Some might be surprised, but private initiative can offer the poorest of the poor an education and still make money. And a higher quality education than anything the state has on hand. James Tooley has spent decades researching how citizens in un-developed countries study and has summarized his finding in “The Failures of State Schooling in Developing Countries and the People’s Response”. Tooley takes us to the crowded, marginal neighborhood of Makoko in Lagos where some 50,000 Nigerians live. He writes how “In Makoko—as in other poor communities around the developing world—parents are abandoning public education en masse, disturbed by its low quality, and educational entrepreneurs are setting up private schools to cater to this demand. These private schools, it turns out, whatever their appearances might suggest, are of higher quality than the public alternative, achieving higher standards at a fraction of the cost of public education.”

 

The parents who have moved their children from public schools to private schools in the Nigerian neighborhood know just what a difference there is. A woman told Tooley: “’We see how children's books never get touched in the public school.’ Another man ventured: ‘We pass the public school many days and see the children outside all of the time, doing nothing. But in the private schools, we see them everyday working hard. In the public school, children are abandoned.’ Despite public education being free, the parents, whose income is about $50 a month, pay to send their children to one of the no less than 30 in Makoko.

 

Tooley has researched every corner of the world capitalism has not penetrated, where the wealth we enjoy has not arrived. In some areas like China or India, public schools cost much more than what private schools ask for providing a better education. Parents have better control over the education their children receive and the results bare this out. In an earlier article, Tooley revealed that in India the average score for private schools is 19 points in language and 17.9 in math. Meanwhile, public schools average 17.4 in language and 16.3 in math. Teacher absenteeism and packed classrooms, the two main characteristics of public schools, do not happen in private schools.

 

If there are businessmen who offer a good, affordable education to the world’s poor, can anyone claim private education in a country like Spain is inappropriate because it would leave the poor behind?