School voucher programmes are spreading worldwide

Private choice as a public good in primary and secondary education is rapidly gaining favour in developing countries, say observers. These include voucher programmes that allow students to attend non-government schools.

For example:

China, in September, put onto effect a law giving private schools equal standing with state-owned schools. According to statistics, 54,000 private schools enrolling about 7 million students had opened their doors in China by the end of 2000.

In Taiwan, education reformers have asked that the education ministry provide free-choice vouchers for all persons between the ages of 4 and 20 years old.

Thailand's education commission chairman has proposed a radical overhaul of school finance so that students would decide which schools to attend and use the vouchers to pay the fees.

In post-apartheid South Africa, vouchers are being viewed as a way to reduce disparities between rich and poor.

Although South Africa spends a higher percentage of its income on education than any other middle-income developing country, in grade 3, the average reading and writing scores and mathematics scores are only 39 percent and 30 percent respectively .

High academic achievement does not appear to be the result of either small class sizes or high spending, but of increased freedom of choice, says the author.

Source: Robert Holland, School Choice Gathers Momentum Worldwide, School Reform News, November 2003, Heartland Institute.

For text http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=13535

For more on Education (Publicly-funded Vouchers) http://www.ncpa.org/iss/edu/

FMF Policy Bulletin\3 February 2004