rofessor James Tooley of the University of Newcastle has a revolutionary educational insight based on his study of for-profit schools in the slums and villages of India, China, Kenya, Ghana and Nigeria. His research suggests that the quality of primary education is improved for poor students when their parents are charged a small tuition. While this idea is counterintuitive to some, Tooley’s research shows that private schools, rather than public schools, are often academically more effective, as well as less costly.

This is because in countries where persistent corruption, teacher absenteeism and widespread failure of government-sponsored schools exist, poor communities have taken matters into their own hands by starting entrepreneurial private schools. These new schools require parents to pay fees ranging from $1 to $10 per month. This change in the parent/school dynamic has allowed schools to become more responsive to the parent’s (i.e. customer’s) needs, as well as required schools to compete vigorously with one another in the educational marketplace. As Tooley has written, “The poor have found remarkably innovative ways of helping themselves, educationally, and in some of the most destitute places on earth have managed to nurture a large and growing industry of private schools for themselves.”

Like the popular microfinance model that has made a global impact in the world of philanthropy, Tooley’s findings suggest that the root causes of poverty can be best addressed when people have a stake in their own educational destiny. The two-year research project, titled, “Private Schools Serving the Educational Needs of the Poor: A Global Research and Dissemination Project” was funded by an $800,000 Templeton research grant. Through data collection and case studies, Professor Tooley is examining educational performance, cost effectiveness and impact on social factors such as crime vis-à-vis government schools.

Tooley’s research dispels several popular myths, including that private education for the poor does not exist (see chart) and that private education for the poor is of low quality. As he has written, “Private schools are not only for the privileged classes. From a wide range of settings, from deepest rural China, through the slums of urban India and Kenya, to the urban periphery areas of Ghana, private education is serving huge numbers of children.”

Click here for Percentage of Students Enrolled by School Type.

www.ncl.ac.uk/egwest/research/privateschools.html