Education vouchers.
What is it?
An education voucher is a [Direct Benefit Transfer scheme].
In other words, a voucher is a document promising the user to avail a service and pay for it using the voucher instead of money from their own pockets. In this case, a student will receive a voucher from the government which can then be used to pay the fee of the school. The school can then use the voucher and receive the amount it promises from the government. Say the fee is 800 rupees a month and the voucher is worth 500 rupees. The parents can then use this voucher, add three hundred more, and can send the child to the better school.
Why an education voucher?
Article 26 of the UN Declaration, states that parents have the primary rights over a child’s education, and so, they should be given more control and choice over how and where the child receives her education. A [voucher] can play a really effective role here.
It provides the parent more [choice] of where they want to send their child to study. They can choose a school that is either near or far from them, a school with a different language of instruction, or simply any school they think will benefit their child.
A voucher will also motivate the school to perform better on how well they can retain its students. Public schools will have to up their level. We’re talking about an overhaul of the current system. Since the income of the school depends on the number of vouchers they receive, they will have to provide better service and infrastructure to make sure they can attract and retain students.
It will lead to a healthy competition between schools to be better service providers because their income is not dependent on government grant or subsidy bo compete with the private schools and this will in turn, ideally raise the overall standard of education.
Private education has largely been a monopoly of the financially strong, which stops the weaker sections of the society from accessing it. Despite provisions of reservations, there is only so much of the population that can actually avail this opportunity. As such, this circle goes on and the marginalised communities are not able to get out of the rut. A voucher system will ensure that quality education is not restricted to one part of society.
Education vouchers are largely a tried and tested means of bettering the education system. Countries like Bangladesh, Philippines, Sweden have already experimented this method and to good results.
Even in our own country, it has been adopted; although at a minute level. Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, Rajasthan and Uttarakhand, with the support of various organizations and the respective state governments, have already witnessed the benefits of applying this scheme.
It led to an increase in attendance, (10% to 20% shown in figures) since more students were motivated to go to school because they had the economic means and could choose where they wanted to study.
Further, a clear decrease was seen in child labour as more children could fund their education.
Obviously, since its inception, there have been several question marks around its effectiveness. But that does not mean that it is not a good and implementable plan. For all the questions and drawbacks that have been pointed out, there are possible solutions and answers.
1. Can parents actually judge the schools or the suitability of the school for their children?
This stems from a rather biased understanding that parents from the weaker sections of the society who are not educated themselves can judge a school properly.
What has been seen is that, whenever the parents say that the school is good; it generally is.
All the earlier mentioned examples of where vouchers have worked, support this argument.
2. Schools can “skim-select” the students who will work against social inclusion and won’t be an equal opportunity medium for all? It might lead to selecting students from a particular social group or only picking up the ones who are more likely to perform better.
To solve this conundrum, special provisions can be made. Actions against the school for indulging in such an activity is a start. Also, differentiated funding for the EWS (economically weaker sections), Scheduled C, ST, etc where they get a higher value voucher can be done to attract schools to admit students from all strata of the society.
3. Another objection to this scheme is that the learning outcome is not significantly higher.
There are two arguments against this. One that the learning is higher: no matter how small. Any growth, however small, is a sign of progress. Also, in certain aspects such as female education, there has been significant growth.
Secondly, there is no negative impact on outcomes. The system is slightly better but definitely not worse for adopting this plan of action.
4. Some people also confuse this scheme as the privatization of education and propose that this will affect the public education system.
To answer that, we must remember that the aim of the scheme is to improve the quality of education, whatever the source is. Also, it has been observed that private schools have come up and continue to do so even in areas which don’t have public schools. This scheme does not promote building new schools but bettering the existing ones and make them more accountable, regardless of whether they are public or private.
Education, as a system, needs to evolve with the times. A voucher system is the need of the hour where the conventional subsidy system has failed to impress. With solid data backing the proposal of such a scheme, it is undoubtedly a step the government must take to ensure a [better, educated India].
