AFRO-NETS> Now for a bit of controversy...

[Claudio Schuftan <aviva@netnam.vn>]

Now for a bit of controversy...
-------------------------------
 
 
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 Uni-
versal 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 Commit-
tee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights' General Comment 13, 
on the right to education, provides an authoritative interpreta-
tion of its implications (General Comment 13 1999). Yet we re-
peatedly 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 Dec-
laration, 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 grow-
ing 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 edu-
cation 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 obli-
gation of governments to provide educational services directly. 
Perhaps governments should give more attention to facilitating 
schooling rather than providing it directly, especially for sec-
ondary and higher levels.
 
Social returns to investment in education are high. The data dem-
onstrate 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 invest-
ment 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 condi-
tions 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 be-
cause they do not take full account of the social, political, and 
economic forces that sustain child labor. Yes, one can say chil-
dren 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 pay-
ment?
 
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 con-
siderations: 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 edu-
cation 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 abys-
mally low, partly because they are funded by government regard-
less 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 suc-
cessful microcredit programs such as the Grameen Bank in Bangla-
desh. 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 mi-
crocredit 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 lend-
ing program (Microcredit 2003; Yunus 2003).
 
Microcredit programs usually provide the means for borrowers to 
start new enterprises. A comparable lending program could be de-
vised 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 de-
signed to build skills that would enhance long-term earning ca-
pacity 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 uncom-
fortably 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 re-
payment schedules. The consequences of default on the loan should 
be plain and limited.
 
Social support mechanisms can play an important role in facili-
tating repayment of tuition loans. For example, parents, rela-
tives, 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 ex-
pected to develop long-term deep relationships with the students 
and their families. Graduates would be expected to return fre-
quently to talk with current students and to help maintain the 
school with money, with their skills, and with whatever other re-
sources 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 re-
quirement 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 them-
selves and for others in their communities.
 
 
VIABILITY DEPENDS ON PERFORMANCE
 
A school of the sort proposed here would be a self-sufficient in-
stitution, 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 me-
diocrity.
 
This proposal for business-like vocational schools can be appeal-
ing to both the political left and the political right. It is de-
signed 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 re-
quire 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 chil-
dren.
 
Such schools could be started as small experiments. Small boards 
of interested individuals could take the responsibility for draw-
ing 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 commodifica-
tion 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 com-
modities is not necessarily bad. While there certainly are some 
disadvantages, on balance our food supplies have been greatly im-
proved in both quantity and quality as a result of being commodi-
fied. The managed semi-privatization of schooling could yield 
many benefits when compared with the kinds of schooling now of-
fered 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 con-
sumer, 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 Cove-
nant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights emphasize free edu-
cation, 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 acknowl-
edgment 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 estab-
lish 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 educa-
tion 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 it-
self 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 coun-
tries 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 secon-
dary schooling becomes available. One could perhaps rethink the 
meaning of entitlement, so that instead of being entitled to at-
tend a particular school, secondary students were instead enti-
tled 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 ob-
serve that:
...universalizing school enrolment is not just a question of pro-
viding adequate facilities, but it is also likely to involve per-
suading parents to send their children to school. This is espe-
cially 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 appro-
priate social design so that economic considerations do not pre-
vent children from going to school, but instead provide compel-
ling reasons for them to go to school.
 
Imagine what our meals would be like if we all depended on gov-
ernment to feed us. We would probably all get some sort of uni-
form watery gruel, something akin to prison fare. In many cases, 
that sort of thing happens when we depend on governments to pro-
vide 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 ba-
sic 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 Schuftan
mailto:aviva@netnam.vn

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