Private school

A private school is a school that is established, conducted, and primarily supported by a nongovernmental agency.

See also: Public education

See also: Education: Free and Compulsory

Private schools for the poor

According to a two-year in-depth study published in 2005 conducted in select low-income and slum areas in India, Ghana, Nigeria, and Kenya, private schools were more numerous than government schools and offer a higher quality of education to the children, while still being affordable for poor parents.

In the areas officially designated as "slums" of three zones of Hyderabad’s Old City, the researchers found 918 schools, of which only 35 percent were government schools, fewer than the 37 percent of unrecognized private schools. In total, 65 percent of schoolchildren in those low-income areas attended private unaided school. In the Ga District of Ghana (the lowincome suburban and rural area surrounding the capital city of Accra) they investigated 779 schools in the same way, finding that only 25 percent were government schools and that 64 percent of schoolchildren attended private school.

In the "poor" areas of three local government districts (one rural, two urban) of Lagos State, Nigeria, were found 540 schools, of which 34 percent were government, and the largest proportion, 43 percent, were private unregistered. An estimated 75 percent of schoolchildren were enrolled in private schools. Including enrollment in private unregistered schools would reduce the percentage of out-of-school children in Lagos State from 50 to 26 percent.

Research was also conducted in the small shanty town of Makoko, in Mainland, Lagos State, and in the slum of Kibera, Nairobi, Kenya (reportedly the largest slum in sub-Saharan Africa). In both cases, the large majority of poor children attended private, not public, school.

The raw scores from student achievement tests showed considerably higher achievement in the private than in government schools. In Hyderabad, for instance, mean scores in mathematics were about 22 percentage points and 23 percentage points higher in private unrecognized and recognized schools, respectively, than in government schools. The advantage was even more pronounced for English. In all cases, this achievement advantage was obtained at between half and a quarter of the teacher salary costs.

The research indicated that a great success story was taking place, usually beneath the government’s radar. The mushrooming private schools, if noticed at all by the authorities and development experts, were assumed to be educationally inadequate. The research shows that this assumption was false.

A detailed census was conducted in 2012 in one Indian city, Patna. Among its 1.8 million people were 350,000 school aged children. According to official statistics Patna had only 350 schools, however, the census found that that were 1,574 schools. The missing schools were mostly unrecognized schools, charging very low fees and catering to the poor and lower middle class. Despite the apparently insignificant official numbers, in fact, private unaided schools made up the vast majority of schools in Patna – 78%, compared to only 21% of government schools and 1% of private aided. Classifying private unaided schools into three categories, based on their monthly fee levels, the analysis showed that 69% of private unaided schools were low cost, 22% affordable, and only 9% higher cost. That is, the vast majority of private unaided schools found in Patna Urban were low cost, charging fees less than Rs. 300/- per month. It was suggested that fully 65% of schoolchildren in Patna attend private unaided schools, with just 34% attending government schools.

In a random sample survey of households, nearly 70% of those with children in government schools would prefer to send their children to private unaided schools if they could afford to do so. More than half the respondents did not think the government schools provided quality education. In fact, about a fifth seemed to have chosen a government school only for non-educational benefits such as the free midday meal and uniforms.

Links

• Education in Colonial America by Robert A. Peterson, September 1983
• ""Free" Education and Literacy" by Barry Dean Simpson, January 2004
• Private Schools in the Poorest Countries (pdf) by James Tooley, September/October 2005
• Backing the Wrong Horse: How Private Schools Are Good for the Poor by James Tooley, May 2006
• How Private Schools Are Serving the Poorest (video) by Pauline Dixon, April 2012
• School's Out (video), BBC Newsnight, June 2005
• Private school at Wikipedia