The Non-State Sector in Education in Europe: A Conceptual and Historical Analysis

Abstract

Private education, Enseignement libre, and Friskolan-these are the terms used to describe that part of a country's total educational provision which is not provided, completely financed and controlled by public authorities. There is, to be sure, a certain similarity in that such a sector is to be found in virtually all Western European countries. But this apparent nominal similarity hides vast differences both in the relationship between official 'state schooling' and its 'free' or 'private' counterpart. It also is apt to forget the considerable differences in historical background which, in turn, not merely have given rise to the 'non-state' sector, but also today still influence both its character and its place in the nation. For these reasons the concept of education-often used in Britain and the Federal Republic of Germany-is insufficient to describe the complexity of the relationship, whether legal, financial or supervisory, that exists between it and a country's governmental administration. Originally, the concept of denoted those establishments run by corporations, merchant guilds, religious orders or groups of individuals, independent of the public purse and control. Though doubtless true in the past, this definition today is no longer adequate, nor does it describe all those institutions in the non-state sector. Certainly, one may still find schools that are self-financing from student fees and donations from individuals. But they are extremely rare. In Ireland, for instance, less than 2% of pupils attend schools that may be said to be in the original meaning of the term. It is a fact that without substantial support from public authorities-either direct in the form of per capita subsidies, or indirect in the form of special taxation concessions granted to certain categories of schools in the 'non-state' sector-private schools would not exist to so great an extent if financed from private sources only. Recently, interest has revived in the role and place of the 'non-state' sector in a country's overall educational provision. There are several reasons for this. Amongst them, it is suggested, is the waning public confidence in the ability of education to achieve some of the goals which expansionist policies of the 1960s and 1970s laid down. No less important has been the change in thinking that has emerged as a result of the current economic situation. Amongst the more significant changes in the field of political and economic theory has been the dual concept on the one hand of the 'overloaded state' and, on the other, the so-called crisis in the Welfare State. The former poses the question whether large bureaucracies lend themselves easily to the more complex tasks of both strategic and everyday administration. It has led to the notion that certain areas of responsibility ought perhaps to be hived off or devolved to local or regional administrations. The second, which may in part be seen