Any comments about private versus public (govt) schooling and which is more accountable. Pl. see report below.
Although these research guys (economists all) are all based in Washington DC but it seems they have never taken the trouble of getting out of their offices and looking at how schools in Dc are run and what role are charter schools playing in heating up the competition. Ofcourse, most likely their own children are going to exclusive private schools in DC or in public schools in very rich suburbs just on border of DC.
In DC 20% children go to charter schools - since the govt run schools are real bad. What are charter schools ? These are schools run by private people but get money from govt for every child they enroll. Ofcourse unlike India the govt does make sure that enrollment figures are accurate. A friend of mine (NRI kid Mr Rajan ) working with DC
Mayor's office was personally conducting surveys while I was visiting Friendship-Edison Charter School last November. These schools -though private are extremely competitive and very much accountable.
Indian private ones quoted by these one eyed World Bank jacks are not fee charging ones or getting money based on their enrollment (unless cooked up figures) but are funded by govt regardless of enrollment (as long as they are working -on paper atleast).
Those which are really private - have no option but to make their teachers work hard to earn their meagre pay. Geeta Gandhi Kingdom's (her parents run the Guiness World Record holder school system in Lucknow - City Montessorie School CMS - teaching 33,000 children in one city) 1996 report highlights differences between India's private and public (govt) schools.
Ofcourse these report is great in highlighting the absenteeism but
they are like great diagnosers who are poor at treatment. Perhaps they need to go and work in some school - in both elite and poor schools - to witness the issues firsthand.
Umesh
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In our study, we didn't compare explicitly differences in absenteeism across private and public providers. In some countries we had that opportunity to do so, say, in India, where we did compare both private schools and public schools, and also in Bangladesh, where we compared private and public schools. There we actually found there was hardly any difference in absenteeism across public and private providers in lots of cases.
So,
again, it's not an issue of public or private because there are larger horses that are there in terms of subsidies in the economy and so one thing is that it's accountability and governance, and the public sector could play a role in improving accountant and governance in the public sector as well the private sector.
Just to finish off, I have given this example India of a lot of people turning now to the private sector. Again, a colleague of ours who is involved in the study, Jeffrey Hammer and another colleague in the research department, Jishnu Das, have looked at the quality of private providers in Delhi, and there is a huge variation ranging from the top health-care providers in the world to quacks who operalate on the street and perform all types of surgery under bridges.
So, it's not just going to the private sector. It's again about quality and accountability throughout the system
Umesh Sharma
5121 Lackawanna ST
College Park, MD 20740
1-202-215-4328 [Cell Phone]
Ed.M. - International Education Policy
Harvard Graduate School of Education,
Harvard University,
Class of 2005
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