The education voucher is a brain-child of the late Milton Friedman. In India, they are being championed by the Centre for Civil Society through a “school choice campaign.” This cause has been supported in the press by various eminent opinion makers, from Gurcharan Das to Swaminathan Aiyar. It is therefore no surprise that an editorial in the Economic Times should advocate education vouchers.
However, the essential argument in the ET editorial is worth noting, for it clearly displays a socialist-statist mindset. The editors say:
One supposed expert says education is an area of market failure, so the state must make provision. This simply shows how illiterate supposed experts are. Education for all is not a market product at all — it is a non-market service to be provided by the government. Unfortunately this is an area of massive government failure.
The answer lies in a private-public partnership through school vouchers usable in private or government schools. This is not privatisation, it is private provision of a public service through a public-private partnership.
How utterly twisted and contorted! Education is a pure “private good” in the precise sense that it is totally “excludable.” Throughout history, education has been private, and for profit – as with our ancient gurudakshina system in gurukuls.
And do read an interview with the new education minister, from the same paper, where he speaks of the need for urgent reforms in primary, secondary, higher and vocational education, and the universities: he is going to reform them all. And we must believe him.
I think we must do away with politicians and bureaucrats in education. Education should never be a State Subject. This is a very old classical liberal position on the matter.
As Frederic Bastiat, a classical liberal, wrote in his manifesto of 1842:
“If you want to have theories, systems, methods, principles, textbooks and teachers forced on you by the government, that is up to you; but do not expect me to sign, in your name, such a shameful abdication of your rights.”
He added:
“The monopoly of teaching cannot reasonably be entrusted to any but an authority recognized as infallible. Otherwise, there is an unlimited risk that error be uniformly taught to the people as a whole.”
Our socialist State relies on failed knowledge. It teaches errors. It destroys intellects. The only uniformity obtained through State education is the uniformity of error.
Sauvik,
ReplyDeleteI believe your emotions on the true spirit of private education important for liberals than any other form- The State.
But I see this post is an important one on Indian education system and time and again we discussed it. A friend of mine asked if you ignore the voucher idea is there any other system which is a best alternative except the removing of The state completely from our private education?
Chandra
Sauvik,
ReplyDeleteGreat to see a post on vouchers.It is sad that some people who are otherwise libertarians support vouchers. I find it completely irrational-and extremely harmful. If they have such a great faith in the markets, why make an exception for education? Government controlled education did great harm to my intellectual development when I was a child. I was able to figure out things for myself and think independently only when I came across thinkers like Mises and Rand.
I tend to agree with ET. Education FOR ALL is not a market product. Neither is plum cakes for all.
ReplyDeleteIf a market is allowed to function freely prices of goods and services tend to fall to a point where most people can afford to pay for them. But anyone wishing to buy anything in a market has to first offer something of equivalent value. Something for nothing is a political product.