Choice and equity in education: the role of specialised schools

This study philosophically examines the relationship between public and private education, aiming to explore the possibility of establishing a new, educationally meaningful relationship beyond the existing phenomenon-centered perspectives. To this end, it first analyzes the conceptual and historical development of public and private education in South Korea, revealing that both forms of education have been predominantly defined at an institutional level, with insufficient attention to ideological dimensions. It then critically examines the underlying assumptions within the perception of the private education problem, pointing out that the current view (1) equates the issue of private education expenses with the problem of private education itself, (2) considers public and private education as opposing forces, and (3) mistakenly assumes the current relationship between the two as the only possible framework. Based on these analyses, the paper highlights a fundamental error in the conceptualization of the relationship between public and private education, which has led to the failure of current private education policies in addressing public education challenges. The paper emphasizes that public and private education can enhance the totality of educational experiences when positioned in a complementary relationship. Therefore, a reconfiguration of their relationship is necessary, both ideologically and structurally. Public education, in particular, derives its intrinsic value from the “educational significance attainable only through collective learning experiences.” Thus, the paper sheds new light on the possibility of public and private education coexisting in a complementary rather than subordinate relationship. To realize this potential, public education should be redefined from “education managed by the public” to “education that pursues public values,” emphasizing the unique educational significance achievable only through public education.

ABSTRACT: The debate between private and public education is a widely discussed issue in personal and policy forums globally. In Nepal, private schools have grown significantly due to the perceived advantages associated with them. This paper tests if there are significant differences in labor-market outcomes for individuals educated in private schools compared to those educated in public schools. Research Methodology and Data: We employ nationally representative household survey data from the Nepal Living Standards Survey (NLSS III), conducted by the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) Nepal in 2010/11, utilizing the Living Standards Measurement Survey (LMSS) methodology developed by the World Bank. We apply the Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition method to examine the relationship between educational attainment and four distinct measures of labor-market outcomes: labor force participation, employment status, job security, and wage income. Initially, we estimate these outcomes separately for individuals in private education and those in public education. Subsequently, we calculate and analyze whether the disparities in estimated values can be attributed to differences in education. Our findings reveal significant labor-market disparities between individuals participating in private education and those in public education. Those with private education display lower rates of labor force participation and reduced employment rates, suggesting fewer working hours. However, those employed within this group enjoy more secure salaried positions. Furthermore, private education is linked to higher wage incomes, primarily attributable to longer educational periods. The Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition demonstrates that most of these disparities are associated with variations in educational backgrounds. Consequently, the results highlight the role of segregated education in contributing to labor-market inequality, emphasizing the impact of private schools in exacerbating economic disparities in Nepal. The findings underscore the significance of educational attainment in ameliorating disparities between individuals educated in public and private schools. To address these issues, policymakers should concentrate on strategies aimed at increasing the duration of education for public school students, such as providing free, quality higher education. By narrowing the educational gap between private and public institutions, the nation can work towards diminishing wage and job security disparities, fostering a more equitable society. These findings also have relevance for countries grappling with similar socio-economic challenges, initiating essential policy discussions.

Purpose This paper aims to understand the differing impacts of wealth distribution on human capital accumulation and skilled-unskilled labour generation under three educational paradigms as follows: private, public and a system of mixed education. Design/methodology/approach The authors use an overlapping generations model. Findings The wealth dynamics show that both in the private education system and public education system, there are two possible outcomes- stagnation and steady growth depending on the efficiency of the education system, skill premium and other parameters. The choice of the education system through voting is discussed. It is found that skilled workers would always vote for private education whilst unskilled workers vote for private education if public education expenditure of the economy is low. Research limitations/implications The study is subject to several limitations. This paper considers the rate of interest and wage rate to be exogenously given, and thus ignores the general equilibrium effects. The authors do not consider the labour-leisure choice. The introduction of labour leisure choice in the model would alter many of the results. The authors do not consider heterogeneous ability across individuals. The analysis of the differential efficiency of the different education systems needs further, rigorous research. Also, this paper does not consider other occupations such as entrepreneurship and self-employment. This paper considers the labour demand function to be perfectly elastic, and hence, does not consider any demand constraint. What happens if bequests are taxed? What happens if parents are not altruistic? These questions may be addressed in future research. Social implications If the proportion of tax paying skilled labour is low in any country, pure public education may not be able to generate sustained human capital growth. For countries with a sufficiently large proportion of skilled labour, the public education system would be successful. On the other hand, if skill premium is low or the education system is poorly managed private education system may fail too. Originality/value Whilst investigating the effects of public vs private education on growth and development in the presence of unequal wealth distribution, The authors have tried to address a few questions. First, why the public education system has been successful in skill accumulation in developed countries whilst it has failed to do so in less developed countries? Second, why do some countries with mostly privately run educational institutions perform much better in human capital production whilst others do not? Third, in an economy with unequal wealth distribution, what are the factors that result in public or private education as a voting equilibrium outcome?

It is primarily the emergence of new state policies promoting market mechanisms in the field of education that has encouraged research on education markets (Maroy, 2006). In the 1980s, conservative American and British governments, drawing on theories of public choice (Chubb & Moe, 1998), encouraged reforms aimed at reducing the alleged inefficiency and ineffectiveness of the bureaucratic management of schools by increasing their autonomy as well as parental choice (Ball, 1993; Bosetti, 2005; Glennerster, 1991; Uchitelle, 1993). Similar reforms have also been implemented in various European countries for over 20 years (Mons, 2007), often in relation with a decennia-long co-existence of public and state-granted schools. These private schools are most often Catholic or protestant schools operating within a national educational system receiving state grants. The countries of the European Union can be divided into three groups according to the relationship private education has with the public authorities (Eurydice, 20001). In Greece and the UK, private schools receive no public funding. However, this absence of funding does not prevent the state from exercising control over private education institutions. In the UK, most denominational and other schools owned by churches or trustees are considered to form part of the public sector education. In the second group of countries (France, Italy, and Portugal), different types of contracts exist which create a link between private schools and public authorities. Depending on the type of contract, the school receives grants of a more or less significant amount and is freer to a greater or lesser extent with regard to conditions (of teaching, teacher recruitment, etc.) imposed by public authorities. Finally, within the last group, which comprises the majority of countries, grant-aided private schools appear to have much in common with public sector schools. In Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Spain, Ireland, Luxembourg, Austria, Finland, and Sweden, private education is grant aided, either partially or fully, but operates under more or less the same conditions as public sector education. In The Netherlands, financial equality between public and grant-aided private institutions is a constitutional right. The size of these public and non-public school sectors varies strongly between these European societies for specific historic reasons, and non-public schools disappeared in some of these societies as a consequence of the communist regime. [Article's first paragraph]

Reviewed by: Schooling in the Antebellum South: The Rise of Public and Private Education in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama by Sarah L. Hyde Allison Fredette Schooling in the Antebellum South: The Rise of Public and Private Education in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. By Sarah L. Hyde. ( Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2016. Pp. xvi, 212. $42.50, ISBN 978–0-8071–6420-4.) In Schooling in the Antebellum South: The Rise of Public and Private Education in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, Sarah L. Hyde dispels the myth that white southerners showed little interest in education or public schools before the Civil War. Through an analysis of "lessons and learning" in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, she argues that southerners worked hard to overcome the obstacles of their "frontier-like" environment and provide their children with an education (p. 2). In her most innovative chapters, Hyde shows that these states also appropriated government resources for schools, first private schools and then public schools, before the war. Hyde admits that southern public schools lagged behind northern schools and that southern education was never universal, as it was illegal for free people of color and the enslaved to attend public schools. Nonetheless, she shows that white southerners invested more in public education than historians have previously acknowledged. Using manuscript collections, memoirs, and government documents, Hyde weaves together the stories of parents, teachers, pupils, governors, legislators, and education advocates to reveal the various forms of schooling in the antebellum Gulf South. Hyde first explores the role of learning inside the southern home, especially through the use of tutors and family members. Southerners who lived in rural communities embraced this system as it was an adaptable form of education. She then focuses on one of the earliest forms of antebellum southern education: the private school. In the Gulf South, private schools "provided one of the most consistent and dependable means of learning" (p. 25). Thus, early government subsidies for education went to private schools and academies. State legislatures even appropriated money for poor children to attend free of charge, but few accepted these funds because of social stigma. Still, Hyde argues, these attempts reveal that southerners had a "clear belief that state governments bore some responsibility for helping to bring basic instruction to their younger constituents" (p. 46). When limited funding failed to provide adequate access to education, state legislators, encouraged by their constituents, worked to create statewide public school systems. Hyde argues that as universal white manhood suffrage expanded with Jacksonian democracy, demands for universal access to education [End Page 159] intensified. Public schools in urban centers like New Orleans, Louisiana, Natchez, Mississippi, and Mobile, Alabama, provided a model for statewide public school systems. With economic growth after the Panic of 1837, states were able to devote their resources to building public schools in meaningful ways. Still, progress was not constant. For example, in 1852, when wealthy planters regained power in Louisiana, the new state constitution drastically curtailed funding for public schools, leaving these institutions in an uncertain state as the Civil War approached. Hyde has written a detailed narrative that aptly describes the development of public education in the antebellum Gulf South. Her research, especially in the political world of public school funding and administration, is impressive. However, in a few places, her book falls short. As her copious citations reveal, historians certainly have not ignored the role of education in southern life, and Hyde may overstate the extent to which subjects like relatives providing home schooling have been "almost entirely overlooked" (p. 8). She also argues that historians have failed to acknowledge how southern voters demanded education, regardless of their legislators' wishes. Yet some of her evidence appears to contradict her point. She repeatedly describes how some areas established "successful schools that served large numbers of children while other locales had trouble procuring accommodations, finding teachers, and attracting students" (p. 110). Finally, this reader would have liked a more thorough analysis of how gender and class influenced the education that different southern students received. Nonetheless, Hyde has written a book that is sure to challenge conventional thinking about public schools in the South. Allison Fredette Appalachian State University Copyright © 2018 The Southern...

This paper is aim to analyse the current VAT exemption's drawback, to compare major VAT exemption items such as educational service with major foreign countries, and aim to research for improvement of extension in tax base. VAT exemption's defect and improvement plan are as follows. Considering definition and category of public and private education service, VAT should be imposed on private education institution from the perspective of non-profitability and public concern unless it has complementary aspect of regular school class. For example, accredited private institution under Life-long Education Act complements regular school class, so it is regarded as public education and VAT exemption. There is a similar case for condition of tax exempted education service in Japan.

This study employs an overlapping-generations model featuring public and private education to analyze whether providing child allowances and free high school education influences economic growth. Earlier studies that analyze public and private education (Glomm and Ravikumar, 1992; Cardak, 2004) do not consider models in which fertility is endogenous and individuals can simultaneously choose both public and private education. Earlier studies that consider the effect of child allowances on fertility (Groezen, Leers, and Mejidam, 2003) disregard human capital accumulation. This study assumes people can choose both public and private education simultaneously in a model in which both fertility and human capital accumulation are endogenous. It introduces both child allowances and investment in public education financed by income taxes. It further considers how raising child allowances or investing in public education affects fertility, human capital accumulation, and economic growth. This study is motivated by evidence that the burden of meeting children’s educational expenses is one reason for Japan’s declining birthrate. It analyzes whether child allowances or free high school education can increase the birthrate and promote human capital formation. We find that such policies are unlikely to promote economic growth if they are financed by income taxes that cannot be increased indefinitely.

The influence of culture, society, politics and the market economy creates a more complicated and confusing environment in which families live and grow. Not the least among these influences is the plethora of options currently available to families for the education of children. The decision to send children to the local public school, to a neighborhood parochial school, or to an expensive private school has been expanded to include: charter schools, public schools of choice, schools for special needs students, private religious schools, and schooling at home.Home Schooling in AmericaThe education of children in America, from an historical perspective, has been characterized by Carper (2000) as pluralism (p. 9). From the earliest days of the settlement of the colonies, until approximately the mid-1800's, the education of children was the primary prerogative of parents. Education consisted mainly of learning to read the religious literature and learn the appropriate amounts of arithmetic in order for children to assume a vocation. Education of children occurred not only in homes, but in a wide variety of school situations that made the distinction between public and private education very difficult.By the middle of the eighteenth century, families had begun to turn many of their traditional responsibilities over to formal or public institutions. According to Mintz and Kellogg, as cited in Carper (2000, p. 11), by this time: ... a variety of specialized institutions had begun to absorb traditional familial responsibility.... Free schools and common pay schools educated a growing number of the sons of artisans and skilled laborers. During this transitional period, the demarcation between public and private education was vague.The public school movement gained momentum and support from the Protestant denominations of that day. Protestant broad support of public education was garnered by virtue of the similarities of belief and philosophy shared by religious and educational institutions. Carper (2000) observes that the differing belief systems of the Protestant denominations and the Roman Catholic Church eventually resulted in tax dollars being unavailable to Catholic schools. By the mid-nineteenth century the line between public and private education of children was well defined.Besides having the strong support of Protestant evangelicals, public schools in the mid-nineteenth century were very localized. The majority of children in public schools were from rural areas and attended the one-room country school. These schools were administrated and funded by local people, taught by local residents, and the children were often from only a few families. Home schools became a smaller part of the educational landscape because the public school was such an approximation of the rural family.As populations became increasingly urban at the beginning of the twentieth century, schools became less philosophically similar to Protestantism, broader in terms of its funding and leadership, diverse in.its teachers, and taught children from many more families. These influences gave the public education system characteristics of a developmental environment in and of itself, and increasingly dissimilar from the Protestant familial model. Once crusaders for the establishment of public education, conservative Protestants are now, ironically, among its most vociferous critics (Carper, 2000, p. 16).The disenchantment of Protestant evangelicals with the public education system has resulted in a renewed interest in education at home. In fact, Protestant evangelical families comprise the majority of home schools in America. In a recent study of 22,000 home school families, Protestant evangelicals comprised 70.3 percent of the respondent families (Rudner, 1998).Achievement of Home School StudentsThe above referenced study by Rudner (1998) analyzed test scores of home schooled students who were administered the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills and the Tests of Achievement and Proficiency. …

This study aims to examine the hybridity of North Korea’s education system by analyzing the development of educational infrastructure and residents’ participation in private education under Kim Jong-un’s leadership. During the Arduous March of the 1990s, North Korea experienced the collapse of public education and the emergence of private education. In the Kim Jong-un era, the government has emphasized the knowledge economy and the information industry while actively working to develop its educational infrastructure. This study first identifies key characteristics of these changes by analyzing trends in education budgets and case studies of educational informatization. Additionally, in-depth interviews were conducted to gain insights into residents' experiences with private education. Private education has been embedded within the conditions and environment of the public education system. Therefore, examining both public and private education together is crucial to understanding the current state of North Korea’s education system. The findings indicate that educational expenditures have steadily increased. Investments have been concentrated on higher education rather than primary education, with significant progress in educational informatization observed in Pyongyang. This reflects a strategy of selective development. However, concerns over regional and structural imbalances persist. Private education functions as both a substitute for and a supplement to public education, and there is a growing trend of private education for hobbies and cultural enrichment. The development of educational infrastructure in North Korea under Kim Jong-un’s leadership is a necessary step toward shaping the country’s future. However, if issues such as budget constraints, digital divides, and social inequality are not addressed, the hybrid and transitional nature of the education system—where public and private education are intricately intertwined—will inevitably persist.

The consumption of private and state education, both at primary and secondary level, is markedly different between the north and the south of England. The spatial divide is increasing, particularly for girls. Changes in the state and private sectors of education are reviewed as a background to and explanation of the changing geography. The association between the geography of consumption of private education at the primary and secondary levels is then related to the organization of the state sector. Finally the possible consequences of new legislation concerning parental choice in the state sector on the geography of the consumption cleavage are considered.

A volume in Critical Constructions: Studies on Education and Society Series Editor: Curry Stephenson Malott Education has rarely been absent from local and national public discourse. Throughout the history of modern education spanning more than a century, we have as a culture lamented the failures of public schooling, often making such claims based on assumptions instead of any nuanced consideration of the many influences on teaching and learning in any child's life-notably the socioeconomic status of a student's family. School reform, then, has also been a frequent topic in political discourse and public debate. Since the mid-twentieth century, a rising call for market forces to replace government-run schooling has pushed to the front of those debates. Since A Nation at Risk in the early 1980s and the implementation of No Child Left Behind at the turn of the twenty-first century, a subtle shift has occurred in the traditional support of public education-fueled by the misconception that private schools out perform public schools along with a naive faith in competition and the promise of the free market. Political and ideological claims that all parents deserve school choice has proven to be a compelling slogan. This book unmasks calls for parental and school choice with a postformal and critical view of both the traditional bureaucratic public school system and the current patterns found the body of research on all aspects of school choice and private schooling. The examination of the status quo and market-based calls for school reform will serve well all stakeholders in public education as they seek to evaluate the quality of schools today and form positions on how best to reform schools for the empowerment of free people in a democratic society.

This paper is part of a research project into parental choice, social class and market forces carried out by a team in Zaragoza (Spain). The main objective was to evaluate parents’ choice of school and the consequences this may produce in terms of social exclusion and inequality. Additionally, our aim was to determine whether certain populations, ethnic minorities, economically disadvantaged groups and immigrants, are concentrated in the same schools. The methodology was ethnographic. We studied 13 private and public schools in Zaragoza, in which 40 students carried out research for 5 months, using interviews, observations and document analysis. The interviews were fully transcribed and analysed using a Straussian methodology. We found three micro‐markets, varying according to different socio‐cultural factors, that share the patterns of an ‘old and stable’ market. This kind of market does not work strictly under the rules of the marketplace, where there is tough competition between schools. However, its outcomes are similar. This ‘old and stable’ market is a mechanism of social class reproduction. The middle and upper classes go to private schools, while ethnic minorities, economically disadvantaged groups and immigrants attend the public sector. The parents’ expectations, experiences and ideology play a key role in the marketplace, as well as in the several micro‐markets. Middle class families have more chances to choose a school, due to greater resources and cultural status. Among several conclusions I emphasize that a market system is not necessary for social inequalities to take place. It will occur when the possibility of choice arises. The middle class are favoured under current circumstances, while the working class are disadvantaged. What are the prospects of disadvantaged classes if a market system is developed, with full freedom of choice being promoted and no compensatory actions carried out? Everybody would have the same rights, but would everyone enjoy the same conditions or possibilities? It is possible to predict that the struggle between a public education monopoly and a market system will produce greater differences between social classes. In fact, these policies could provoke a decline of the public school in Spain.

Prenatal screening: Professional standards and the limits of parental choice

Supporters of public education fear attempts to privatize schools, while the private sector has always struggled against the monopolistic power of the public schools that educates almost 90% of all K-12 students. This trepidation has recently been intensified by the creation of a “third sector” that includes charter schools, voucher programs, and the increased diversity of private education. This article looks at the dynamics of fear as shaped by increased competition among public, private, and privatized schools. In fact, both public schools and their private school counterparts, fear privatization of education because it draws students and resources away from traditional schools. And recently, the opening of new “religious charter schools” has crossed the lines between church and state, and between private and public education. Thus, the politics of education have become somewhat more confused and unnerving as the distinctions between public and private education are virtually disappearing.

From store to home: Insights into parental baby snack choices.