Why on earth would a poor family just getting by on the meager wages they earned fishing or pulling rickshaws choose to pay between $1.50 and $7 a month to send their children to private schools if they didn’t have to? In some isolated villages, the closest public school was still too far away, or impossible to get to during the rainy or cold seasons. For other families, the hidden costs of “free” education outweighed the very low cost of schools in their communities (in Kenya, for example, one parent described high up-front costs for a building maintenance fund and two complete school uniforms required by the public schools in her area).
Most reasons that the parents gave for their choice had to do with what the World Bank calls the “short route” to accountability (as opposed to the “long route” which works through the political process). Because school owners’ profits and reputations in the community depend directly on whether parents are happy with their children’s schooling, they paid attention to parents’ complaints. Because teachers in private schools can be fired, they were less likely to be late, idle or absent.
via Paying for school on $2 a day.
Giancarlo Angulo's Blog