Do School Vouchers Work?

The Ministry of Education recently announced the priorities of its work for 2010. One is to ensure migrant workers’children’s access to compulsory education in public schools in their destination cities, and to rescind all extra fees.

In order to realize this aim, the introduction of school vouchers has been proposed.

Teaching resources in China’s eastern regions are better than those in the west.Proponents say, if all of the government’s education budget is distributed in the form of school vouchers, then school-age children who come from western regions with their migrant parents will be able to receive education in eastern cities.

The concept of “school vouchers” was put forward by Milton Friedman, a Nobel Prize laureate in economics. He suggested that the government convert the education budget into a certain number of vouchers and issue them to students. Students and parents are free to choose schools at different fee levels and, if the vouchers are not enough, they may fi ll the gap by cash payments from their own pockets. The schools, in turn, exchange the vouchers for cash from the government.More students mean greater education budget allocation. As a result, schools will have to compete for students by improving their educational effectiveness and conditions.

Since they were introduced into China in 2001, school vouchers have been experimented with in several counties in provinces such as Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Hubei. Up until now, greater numbers of educationists have begun to regard “school vouchers” as a fundamental policy of China’s education reform as, under this system, students become a kind of consumer and their freedom to choose schools will promote fair competition. As a result, the country’s educational resources will then be more fairly distributed. But there is no consensus on whether school vouchers will really be able to bring China’s education system to this level.

Not realistic

Wang Xiaojie (Weihai Evening News):The so-called “school vouchers” sound great,but to put them into practice is quite a problem. First, it is a massive job for education authorities to con fi rm the identity of all migrant workers. Second, it is dif fi cult to decide how long one has to work in a city before his or her children are qualified for the school vouchers. The vouchers can’t be supplied just for some but should be for all migrant workers’ children. Without restrictive regulations,schools in big cities will become overcrowded and it’s possible rural schools might face life-or-death dilemmas.

Tong Dahuan (The Beijing News):Super fi cially, school vouchers provide every school-age child with the same amount of money, but this is far from educational equality.

Because of historical reasons, there exists a big gap in educational resources between urban and rural areas, between cities and between villages. The government’s current priority is to narrow the gap through effective investment. The function of school vouchers actually goes against this goal. This system is unable to realize differentiated inputs, but instead encourages more capital to fl ow into prestigious schools, widening any educational inequality.

Compulsory education is a way of wealth redistribution and also a way to promote social equality. Its fi rst obligation should be to help the poor and the weak. Distribution of educational resources in the form of school vouchers, however, is unfair.

LI SHIGONG

Xue Zhaofeng (China Business Times):From the perspective of Friedman’s theory,an education budget is a certain amount, and school vouchers will help to more effectively and equally distribute the budget. This kind of reasoning is problematic in China.

To work out a budget at various government levels is not a top-down process but a bottom-up process. Various levels put forward their budget demands and report to the upper-level government. In this process, various departments are competing for a bigger budget share. In this way, if grassroots education authorities do not strive for their share,the assumed education budget proposed by Friedman will never eventuate.

Under the school voucher system, no one will be interested in winning budget from the government. Education authorities no longer have the right to allocate the budget; schools,as they are separate, might lose budget to other schools. The result of the vouchers will be to force the government to abandon responsibility for the nation’s education.

Xiao Hua (Henan Daily): Migrant workers work in a certain place and get paid,but compared with their contribution to a city,the pay is not enough. The places that receive migrant workers are obligated to create good conditions for their children to go to school.This is also a way for these places to compensate workers.

Migrant workers’ destinations are mostly economically developed areas that attract a large number of college graduates born in less developed areas. Now, if the subsidies are transferred from migrants’ hometowns to working destinations, is it necessary for cities that receive college graduates to pay back regions that supply students?

Offering equal education opportunities for all school-age children is the government’s responsibility and it should be arranged around the country as a whole.Too many restrictions demand unnecessary investment. School vouchers deliberately divide educational resources that should be a whole. In the long run, this will affect the sound development of China’s education system.

A good idea

Yan Qingsheng (Oriental Morning Post): Under the school voucher system,the Central Government can transfer the education budget between governments in work destinations and the government of migrant workers’ sources. As a result, every school-age child will have access to free-ofcharge compulsory education wherever they go. This system will stimulate destination governments’ enthusiasm and relieve their burdens, thus fundamentally solving migrant children’s education problem.

If higher education is also covered under the school voucher system, then universities will get a corresponding financial subsidy for every student that they receive. Here, students are like consumers, and their choice of universities will encourage fair competition among these schools. The result is, educational resources will be distributed in more effective and rational ways.

More importantly, school vouchers make every student granted the vouchers feel as if they are being empowered. The process by which they receive education is where their rights are being realized. This will undoubtedly help to increase their awareness of modern citizenship.

Pan Hongqi (Beijing Youth Daily):The law has stipulated clearly that central and local governments at all levels shoulder co-responsibility for funding nine-year compulsory education. In theory, central and local governments should appropriately set aside a certain amount of money for each child. If children of migrant workers go to schools in their hometowns, the money should be dedicated to these schools. If the children go to the schools in areas where their parents work, the money should be transferred to the new schools. But the real situation is that the money has neither gone to schools in the children’s hometowns nor to schools where they go. But the latter might feel unfairly done by as they do not get funding of any kind. That is why they insist charging extra tuition fees to migrant workers.

Therefore, to call off extra tuition fees charged to children of migrant workers,the government must resolve the funding displacement. In developed cities where the government has suf fi cient compulsory education expenditure, and where the migrant workers make contributions to construction, tax collection and consumption, the government should provide equal education opportunities for their children. They have to waive charging extra fees.

In addition, local governments of sources of migrant workers are obliged to transfer money which is supposed to fund the migrant workers’ children in the form of school vouchers to the cities and provinces where the children actually go to school. It could relieve funding pressure on the latter.

Fu Shengning (Shenzhen Economic Daily): School vouchers have become very controversial among the people. For instance, who should be authorized to issue the vouchers? Who should enjoy the bene fi ts? Some suspect families might sell the vouchers because they are poor. In spite of all queries and suspicions, one thing is for sure: When people are entitled to a right to choose, unfairness in education can be relieved to some extent.

A school’s education quality is directly linked to the educational resources it acquires.But it is dif fi cult for the government to distribute resources impartially in every case. At present, unfairness in educational resources distribution is not rare.

How to promote fairness in education?School vouchers might be a good idea. They will allow students to have a choice and guide reasonable distribution of educational resources to boost schools’ efficiency and quality. In addition, it may promote private investment in education.

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Ye Yun (Southern Metro News): School vouchers have at least five benefits. First,the government, obliged to provide compulsory education, can convert “untouchable”education benefits into a form that can be distributed to parents and students. Second,consumers of education have the right to choose schools, pressing the schools to raise education quality. As long as they offer good learning experiences, the schools will be able to attract more students, which means they can get more funding from the government.Third, the vouchers could entitle the students in private schools to the same education as those in public schools. Fourth, poor students can enjoy equal education to other students.Fifth, when a school voucher is of fi cially issued, public and private schools will get them on an equal basis, which means they will be entitled to the same education funding from the government.