School voucher programmes are spreading worldwide

Private choice as a public good in primary and secondary education is rapidly gaining favour in developing countries, say observers. These include voucher programmes that allow students to attend non-government schools.

For example:

China, in September, put onto effect a law giving private schools equal standing with state-owned schools. According to statistics, 54,000 private schools enrolling about 7 million students had opened their doors in China by the end of 2000.

In Taiwan, education reformers have asked that the education ministry provide free-choice vouchers for all persons between the ages of 4 and 20 years old.

Thailand's education commission chairman has proposed a radical overhaul of school finance so that students would decide which schools to attend and use the vouchers to pay the fees.

In post-apartheid South Africa, vouchers are being viewed as a way to reduce disparities between rich and poor.

Although South Africa spends a higher percentage of its income on education than any other middle-income developing country, in grade 3, the average reading and writing scores and mathematics scores are only 39 percent and 30 percent respectively .

High academic achievement does not appear to be the result of either small class sizes or high spending, but of increased freedom of choice, says the author.

Source: Robert Holland, School Choice Gathers Momentum Worldwide, School Reform News, November 2003, Heartland Institute.

For text http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=13535

For more on Education (Publicly-funded Vouchers) http://www.ncpa.org/iss/edu/

FMF Policy Bulletin\3 February 2004

Publish date: 10 February 2004
Views: 373

Culture and Institutions,

The views expressed in the article are the author’s and are not necessarily shared by the members of the Foundation. This article may be republished without prior consent but with acknowledgement to the author.

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