Page 28 - Education for Development:George Psacharopoulos University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA

26 ᐿ࿲ၾආӉj઺ԃٙɢඎ

Split financing from provision

Consider indirect financing of public education. Separating the financing

from the provision of education is associated with strong incentives. The
government can still finance schools but let the money flow in an indirect way
through the hands of students in the form of a voucher allowing them to choose

a public or a private school.
Although the state could finance training, the delivery of training services
could be provided more efficiently by private firms dedicated to vocational

training. By giving the training money to the candidate trainee, the trainee can
chose the school that would best fit his or her interests. To the extent private
training schools will depend on the revenue collected as fees paid by the

students, they will be competing between them. The good ones will flourish,
and the bad ones will close down. One can hardly think of a Government run
training school closing down because of low quality. The indirect flow of funds

can have significant redistributive power if a higher amount of training voucher
is given to the poorer trainees.
The hardest part in adopting evidence-based education policies, as those

outlined above, is persuading the politicians who have the ultimate say. Human
capital takes years to build and several decades to realize its full benefits.
Such long horizon is at odds with the short life span of an Education Minister.

Perhaps it is for the electorate to make politicians realize that education is not an
expedient investment.