Governments are right to worry about private education's contribution to inequality, but they are wrong to discourage its growth
a measure of what matters, then the people of the developing world place a high value on brains. While private spending on education has not budged in real terms in the rich world in the past ten years, in China and India it has more than doubled. The Chinese now spend 5% of household income on education and the Indians 4%, compared with 2.5% for the Americans and 1% for the Europeans.
All over the developing world, people want more or better education than governments provide. Where cities are growing at unmanageable speed, the private sector is taking up the slack. In India the private sector now educates nearly half of all children, in Pakistan more than a third, and in both countries the state sector is shrinking. Even where the state does pretty well, as in East Asia, richer people still want better schooling for their children than the masses get.
Governments are right to worry about private education’s contribution to inequality, but they are wrong to discourage its growth. The freedom to spend your money on improving your child’s potential is a fundamental one. Whether governments formally allow it or not, people will find ways of buying private education, by tutoring children out of school or bidding up the price of property near good state schools.
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