PHA-Exchange> Now for a bit of controversy...

[Claudio]

THE BUSINESS OF SCHOOLING
George Kent, University of Hawai'i

September 14, 2003

  

THE HUMAN RIGHT TO EDUCATION

 

The human right to education is well established, in principle if not in practice. The right is described in article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and elaborated in article 13 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Similar provisions are set out in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, primarily in articles 28 and 29. The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights' General Comment 13, on the right to education, provides an authoritative interpretation of its implications (General Comment 13 1999). Yet we repeatedly see high aspirations defeated by the lack of resources devoted to education. It seems that funding for education is never adequate, despite the clear evidence regarding the value of education. The World Conference on Education for All, held in Jomtien, Thailand in 1990, spelled out the aspirations in The World Declaration on Education for All, known as the Jomtien Declaration, and also produced a Framework for Action to Meet Basic Learning Needs. The results are familiar: "these recommendations largely failed to generate the response needed to meet the growing demand-supply crisis in basic education (Dall 1995, p. 144)". The issue persists, as the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education, Katarina Tomasevski, and her fellow advocates for education around the world keep coming up against the same problem (Right to Education 2003). The problem is most severe in poor countries, but even countries that do have money often fail to give education high priority in their budgets.

 

Perhaps a reconsideration of the way we think about the right to education would open new opportunities. 

 

Many different parties share responsibility for the realization of human rights, but the primary obligation falls on national governments. Governments have obligations to respect, protect, and fulfill human rights. The requirement to fulfill includes the obligation to facilitate, and under some conditions it entails the obligation to provide directly (Eide 1996). In the case of the human right to adequate food, for example, the core task of governments is to facilitate, in the sense of assuring that there are enabling conditions that allow people to provide food for themselves. Governments are expected to feed people directly only under limited, special conditions, when people cannot provide for themselves.

 

We usually think of the right to education in terms of the obligation of governments to provide educational services directly. Perhaps governments should give more attention to facilitating schooling rather than providing it directly, especially for secondary and higher levels.

 

Social returns to investment in education are high. The data demonstrate unambiguously that government expenditures on education yield substantial benefits on many dimensions of development. But if education pays off so handsomely, why don't governments and parents guide their children accordingly? How can social investment be aligned with private investment? Perhaps we can get an answer by looking at education as a means for addressing the problem of child labor.

 

 

CHILD LABOR

 

Child labor is a matter of concern when children work in conditions that are abusive and exploitative. More precisely, article 3 of the International Labour Organization's Convention on the Worst Forms of Child Labour of 1999 defines the worst forms of child labor in terms of slavery, prostitution and pornography, and illicit activities, and more generally, as "work which by its nature or the circumstances in which it is carried out, is likely to harm the health, safety or morals of children (Convention 1999)."

 

Those who offer proposals for dealing with the exploitation of children generally fall into two major camps, the abolitionists who want to end child labor, and the ameliorationists who want to improve the conditions under which they work. Neither camp has been very effective. National and international laws regarding child labor are frequently ignored, in rich as well as in poor nations. Child labor laws are regularly ignored in practice because they do not take full account of the social, political, and economic forces that sustain child labor. Yes, one can say children shouldn't work, but how then are they and their families to live? Yes, one can say children should have better lighting and better toilet facilities in their workplaces, but how exactly are these extra costs to be paid, and what will motivate that payment?

 

Where children, parents, employers, and governments all feel they get some benefit from the existing practice and see no attractive alternatives, they will ignore and circumvent efforts to change the child labor situation. Attempts have been made to provide better alternatives for children in various forms, but they have consistently collapsed under the burden of their costs. How is it possible to break out of this dilemma?

 

Historically, compulsory schooling and the control of child labor in the developed countries has been motivated by two major considerations: organized labor found it advantageous to remove children from the labor pool so adult wage rates would be higher, and  the building of skill levels or "human capital" through education increased individuals' earning capacities. Schooling was an investment, something seen by both governments and parents as worth doing because there would be a payoff later.

 

 

SCHOOLING AS PRIVATE INVESTMENT

 

What can developing countries do to assure that schooling is in fact a productive investment? Presently, schools in many poor countries are not likely to build up useful, money-earning skills. In many cases, the schools' performance levels are abysmally low, partly because they are funded by government regardless of how well they perform. Parents see little value in having their children attend school. Parents are certain only of the fact that children who attend school forgo the opportunity to do immediately useful work in the fields or on the streets. 

 

Many vocational schools for the poor have been created, often with support from private charities. Their success record has been mixed, and their scale remains small in relation to the size of the need. Usually such schools depend on external subsidies that are not large enough and are not sustained through time. 

 

Perhaps such schools have not flourished because they have not been organized in a business-like manner. Vocational schools could be organized as private businesses, businesses that would succeed as economically viable operations if they were effective in developing money-earning skills in their students. 

 

The challenge, of course, is to find ways to pay for such schools. Perhaps means can be found to make investments in the students themselves. Techniques can be adapted from highly successful microcredit programs such as the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh. The Grameen Bank has made loans to hundreds of thousands of the poorest women in Bangladesh, with an average loan of under one hundred dollars. Repayment rates have been high. Similar microcredit programs now exist in many countries, both rich and poor. They have good records of success in their enterprises and good records of loan repayment. They vary in structure, but most have some sort of social support system integrated with the lending program (Microcredit 2003; Yunus 2003). 

 

Microcredit programs usually provide the means for borrowers to start new enterprises. A comparable lending program could be devised to help individuals pay school tuition to learn marketable skills. Putting these ideas together, the recommendation here is this: 

 

Private vocational schools could be created with curricula designed to build skills that would enhance long-term earning capacity in the local setting. Tuition could be paid through loans against future earnings. 

 

Having children work for years to pay off a debt may seem uncomfortably similar to the situation some children face as bonded laborers. There are important differences here, however. No child should be asked to do this without the consent of both child and parents. There must be very clear and explicit contracts and repayment schedules. The consequences of default on the loan should be plain and limited. 

 

Social support mechanisms can play an important role in facilitating repayment of tuition loans. For example, parents, relatives, and perhaps community members could share in the liability so that they are contractually obligated to pay if the child does not. This would strengthen the parents' and relatives' incentives to provide encouragement and support for the child in studying and, upon graduation, in seeking gainful and stable employment. Properly designed, vocational schools of the sort described here could help to strengthen families and communities. 

 

Apart from conveying technical skills, the school also could serve as a social support system during and after the student's attendance at the school. Faculty and staff members would be expected to develop long-term deep relationships with the students and their families. Graduates would be expected to return frequently to talk with current students and to help maintain the school with money, with their skills, and with whatever other resources they can muster. The feeling of the school would not be that of a factory churning out standardized products but of a large extended family. No student would have the right or the requirement to attend the school. Instead, acceptance into the school should come to be viewed as a privilege. 

 

The school would have to be of first-rate quality in teaching skills that would be of value locally, whether these are skills of carpentry, plumbing, truck driving, or anything else that may be in demand. Research would be needed to discover which skills are needed. Particular attention should be given to the kinds of skilled jobs that outsiders take in the local area. The school also could offer training in entrepreneurship so that graduates would be better prepared to create new opportunities for themselves and for others in their communities.

 

 

VIABILITY DEPENDS ON PERFORMANCE

 

A school of the sort proposed here would be a self-sufficient institution, surviving on its own success. It would not depend on a permanent external subsidy from government or private sources. If the school were not effective, the earning power of its students would not increase. They would find it difficult to repay their tuition loans. If enough students default on their loans, the school's cash flow would suffer, and eventually it would dry up and disappear. This self-testing characteristic is missing from publicly supported school systems. Public schools ordinarily have no strong feedback cycle, no reinforcement schedule to keep their performance level up. Typical public schools are doomed to being funded inadequately, assuring their mediocrity. And they are doomed to being funded perpetually, assuring their perpetual mediocrity. 

 

This proposal for business-like vocational schools can be appealing to both the political left and the political right. It is designed to help the poor, but it is based on using the free market directly to liberate the poor from their plight. These schools would not be unending drains on public resources. They would require capital from the outside only for startup; after that, they could be self-sustaining. Of course continuing contributions would always be welcome to allow such schools to reach more children. 

 

Such schools could be started as small experiments. Small boards of interested individuals could take the responsibility for drawing up concrete plans and budgets suited to local circumstances. Startup funding might be obtained from local industrialists who have moved from rags to riches and are willing to create that possibility for others. Clarity of vision together with a good measure of optimism could be put together to start small seed programs with vast possibilities. 

 

Such schools and tuition loan programs might be established on the basis of resources and resourcefulness already available within poor countries. But the possibilities would be greater with backing from governmental and nongovernmental international organizations. The World Bank, in particular, should see that schools of this kind would have beneficial effects for national economies while at the same time benefiting children. Such schools would constitute investments in human capital in a very literal sense.

 

Understandably, there are great fears regarding the commodification of education. It creates openings for many different kinds of abuse. However, the argument here is that making education into a marketable commodity also can have significant advantages, if used with care. Business-based schools need not be entirely independent operations, but could be operated under license from the state, thus limiting the potentials for abuse. Having some educational offerings take up some of the characteristics of commodities is not necessarily bad. While there certainly are some disadvantages, on balance our food supplies have been greatly improved in both quantity and quality as a result of being commodified. The managed semi-privatization of schooling could yield many benefits when compared with the kinds of schooling now offered in many parts of the world. 

 

>From a human rights perspective, there is a requirement for the state to make education available and accessible, but there is also a need to respect "the personal freedom of individuals to choose between State-organized and private education . . . . From this stems the freedom of natural persons or legal entities to establish their own educational institutions (Commission 1998, p. 5)." Insisting that the state must retain a monopoly on education at any level would violate individual freedom. It might also tend to assure that only uniform, low quality products are offered. 

 

We should be cautious about services that are supposed to be free. In some developing countries, health care is provided free. In some countries there is even a constitutional guarantee of free health care. In those circumstances, we can be sure that all health care will be of minimal quality. Health care or education or food must be paid for in some way. It can be free to the consumer, but some agency somewhere must bear the cost. Government promises of free health care or free schooling can mean promises of mediocre health care or mediocre schooling.

 

 

LEGAL STATUS

 

The articles on the right to education in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights emphasize free education, especially at the primary level. With regard to secondary and higher education there is a call for progressive introduction of free education. However, in article 13(3) there is an acknowledgment that parents may wish to choose for children schools other than those established by the public authorities, provided that they "conform to such minimum educational standards as may be laid down or approved by the State . . ." Similarly, article 13(4) says that "No part of this article shall be construed so as to interfere with the liberty of individuals and bodies to establish and direct educational institutions, subject . . . to the requirement that the education given in such institutions shall conform to such minimum standards as may be laid down by the state." 

 

Thus we can conclude with a few proposed principles: 

 

    1.. The state is obligated to make primary education compulsory and available free to all. 
    2.. The state is obligated to progressively introduce free education at the secondary and higher education levels. 
    3.. The state should respect, protect, and facilitate the offering of alternative, tuition-based education either by the state itself or by private parties. 
    4.. The state should help to create suitable loan programs that could be used to pay for tuition. 
    5.. The state should help provide start-up funding for educational programs managed by private parties. 
    6.. The state should oversee educational programs established by private parties to assure that they meet minimum standards. 
 

The danger in this approach is that if an array of tuition-based educational options is offered, then free education-which is costly to the state-may be allowed to deteriorate. Measures should be taken to minimize this tendency. However, in many countries public education has already deteriorated to a very low level. Rather than offer only schooling provided directly by the state, it is better to offer a range of educational options. Given the opportunity, many will choose affordable education with quality over free education of little value. 

 

Some see treating education as a commodity for sale as something that is inherently opposed to the idea of education as a human right (Whither 2003). However, we should consider that treating food as a commodity does not directly violate the idea of food as a human right. Why suggest that there is necessarily a "duality of education available against a price and education available against an entitlement (NGO News 2003)"? Inescapably, education costs someone money, and economic tools must be found to pay for it and to assure that it meets reasonable standards of quality. States are obligated to provide free primary education, but there is a need for economic creativity to assure that quality secondary schooling becomes available. One could perhaps rethink the meaning of entitlement, so that instead of being entitled to attend a particular school, secondary students were instead entitled to grants and loans of specified amounts to attend licensed schools of their choice. This sort of design would thus include elements of a voucher system.

 

Education advocates are always concerned about how resources can be mobilized to provide adequate educational services. They observe that: 

 

. . . universalizing school enrolment is not just a question of providing adequate facilities, but it is also likely to involve persuading parents to send their children to school. This is especially true in countries where girls are deliberately kept out of school and where economic considerations prevent children from going to school (Dall 1995, p. 167).

 

If schooling is viewed by its "consumers" as something of high value to them, they will mobilize the resources for it if they can. Where schooling is highly valued because of the anticipated future payoff, there is no need to persuade parents to send their children. Economic forces should be reconfigured through appropriate social design so that economic considerations do not prevent children from going to school, but instead provide compelling reasons for them to go to school.

 

Imagine what our meals would be like if we all depended on government to feed us. We would probably all get some sort of uniform watery gruel, something akin to prison fare. In many cases, that sort of thing happens when we depend on governments to provide education directly. A strategy of facilitating education, rather than always providing it directly, could enrich the range of educational options that are offered. All should meet some basic minimum standards, but there is no reason why common goals always have to be met by the same means.

BIBLIOGRAPHY  Available on request.



ANY COMMENTS? SEND THEM TO ME.

Claudio

aviva at netnam.vn  

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