Supply and demand? - Kate Hall

Education has achieved great prominence in recent development discourse. In fact, the global commitment to the provision of universal primary education (UPE) is so great that it has been enshrined in Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) two and three, stating respectively, completion of UPE for all and the elimination of gender disparities in education. All UN member states have pledged to meet these goals by the year 2015, yet despite broad progress, many countries, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia , stand to miss the target. While it is uncertain whether it is possible to achieve such goals even in developed countries, this has certainly brought into question the capacity of the state to provide UPE in the developing world.

The current debate about education provision falls into a broader debate about the role of the state. In the post war period, the dominant economic hegemony was the Keynesian model, with an emphasis on social welfare provision provided by an interventionist state. The role of the state was considered crucial to the regulation of the market, as were the necessary institutions to assist its proper workings. However, the elections of Margaret Thatcher in 1979 and Ronald Reagan in 1980 brought a different kind of paradigm to the fore. Neo-liberalism sees a much more limited role for the state which can never have enough information to allocate resources correctly, and so can only be regarded as inefficient, vis-à-vis the market. In which case the welfare state is wasteful and unaffordable; the role of the state should be simply to create an environment for markets to develop where they did not previously exist, such as in education.

Neo-liberals, therefore, have some scathing remarks to make about the situation of education provision in the developing world 1 . Firstly they suggest that supply cannot meet demand; that states simply cannot afford to provide enough places within public schools to accommodate all the children currently not attending. Secondly, public schools are of low quality; indeed the 1999 Indian Public Report on Basic Education makes facetious remarks about the behaviour of teachers in Indian public schools - drunk, asleep, eating peanuts. However, cross-country evidence of teacher absenteeism is widespread, as is corruption and internal inefficiency, which also makes public schools costly to run. Thirdly, poor distribution of resources by the state means that, while wealthier families are almost always able to secure access to education, poorer families are often left with none, further reinforcing unequal power relations.

Market advocates suggest that these problems could be solved through the market provision of education. By charging fees, state costs would be reduced and parents would take a greater role in their child's education. For example, demanding that teachers show up to work, therefore improving accountability and quality. Schools themselves would become more efficient through competition, which would also enhance consumer choice. The poor would also benefit; scholarships or cash transfers could be provided to encourage the poorest (especially girls) to attend, thereby ensuring equity.

This approach is not dissimilar to that adopted by the World Bank, despite its recent move away from direct fees and towards ‘community schooling'. However, a focus on efficiency is likely to neglect the actual processes of teaching and learning, and ignores the fact that resources do not equal outcomes; many poor countries have achieved high levels of education with few resources. By also disregarding the social, it forgets how social contexts can impact upon education and how education can impact on society.

Market allocation of education pushes responsibility onto the individual. Many poor people do not take up school places because they are unable to see what value it will have on their lives, or, when such places are provided free due to their limited means, because of the social stigma. There may also be similar feelings of embarrassment if a family cannot afford the necessary books or uniform their child needs to go to school. Yet this has implications for the social benefits that education can provide for the community at large, and which are of crucial importance if education is indeed so central to the development process.

Education is also a useful tool to promote social cohesion and to develop ideas of citizenship and identity as used by the Asian Tigers to promote stability during their period of development. And perhaps most importantly, the right to education is enshrined not only in the MDGs but also in the 1948 UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Requiring someone to pay for what has been identified as his or her right is surely a serious paradox, and is particularly salient in view of the fact that the direct beneficiaries of education are not the household decision makers.

After much talk about the movement to either complete state or complete market provision of education, many commentators are now discussing the inevitable ‘third way' of ‘partnerships', usually involving decentralisation, in which communities become more involved in schools. While increased parental involvement may improve levels of accountability, this may only move provision from the control of dominant elites at the centre to the control of local minority interests. Richer communities will continue to build better schools and provide better education if poorer regions do not receive some help from the state. But a role for the market may be useful, accompanied by public provision reform, in light of the commitment to work towards the MDGs in developing countries at the present time.

Much of the argument in this and the flowing paragraphs is based on the work of Colclough who has written extensively on this subject.

References for this discussion are:

• Colclough, C ed. (1997) Marketising Education and Health in Developing Countries ( Oxford : Oxford University Press)

• Colclough, C and Manor, J eds. (1991) States or Markets? Neoliberalism and the Development Policy Debate

Further reading:

www.unesco.org/education/efa

www.un.org/millenniumgoals

www.eldis.org/education/index.htm