School Choice Campaign
Posted by india in School ChoiceJun 6th, 2007 | no responsesSchool Choice Campaign
Fund Students, Not Schools
On
29 January 2007 the Centre for Civil Society launched its School Choice
Campaign. It is a one-year campaign with concrete, measurable goals.
Our nation has given each child the right to education; we must now
make it meaningful by taking it a step further: The Right to education of Choice! Each child and her parent must be empowered so they can truthfully say: My Right, My Choice!
This
is also your opportunity to join the education revolution. Put in your
one year to assure quality education to the poor and secure their and
India’s future. Log on to www.schoolchoice.in and play your part.
Can
poor women (urban, rural or tribal), armed with funds—corporate, bank
or micro-finance—own the school where their children study? Can we
attract entrepreneurs of the calibre like Narayana Murthy to open 200,
may be 2000, schools and replicate the IT revolution in education? Can
venture capital—for profit or philanthropic—help improve the
infrastructure and quality of existing budget private schools around
slums and in villages? Can good teachers of government schools be given
an opportunity to manage schools and improve the quality and reach
millions?
We
feel the answer to these exciting questions is a resounding YES! It is
time to think bold, outside the box of the current education system.
What is School Choice?
As
you know, we at CCS have done considerable amount of research and
advocacy work in the area of education. We have collected a wealth of
data and analysis from around India and the rest of the world. And we
are convinced that quality education for all can be achieved only by
adopting a different strategy: School Choice!
School
choice, particularly for the poor, can be achieved through education
vouchers, cash transfers (like in Bangladesh), or tuition fee
reimbursement schemes (like in Delhi), basically by schemes where funds
follow students and not schools. Let the child’s parent choose the
school. It can be enhanced through broader measures like deregulation
and delicensing of private schools, legalizing for-profit schools, and
microfinance and venture capital for budget private schools. (Today it
is virtually impossible to start a legally recognised school. Also,
since many of the schools for the poor are unrecognised, they cannot
get a bank loan to improve their infrastructure like any other
enterprise).
School
choice can be taken to government schools through decentralization of
decision making and transfer of accountability to local governments, by
tying state grants to enrolment and learning achievements, through
management contracts, and charter schools. The funding for education in
general can be increased by tuition tax credits to individuals and
corporate scholarship tax credit programs.
Goals of the School Choice Campaign
We have set five measurable goals. They
would give you a good idea of the scale and scope of our efforts. By
the end of the campaign, 29 January 2008, we intend to achieve the
following:
1. At least 50% of parents with children in state schools should know the ideas of school choice.
2. All state education ministers and secretaries should be briefed about school choice individually or in groups.
3. All elected representatives
across all levels of the government (Members of Parliament, Legislative
Assemblies, Corporations, and Village Panchayats) should receive
persuasive material on the ideas of school choice and specific ways to
implement them.
4. At least 1912 of the elected representatives should receive a delegation of citizens demanding school choice.
5. Establish or help establish at least 5 projects
(including changes in education policies) that demonstrate the power of
choice in school education. One of the projects would be a private school choice fund that would support at least 9400 students.
Looking Ahead
The
task ahead is not an easy one. But we firmly believe that all of us, by
implementing school choice, can make a serious positive impact in the
lives of millions of children, for generations to come. That thought
and the tremendous encouragement and partnership we have received from
all quarters—dalit and tribal activists, government officials,
politicians, entrepreneurs, and parents and well wishers of poor
children—in the short span of our campaign energise us to march ahead.
All
good campaigns depend on good people, planning and execution. We have
assembled a team of dedicated and competent women and men in New Delhi
and in many states. We have partnered with enthusiastic organisations
and individuals who are now the foot soldiers of the campaign. Our mass
campaign and political outreach is in full swing in many states across
the nation. It is especially heartening to receive overwhelming support
from leaders and organisations representing the marginalised women and
men of our society. Dalit and tribal activists, for example, are
becoming the key leaders of this campaign. They are taking the powerful
message of parental empowerment and choice to communities and elected
representatives.
Our
mass campaign has attracted hundreds of thousands of parents. In New
Delhi we will be providing 400 vouchers to poor children to demonstrate
the power of choice and empowerment. We will unveil similar schemes in
other states. Encouragingly, many government officials have shown
interest in implementing choice based schemes in their states and
cities.
It
has been a discovery process for us too. We have sensed a change in the
thought process of philanthropic organisations and donors. Instead of
charity for the sake of charity, they envision funding projects that
empower people in a scalable and self sustaining manner. Many have
found school choice, with its parent empowering message at its core,
very appealing. Many have or intend to join us in our pilot projects
and mass campaigns.
While
we rejoice our achievements, we are fully aware that this is just the
end of the beginning of the campaign. We have a long and hard, yet
exciting, road ahead. Join our campaign. Together let us create an
education system that puts Students First! Together let us make quality education and a good future a reality for millions of our children.
Join the School Choice Campaign!
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