School Vouchers on the Way in India?

According to an article in The Hindu, an education planning commission in India has recommended the creation of pilot voucher programs in its final "Approach Paper."

I have no doubt that the impetus for this recommendation comes at least in part from James Tooley's work in India and Africa over the past decade, including his most recent study showing the effectiveness and efficiency of private schools serving the poor in the city of Hyderabad.

A particularly interesting aspect of the article is the extent to which the Union Human Resource Development Ministry (in charge of education) misrepresented the facts in its statements to the reporter, Anita Joshua. I just fired off an e-mail to Ms. Joshua, setting the record straight. Some highlights below the fold...

Most notably, the Ministry claims that “the average cost of schooling in private unaided schools [in India] is much higher than in government schools.” The converse is true. I summarize the evidence from a variety of public/private sector comparisons of Indian schools in pages 6–10 of a book chapter that is available online here: http://www.schoolchoices.org/roo/How_Markets_Affect_Quality.pdf. 

In one of those studies (of Uttar Pradesh), for example, Oxford University professor Geeta Gandhi Kingdon found that unaided schools spend roughly half of what is spent by government schools, per pupil. (Geeta Gandhi Kingdon, "The Quality and Efficiency of Private and Public Education: A Case-Study of Urban India," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Vol. 58, No. 1 (1996), pp. 55–80.) Interestingly, the same is largely true in the United states, where the average private school tuition fee is about half the total public school per-pupil expenditure. 

Also, a recent study published by the Cato Institute, conducted by University of Newcastle professors James Tooley and Pauline Dixon, found that personnel costs in Hyderabad’s unaided slum schools were a small fraction of those in nearby government schools — and personnel costs represent the lion’s share of school expenditures. Furthermore, Tooley and Dixon found that students in the private slum schools significantly outperform their peers in the more expensive public schools. 

Nor is there any validity to the Ministry’s claim that private schools are unavailable in rural areas. An extensive 1999 report found private schools in many rural areas across northern India, and also reported that they were providing better facilities and more actual teaching than their public counterparts. (Anuradha De, Jean Drèze, Shiva Kumar, Claire Noronha, Pushpendra, Anita Rampal, Meera Samsom, and Amarjeet Sinha, Public Report on Basic Education in India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999.)

Let's hope Ms. Joshua brings this ammunition to her next interview with the Ministry.