EL PRINCIPIO COMO GARANTIA

According to Friedman (2006), there is a desperate need to reconstruct pre-university education systems because of the noticeable failure of the public education system in many countries in the world. This defeat in the current education system arises as a result of the political and technological revolutions of the last decade. Those revolutions created new marked needs, increased the living standard of people and strengthened their economic situation, which raised people’s expectations regarding all services including education (Friedman, 2006).

The analysis of literature revealed that public education failed to respond to the new market needs because of the obsolete curriculum and outdated teaching methods that focus on spoon-feeding knowledge rather than building skills. Therefore, a fundamental reconstruction of pre-university education is needed and could only be achieved by privatizing a major part of education system and allowing the for-profit sector to take part in the education market. Degafa (2011) suggested a cooperative model between private sector and the government where a government and private sector share or exchange resources and responsibilities. Degafa suggested four possible cooperative models to implement privatization in pre-university education: First, cost-sharing model that private sector and states share not only the financial costs but also responsibilities. Second, corporatization model where public educational institution is being managed as business and generates profit out of it. Third, the non-governmental education system, where the government does not fund schools or students, which is completely independent system. Fourth, applying the school voucher system, where a government funds schools that students choose (Degafa, 2011).

31 | P a g e School voucher system is perceived as one of the most effective method to implement privatization in education. School vouchers are coupons that provided by government to parents or students to pay for schools tuition. Schools voucher is the most feasible way to achieve the smooth transfer of responsibility and accountability from a government to a private sector as it allows parents to freely choose the schools they want to send their children to (Degafa, 2011). The idea of school vouchers were first introduced by Noble laureate Milton Friedman in 1955. Friedman argued that giving parents or students the freedom to choose schools would force schools’ administration to find ways to improve the offered educational services. This is because schools would be obligated to compete with each other to attract students. Consequently, the level of productivity, proficiency and students satisfaction would increase. School vouchers could have a maximum amount of money or percentage maximum of the tuition fees. Students with special needs might receive vouchers with higher value than normal students. School vouchers system could speed up the privatization process because it will create a great demand for private schools which will encourage private enterprises to get into education market (Friedman, 1997). Similarly, Rizvi (2016) recommended that school vouchers have to be widely available to all those who intend to send their children to schools and the value of the vouchers has to be enough to cover the tuition fees of schools that offer high quality education services. The amount of the fund that a school receives from the government depends on the total values of vouchers submitted by parents to register their children at a specific school (Rizvi, 2016).

On the contrary, D'Entremont & Huerta (2007) criticized the school vouchers system arguing that some private schools might use formal and informal policies to avoid less performing students. Some schools might be selective and shift away from publicly established goals to more market-oriented model. This could be avoided if schools are

32 | P a g e committed not put any conditions to accept students and allow access to the services for any student who has a voucher. Consequently, all the stakeholders will be satisfied. Following the same approach, Behrman (2013) argued that school vouchers system might create inefficiency in teacher’s labor market, where highly qualified teachers might move to highly paid schools that manage to attract more students and consequently received more fund. Whereas, schools with low number of students would hire less qualified teachers who might accept low salaries, which will have a negative impact on students level and the quality of education (Behrman et al, 2013).

From a different standpoint, Degafa’s approach has been looked at as a bit limited because it only considered the funding part of privatization of education, and did not pay attention to other factors. For example, Tilak (2009) stated that the nature of goods and services, legal requirements, and political condition should be taken in consideration when we consider privatization in education, which Degafa failed to ruminate in his models.

A different approach adopted by Stephen Ball and Deborah Youdall (2007) where they argued that privatization in public education could be either exogenous or endogenous. Exogenous privatization means that inviting the private sector to take part in the management of public education services for the sake of generating profit. However, endogenous privatization is based on getting ideas and techniques from the private sector to be applied on public education institutes (Ball & Youdall, 2007).

Another model suggested by Savas (2000) who classified privatization on education based on functions and responsibilities into three models that are built on the idea of displacement, divestment and delegation. Displacement means that a government gradually transfers its responsibility to private sector either through selling or given away

33 | P a g e public assets. The sale could be achieved by selling to a private company or distributing shares between employees, managers or parents. Divestment means that state gives away public assets free of charge to private sector, which mostly takes place with poor performing public institutes. Delegation or contracting out means that the government will be still responsible for the main functions such as policies and regulation but delegates or contract out the production activities, such as teaching and daily management of schools, to private sector or independent boards (Savas, 2000).