How the do gooders are attempting to destroy africa - education
Last evening there was a brilliant documentary on BBC World
"Educating Africa" which reported the findings of a Professor
James Tooley of the UK and his research
on this important issue.
As expected, the best schooling the poor Africans are getting is
in the fee paying private sector. The "free" government schools
are generally appalling and the poor choose to avoid them and
pay for their children to be educated in the private sector.
One very perceptive poor African made the comment within the
article below that "Free education is like free food - generally rotton".
Understandably, most African governments detest private education,
as do the NGOs and the "education administrators"
( in their aid funded Mercedes ).
They - like their friends in the West, such as Bob Galdof and Gordon Brown
are more interested in perpetuating poverty and human dispair - sadly for
elitist ideological reasons.
The artcle below is a "must read" - as is the viewing of the brilliant
documentary. Lets hope TVNZ ( New Zealand ) and the ABC ( Australia )
screen it in this part of the world.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Sunday Times - Review
June 26, 2005
Give Africa a private schoolingPoor African children benefit more from
independent schools than government ones for a fraction of the cost, says
James Tooley.
Why are aid groups and pop stars against them? On BBC’s Newsnight last
week the international development secretary Hilary Benn showcased free
primary education (FPE) in Kenya — supported by $55m from the World Bank
and £20m from the British government — as the shining example of aid to
Africa not being wasted.
He’s not the only one clutching at this example for reassurance: Bill Clinton
told an American television audience that the person he most wanted to meet
was President Kibaki of Kenya, “because he has abolished school fees”, which
“would affect more lives than any president had done or would ever do . . .”
When Gordon Brown visited Olympic primary school, one of the five government
schools located on the outskirts of Kibera, the largest slum in Kenya and in Africa,
he told the gathered crowds that British parents fully supported their taxpayers’
money being used to provide free places at that school.
Bob Geldof and Bono rave about how an extra 1m-plus children are now enrolled
in primary school in Kenya. All these children, the accepted wisdom goes, have
been saved by the benevolence of the international community — which must
give $7 to $8 billion (£3.8 to £4.4 billion) per year more so that other countries
can emulate Kenya’s success.
The accepted wisdom is wrong. It ignores the remarkable reality that the poor
in Africa have not been waiting, helplessly, for the munificence of pop stars and
western chancellors to ensure that their children get a decent education.
Private schools for the poor have emerged in huge numbers in some of the most
impoverished slums and villages in Africa. They cater for a majority of poor
children and outperform government schools, for a fraction of the cost.
My research has found this in Kenya — where the international community might
excuse the inadequacy of state education as a blip while free primary education
beds down.
But it’s as true in Ghana and Nigeria too — where free primary education has been
around for a long time, supported by generous handouts from the British government
and the World Bank.
In the poor areas of Lagos State, Nigeria — the same is true in poor areas of
Ghana — my research teams combed slums and villages and found 70% or more
of all schoolchildren in private school, more than half in schools unregistered and
therefore unacknowledged in any official statistics.
In the teeming shantytown of Makoko alone, where 50,000 people live,
many in wooden houses built on stilts sunk into the dark waters of the
Lagos lagoon, we found 32 private schools serving some 4,500 children
(75% of those in school from Makoko) from families of impoverished fishermen
and fish traders, and all off the state’s
radar.
Parents gave the same litany of complaints about government schools, that
teachers don’t turn up, or if they do they don’t teach. I visited the three
government primary schools on the outskirts of Makoko; although my visit
was announced, and I came with the commissioner of education’s representative,
I saw the headmistress beating children to get them into the classrooms,
and found one teacher fast asleep at his desk.
The welcoming chorus of the children didn’t rouse him.
The commissioner’s representative, however, described parents who send their
children to the mushrooming private schools as “ignoramuses”, wanting the
status symbol of private education (saying this, without irony, standing by her
brand new silver Mercedes), but hoodwinked by unscrupulous businessmen.
“They should all be closed down,” she told me. At least she admitted that these
schools existed — the British government’s representative, co-ordinating the
Department for International Development’s £20m aid (all to government schools)
denied flatly that private schools for the poor exist.
But was the commissioner’s representative right about the low quality in the
mushrooming schools?
We tested 3,000 children in maths and English, from government and private
schools, controlled for background family variables, and found that the children
in the unregistered private schools, so despised by the government, achieved
14 percentage points higher in maths and 20 percentage points higher in English
than children in government schools.
Teachers in the government schools were paid at least four times
more than those in the unregistered schools. The private schools
were far more effective for a fraction of the cost.
Would Kenya be the same? Although the education minister told me that,
in his country, private schools were for the rich, not the poor, and so I was misguided
in my quest, I persevered, and went to the slum of Kibera, home to half a million
people crowded into an area of some 1 square miles.
Within a few minutes I found what I was looking for. A signboard proclaimed
Makina primary school outside a two-storey rickety tin building.
Inside a cramped office, Jane Yavetsi, the school proprietor, was keen to tell her story.
“Free education is a big problem,” she said. Since its introduction her enrolment
had declined from 500 to 300 and now she doesn’t know how she will pay the rent.
Her school fees are 200 Kenyan shillings (about £1.45) per month, or about 10%
of the expected earnings of someone living in Kibera. But for the poorest children,
including 50 orphans, she offers free education. Yavetsi founded the school
10 years ago and has been through many difficulties. But now she feels crestfallen:
“With free education I am being hit very hard.”
Jane’s wasn’t the only private school in Kibera. Right next door was another,
and then just down from her, opposite each other on the railway tracks, were
two more.
My research team scoured every muddy street and alleyway and found a total of
76 private schools, enrolling more than 12,000 students. In the five government
schools serving Kibera, there were 8,500 children — but half of these were from
the middle-class suburbs. The private schools again were serving a large majority
of the slum children.
Tony Blair’s Commission for Africa concedes that mushrooming private schools
exist, but reports that they “are without adequate state regulation and are of a
low quality”.
But why would parents be foolish enough to pay for schools of such low quality?
Exploring further, I spoke to parents, some of whom had taken their children to the
“free” government schools, but had been disillusioned and returned to the private
schools.
Their reasons were straightforward: in government schools, class sizes had increased
dramatically and teachers couldn’t cope with 100 or more pupils, five times the
number in the private school classes.
Parents compared notes when their children came home from school, and saw that
in the state schools, notebooks remained untouched for weeks; in contrast, in the
private schools children’s work was always marked.
One summed up the situation succinctly: “If you go to a market and are offered
free fruit and vegetables, they will be rotten. If you want fresh fruit and veg,
you have to pay for them.”
The final rub was that “free” primary education was not only poor quality, it was
also not “free”. Perhaps to keep slum children out — certainly the headmistress
from Olympic, where the chancellor visited, was candid that she objected to the
“dirty, smelly and uncouth” slum children in her smart school — state schools
insist that parents purchase two sets of uniforms before the term starts, including
shoes — prohibitively expensive to parents from the slums.
One parent told me: “I prefer to pay school fees and forget the uniform.”
Curiously, the success story of private schools for the poor is not being celebrated.
But poor parents want the best for their children, and know that private schools are
the way forward. The question is: will anyone with power and influence listen to them?
James Tooley is professor of education policy at Newcastle University.
His film Educating Africa will be shown on Newsnight on June 29
"Educating Africa" which reported the findings of a Professor
James Tooley of the UK and his research
on this important issue.
As expected, the best schooling the poor Africans are getting is
in the fee paying private sector. The "free" government schools
are generally appalling and the poor choose to avoid them and
pay for their children to be educated in the private sector.
One very perceptive poor African made the comment within the
article below that "Free education is like free food - generally rotton".
Understandably, most African governments detest private education,
as do the NGOs and the "education administrators"
( in their aid funded Mercedes ).
They - like their friends in the West, such as Bob Galdof and Gordon Brown
are more interested in perpetuating poverty and human dispair - sadly for
elitist ideological reasons.
The artcle below is a "must read" - as is the viewing of the brilliant
documentary. Lets hope TVNZ ( New Zealand ) and the ABC ( Australia )
screen it in this part of the world.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Sunday Times - Review
June 26, 2005
Give Africa a private schoolingPoor African children benefit more from
independent schools than government ones for a fraction of the cost, says
James Tooley.
Why are aid groups and pop stars against them? On BBC’s Newsnight last
week the international development secretary Hilary Benn showcased free
primary education (FPE) in Kenya — supported by $55m from the World Bank
and £20m from the British government — as the shining example of aid to
Africa not being wasted.
He’s not the only one clutching at this example for reassurance: Bill Clinton
told an American television audience that the person he most wanted to meet
was President Kibaki of Kenya, “because he has abolished school fees”, which
“would affect more lives than any president had done or would ever do . . .”
When Gordon Brown visited Olympic primary school, one of the five government
schools located on the outskirts of Kibera, the largest slum in Kenya and in Africa,
he told the gathered crowds that British parents fully supported their taxpayers’
money being used to provide free places at that school.
Bob Geldof and Bono rave about how an extra 1m-plus children are now enrolled
in primary school in Kenya. All these children, the accepted wisdom goes, have
been saved by the benevolence of the international community — which must
give $7 to $8 billion (£3.8 to £4.4 billion) per year more so that other countries
can emulate Kenya’s success.
The accepted wisdom is wrong. It ignores the remarkable reality that the poor
in Africa have not been waiting, helplessly, for the munificence of pop stars and
western chancellors to ensure that their children get a decent education.
Private schools for the poor have emerged in huge numbers in some of the most
impoverished slums and villages in Africa. They cater for a majority of poor
children and outperform government schools, for a fraction of the cost.
My research has found this in Kenya — where the international community might
excuse the inadequacy of state education as a blip while free primary education
beds down.
But it’s as true in Ghana and Nigeria too — where free primary education has been
around for a long time, supported by generous handouts from the British government
and the World Bank.
In the poor areas of Lagos State, Nigeria — the same is true in poor areas of
Ghana — my research teams combed slums and villages and found 70% or more
of all schoolchildren in private school, more than half in schools unregistered and
therefore unacknowledged in any official statistics.
In the teeming shantytown of Makoko alone, where 50,000 people live,
many in wooden houses built on stilts sunk into the dark waters of the
Lagos lagoon, we found 32 private schools serving some 4,500 children
(75% of those in school from Makoko) from families of impoverished fishermen
and fish traders, and all off the state’s
radar.
Parents gave the same litany of complaints about government schools, that
teachers don’t turn up, or if they do they don’t teach. I visited the three
government primary schools on the outskirts of Makoko; although my visit
was announced, and I came with the commissioner of education’s representative,
I saw the headmistress beating children to get them into the classrooms,
and found one teacher fast asleep at his desk.
The welcoming chorus of the children didn’t rouse him.
The commissioner’s representative, however, described parents who send their
children to the mushrooming private schools as “ignoramuses”, wanting the
status symbol of private education (saying this, without irony, standing by her
brand new silver Mercedes), but hoodwinked by unscrupulous businessmen.
“They should all be closed down,” she told me. At least she admitted that these
schools existed — the British government’s representative, co-ordinating the
Department for International Development’s £20m aid (all to government schools)
denied flatly that private schools for the poor exist.
But was the commissioner’s representative right about the low quality in the
mushrooming schools?
We tested 3,000 children in maths and English, from government and private
schools, controlled for background family variables, and found that the children
in the unregistered private schools, so despised by the government, achieved
14 percentage points higher in maths and 20 percentage points higher in English
than children in government schools.
Teachers in the government schools were paid at least four times
more than those in the unregistered schools. The private schools
were far more effective for a fraction of the cost.
Would Kenya be the same? Although the education minister told me that,
in his country, private schools were for the rich, not the poor, and so I was misguided
in my quest, I persevered, and went to the slum of Kibera, home to half a million
people crowded into an area of some 1 square miles.
Within a few minutes I found what I was looking for. A signboard proclaimed
Makina primary school outside a two-storey rickety tin building.
Inside a cramped office, Jane Yavetsi, the school proprietor, was keen to tell her story.
“Free education is a big problem,” she said. Since its introduction her enrolment
had declined from 500 to 300 and now she doesn’t know how she will pay the rent.
Her school fees are 200 Kenyan shillings (about £1.45) per month, or about 10%
of the expected earnings of someone living in Kibera. But for the poorest children,
including 50 orphans, she offers free education. Yavetsi founded the school
10 years ago and has been through many difficulties. But now she feels crestfallen:
“With free education I am being hit very hard.”
Jane’s wasn’t the only private school in Kibera. Right next door was another,
and then just down from her, opposite each other on the railway tracks, were
two more.
My research team scoured every muddy street and alleyway and found a total of
76 private schools, enrolling more than 12,000 students. In the five government
schools serving Kibera, there were 8,500 children — but half of these were from
the middle-class suburbs. The private schools again were serving a large majority
of the slum children.
Tony Blair’s Commission for Africa concedes that mushrooming private schools
exist, but reports that they “are without adequate state regulation and are of a
low quality”.
But why would parents be foolish enough to pay for schools of such low quality?
Exploring further, I spoke to parents, some of whom had taken their children to the
“free” government schools, but had been disillusioned and returned to the private
schools.
Their reasons were straightforward: in government schools, class sizes had increased
dramatically and teachers couldn’t cope with 100 or more pupils, five times the
number in the private school classes.
Parents compared notes when their children came home from school, and saw that
in the state schools, notebooks remained untouched for weeks; in contrast, in the
private schools children’s work was always marked.
One summed up the situation succinctly: “If you go to a market and are offered
free fruit and vegetables, they will be rotten. If you want fresh fruit and veg,
you have to pay for them.”
The final rub was that “free” primary education was not only poor quality, it was
also not “free”. Perhaps to keep slum children out — certainly the headmistress
from Olympic, where the chancellor visited, was candid that she objected to the
“dirty, smelly and uncouth” slum children in her smart school — state schools
insist that parents purchase two sets of uniforms before the term starts, including
shoes — prohibitively expensive to parents from the slums.
One parent told me: “I prefer to pay school fees and forget the uniform.”
Curiously, the success story of private schools for the poor is not being celebrated.
But poor parents want the best for their children, and know that private schools are
the way forward. The question is: will anyone with power and influence listen to them?
James Tooley is professor of education policy at Newcastle University.
His film Educating Africa will be shown on Newsnight on June 29
posted by Thomas at 9:33 pm
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