Strategically promoting failure of public schooling

We have stated before that at HA, we strategically promote public inefficiency.  When we say this, we don’t imply we like to see accidents happen at public hospitals, or see our kids get dumbed down at public schools, or see the incompetence of the SAPS that fails to prevent murders and hijackings on our streets. 

What we are saying is that the more government underperforms, the more opportunity the dynamic private sector is given to create jobs demanded by consumers.  Better to have the public and private run in parallel than have a total collapse of the public sector with no backup, innit?

Unfortunately, as we highlighted in the article cited above, when it comes to policing, as South Africans we spend in total R150 billion to get a service where only R50 billion is directed by the sovereignty of consumers to private policing, the only cash that isn’t lining some bureaucrat’s pocket or paying police salaries well in excess of their value-added or productivity.  On a nationwide aggregate, South Africans effectively overpay by a factor of three to get policing in neighbourhoods where households value their security and safety highly.  This overpayment factor would be a lot higher if you consider that this handful of neighbourhoods are also the largest contributors to the state’s revenues, in other words, the neighbourhoods that value their security and safety are the ones paying for private policing as well as contributing the most to funding the entire country’s safety and security spend.

Of course, the same is happening everywhere the public sector is left in charge of running a perfectly viable private business or industry.  A research report aptly titled “Hidden Assets” from the Centre for Development and Enterprise (CDE) shows that the same thing is happening in education.  With 80% of SA’s public schools declared “essentially dysfunctional” by JET Education Services after an analysis in 2006, the private sector is taking the opportunity to educate kids, earning a living off the failure of government schools, and catering to both the high-end of the market and the low-end of the market. 

Here’s a quote from the CDE report especially for those who believe schooling requires massive public expenditure to get the white chalk on the black board.

“Our research turned into an extraordinary journey of discovery. We found 117 private schools in abandoned factories, shopping centres, shacks, and high-rise buildings. We found a chain of private primary schools operating in the Johannesburg city centre, Soweto, and Diepsloot, accommodating thousands of learners. The founders are planning to open high schools in Soweto and Diepsloot as well.

We found a private school – one of a rural chain – in Limpopo where learners were reviewing maths in the late afternoon, and another where teachers were working together to plan the next day’s maths class. We discovered a large private school in an abandoned office building in an administrative centre of the old Lebowa homeland, and another in an abandoned factory in Butterworth in the Eastern Cape.

We discovered that schools were generally valued by parents, many of whom were involved in school governance, accountable to those parents, staffed by dedicated teachers who often work for low salaries; and are run by principals and owners who are determined to provide the quality of schooling sought by local people.

The CDE found that “low-fee private schools comprised more than 30% of their total sample – far more than the Department of Education’s national estimate for 2008 of 4.3%.’

The reason given for part of this discrepancy is that “Almost a quarter of the private schools were unregistered, and therefore technically illegal.”

So our private schools that are unregistered yet desperately needed could be classified “organised crime.”  Ridiculous, isn’t it?

The report is really worth a read and it is only 7 short pages long, but if you don’t have the time, the following is an HA summary of the 7 page executive summary of the CDE report:

• Private schools have/are/provide: Fewer facilities than public schools.  They focus on essentials of teaching, using strong pass rates to attract students.
• Classes are smaller, learner-to-teacher ratio also smaller.
• From 1994 to 2009, private school growth (in number of schools) outstripped public school growth.
• Salaries of private school teachers lower than public school teachers.
• Public school teachers better qualified than private school teachers.
• Levels of absenteeism at private schools much lower than in public schools.
• No teachers absent at any of unregistered private schools part of survey.
• Private school fees vary considerably.  Local private schools fees still higher than other developing societies.
• Parents sending kids to low-fee private schools are generally working people (police officials, civil servants, and public school teachers).  Quality of private schooling was equal to or much better in some cases.
• Main reason parents sent kids to private schools is better results achieved.
• Private school teachers are “dedicated, and took an interest in the welfare of learners.”
• Use of English a “vital factor.” 

This is just so inspiring and is a slap in the face to those who continuously opine that SA requires more university graduates or qualified teachers to improve the quality of education in this country.  Teaching runs deeper than that.  It is about trust between educator and learner.  It is about care and commitment to learn.  Throwing corrupt money through corrupt channels will only corrupt what little is left of the public education system. 

For those who fear they won’t be able to afford a private school for their kids down the road, don’t worry, you’re not only limited to the Hilton’s and Bishops’ of the world.  The market will take care of you, as it always has and always will.  As long as government doesn’t ban private schools, of course.

As freeman said some months ago regarding ‘dangerous efficiency’:

“As government fails so people are quickly coming to realise that the private sector actually can provide everything people need.  The beauty of failing government service delivery is that it knocks us out of our state-dependent brain-dead comas and unlocks the creativity, ingenuity and solution-finding ability of the private sector.”

Better to have a failing and ineffective government so that private services can spring up and show people the light before the dangerous efficiency of a well-run government inevitably buckles under the leviathan it creates, leaving a bunch of state-dependent adults and politicians to sort out the mess!

“Instead, Human Action says, don’t fight for better public services, fight for worse public services!  And then fight for lower taxes so you can pay someone else to do it better and cheaper than your local branch of failing government.

Viva, freedom, viva.”

More private schooling is essential to SA’s future.  Long may private schools of all levels develop and grow.