Opinion divided on education voucher for poor children

A proposal for school vouchers that will enable poor parents to send their wards to a school of their choice is being torn between opposing views.

The proposal, made in the approach paper of the Planning Commission for the Eleventh Five-Year Plan, was the subject of debate this week at a working group formed by the human resource development ministry.

One agenda of the working group on primary and secondary education and literacy is private-public partnership in school education and the role of education vouchers.

According to the proposed voucher scheme, with the encashable voucher, poor parents would pay for the total or partial education expense of their wards at a private school of their choice.

The opponents of the scheme, touted to be the pet idea of Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia, have called the move an attempt to turn education into a market, sources said.

The resistance to the proposal has also come in the wake of the UPA government's decision not to go for a central legislation on free and compulsory education which would have meant the Centre spending on improving the standards of the existing government schools.

In fact, a model Bill being circulated among the states by the ministry has dropped the clause in the original Bill which called for 25 per cent reservation for poor students in all public schools.

One of the members of the working group, which has to submit its report to the Planning Commission by October, is Vinod Raina "" one of the authors of the junked Free and Compulsory Education Bill.