Dear Sir/Madam,
In response to your 28 January 2017 article entitled “Emerging markets should welcome low-cost private schools” (link here), let us not throw the baby out with the bathwater. The debate over affordable private schools does not rest solely on the fate of Bridge International Academies and other school chains, as your constant coverage of this singular player in a vast market seems to suggest. In Bridge’s largest market – Kenya – they operate just 520 schools, while other independent providers run an estimated 13,380 schools. Bridge may be the darling of new development innovation, but substantial solutions to get more children into high-performing schools will target growth and improvement of the sustainable, scalable, localised model of independent private schools. These schools need financing and directed pedagogical support, both scalable within private offerings, where future funding flows should logically reside.
Affordable private schools are naturally incentivised to serve the needs of parents, keeping foot traffic high. School heads can increase profits through increased enrolment or a willingness to pay higher fees: in a competitive landscape of higher supply within the private space, this equates to fewer children out of school, and the provision of a better education. Markets can largely self regulate, though as you accurately point out, require better school inspectorates that are less influenced by local politics and more focused on providing acceptable, broadly enforceable standards that have the best interest of children in mind.
As American economist William Easterly rightly highlights in his 2014 book The Tyranny of Experts, in a modern era of authoritarian development, it is frighteningly easy to overlook the spontaneous development that, often times, is far more responsive to localised need than anything we can design with our billions to spare. Sometimes, all it needs is a boost and a guiding handrail.
Sincerely,
Nathan J. Byrd
Head of Education Finance at Opportunity International
London, UK