who make these cheap schools possible may then not see the time and resources as well spent and therefore pull out or be forced to raise prices to exorbitant levels, leaving parents and pupils at the doorsteps of what then will be even worse underdeveloped state schools due to decreasing demand or coughing up money most of them simply don’t have.

Albeit, this is one of the worst possible outcomes and won’t happen if the government either aid the private schools through subsidies or simply avoid interference. While the idea of free, state education is one which is preferable to fee-paying school, the education levels of these countries is shocking and something needs to be done about it. The rise of private education is doing that and so it should be allowed to run its course for now.