Sumita Kale: Free to choose

The criticism against the voucher system which allows opting for a school of choice - public or private - is unfounded.

Milton Friedman was widely acknowledged for his work in monetary theory and policy, for which he had been awarded the Nobel Prize in 1976. But few know that for the last 10 years of his life, he had been working actively with his wife in the field of school reform in the US. In his The Role of the Government in Education (1955), his interest was primarily in what he termed, the "philosophy of a free society". His ideas were discussed and put into practice only in the 1970s when the standards in American public schools had deteriorated considerably. The primary aim of the Milton and Rose Friedman Foundation has been to initiate dialogue on the best ways to provide schooling to children of all incomes and social classes without compromising on the quality of education received.

In 1955, one of the methods he suggested to bring about equity was a system of vouchers, distributed to parents, to be used in any school of their choice. Now the Draft Approach Paper to the 11th Plan has brought up this issue in India "" "A more powerful method of enforcing accountability is to enable parents to choose the schools where they will send their children. Enabling people to choose between available public or private schools (by giving them suitable entitlements reimbursable to the school) and thus creating competition among schools could be considered. The experiment could be tried in pilot schemes."

This raises controversy as the dispute over the nature of "education" as a public good rages on ideological grounds. Private schools are often seen as capitalistic and the government as the rightful provider of education. The system of vouchers targeted at marginalised groups is already in practice in many countries and flaws in implementation are often picked out leading to hot debate over whether this proposal is desirable or not for India.

One of the arguments against vouchers is that public choice is better implemented by reservation for the weaker sections in private schools. In the voucher system, generally, private schools have no financial burden of the poor students and nor is there an obligation to accept such students. While there is no reason why the presence of vouchers should preclude such obligations, the reference point of this argument seems to be the urban elite schools who have vociferously opposed reservation. But what about the hundreds of schools across India which do serve the poor, even as they suffer from inadequate funds?

Private schools are not exclusively an urban phenomenon; in fact, the majority of private schools are located in rural areas. DISE data shows that while more than 90 per cent of all government schools are in rural areas, the share of rural private aided schools in their total is 67.87 per cent and for private unaided schools, the share is 58.52 per cent. According to the ASER-Pratham survey, conducted in more than 9,521 villages, 77.8 per cent of children in the age group 6-10 go to government schools, the remaining are in private schools.

Even in urban areas, private schools cater to the poor as has been shown by James Tooley and Pauline Dixon of University of Newcastle upon Tyne. Indicus Analytics assisted in the research carried out in the slums of Shahdara in Delhi ("Private Schools Serving the Poor", Tooley and Dixon, Working Paper, 2005). The census of primary and secondary schools revealed that out of the 256 schools in these slums, two-thirds were private unaided schools. Around 10 per cent of the students came to school free or paid concessionary fees, even as the fees averaged around Rs 125 per month. During unannounced visits by the researchers, 38 per cent of the government school teachers were teaching compared to more than 70 per cent in private unaided schools and tests of children showed that while private aided schools scored the highest, children from private unaided schools did better than the government school children.

Opponents of vouchers concede that teaching standards and quality of facilities are low in government schools. Their fear is that public money would be diverted into vouchers, reducing the chances of improvement in government schools. However, the outlay is not as crucial as the outcome. In fact, pay scales are higher in government schools compared to private schools. For instance, the Shahdara survey revealed that average salaries in the government schools were more than seven times higher than in the unrecognised private schools in the same area. To become a government school teacher, often money exchanges hands as the post is a coveted one with no accountability. The crux, therefore, lies in accountability and this is exactly the rationale behind the Planning Commission's proposal.

Another allegation against the vouchers that they can be misused and frauds will multiply may be valid but the present system itself is far from perfect. The CAG audit of the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan reports numerous cases of misuse of public money in the name of providing education. In any case, this calls for more vigilant supervision and vouchers will at least empower parents to have a voice.

The author is Chief Economist, Indicus Analytics, and can be contacted at sumita@indicus.net