Author: wrpvincent

Introduction

“At the end of five hundred years of shouldering the white man’s burden of civilizing “African natives” the Portuguese had not managed to train a single African doctor in Mozambique, and the life expectancy in eastern Angola was less than thirty years”

      (Rodney 2018 pp 247)

Education creates a nation’s doctors, lawyers, nurses, and teachers, all the social services needed to develop a society, keep its citizens healthy and economically productive. With few exceptions, throughout the colonial period of Africa, education systems provided for the majority black populations were geared towards the needs of the minority white settlers and their ‘mother country’ and not in the interest of most indigenous populations. The quote above demonstrates the reality of the outcomes of the Portuguese colonial education system in Mozambique.

Using the context of Mozambique, this essay will examine the rise of global transnational education programmes delivered by private schools for a growing middle class across Africa. I will examine how Enko education, a transnational provider of private education across Africa, with three schools in Mozambique, promises to help African students gain places in ‘leading’ global universities by giving students access and opportunity to study internationally recognised curricula. There are a few different international or transnational education programmes but this essay will consider only the International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma Programme (DP). Transnational organizations like Enko education and the IB raise interesting questions for decolonization within the African historical context. What I hope to offer is a study of the increase towards private low fee international schools and their implications for decolonization, with a specific focus on Mozambique. This paper will examine the question: “To what extent can low fee international education programmes, aid the process of decolonization in post-colonial Mozambique?”

The first three sections provide contextual information and are structured similarly: considering general trends in low income and postcolonial contexts in Africa before discussing Mozambique in detail. In section one I present a history and context of some colonial education systems. Section two is an overview of the African learning crisis and rise of low fee private schooling including Enko education. In section three I examine the IB, its philosophy and history, before moving onto analysing the issues described in these contextual sections through the framework of underdevelopment in section four. In the final section I provide a conclusion.

Before continuing I need to define some of the boundaries of this paper. This is not a paper about so-called low-fee or low-cost private schools (LFPS) of which I have written about elsewhere (Vincent 2021a, Vincent 2021b) and have been the basis of much academic debate over the last two decades (See Tooley 2009, Härmä 2020). Nor is it a paper about elite private international education, the type of which is normally available to the highest socio-economic groups, referred to as Type A international schools by Hayden and Thomson (2013). Instead, I seek to examine what may be considered the middle ground, and its decolonising role, within a post-colonial context. These are private schools that cater to a growing middle class and offer the type of international education programmes found in elite schools but at a tenth of the cost. This trend sits alongside the rise of LFPS across Africa, within a general trend of privatization in the age of global neoliberal economics.

Section 1: Colonial and Post-Colonial Education

            According to Datzberger (2021) pre-colonial African education was based on social and communal relationships within family tribal and clan-based groups which focussed on the learning of utilitarian skills. These skills are those that were needed for the development, within the individual, of the social-cultural values and norms. Usually within pre-colonial societies the important unit was not the individual, but the group and hence education was focussed on developing group cohesion amongst individuals. Children were educated to engage with a particular activity, and to ensure the transmission of cultural values. Education of this type included oral storytelling and literature as well as the transmission of traditions through stories and dancing and interactive experience. Traditional pedagogies in Kenya for example, are highlighted by Wa Thiong’o (1986) who stresses the importance of using local African languages for cultural transmission and education through the Arts. Rodney (2018) claims that whilst local differences did exist between different African communities in their pre-colonial education, most did follow a similar pattern based on respect for communal relationships.

            With the scramble for Africa circa 1870, there was differing emphasis given to education between different colonial powers. Although the differences appear to be by way of degree and implementation, the intent of colonial powers was generally to absorb African societies into a subordinate position in an economic hierarchy. Thus, in British, French or Portuguese colonies, education existed to promote the interests of the colonising nation generally at the expense of the colonised. Madeira (2005) gives an interesting comparative account of the differences and similarities of education systems in Anglophone, Francophone and Lusophone colonial jurisdictions.

Whilst he was writing about his experiences of British colonial schooling in Kenya specifically, the colonial education system described in detail by Wa Thiong’o (1986) could be thought to be typical of colonial education systems throughout Africa during the colonial period in terms of its purpose (Rodney 2018). Wa Thiong’o (1986) is included here because he has written with lucidity about his personal experience of colonial education, an experience that could be thought to be typical for successful indigenous completers of colonial education, even across different contexts. He describes how the Kenyan colonial education system was designed to dominate ‘the mental universe of the colonised’ (ibid pp 16). He writes that the colonial education system focussed on the ‘destruction or the deliberate undervaluing of a people’s culture … and the conscious elevation of the language of the coloniser’ (ibid pp 16). The author goes on to describe how the colonial school served to sever the child from his community and natural environment so that he came to see them as something other to themselves. This was brought about by the deliberate use of colonial language but also ‘the alienation became reinforced in the teaching of history, geography, music, where bourgeois Europe was always at the centre of the universe.’ (ibid pp 17)

            Not only did colonial education systems place Eurocentric learning material front and centre but colonial education was elitist and competitive, designed to select and mark out a minimum of the colonised population for secondary school, university, and then junior roles within the colonial administration. The aim was to train a class of the local population that could work to keep the colonial machinery in operation. This class needed to be culturally homogenous, replaceable and have a connection with the colonizing nation. As such the curriculum and pedagogies were devoid of developing critical thinking. Wa Thiong’o (1986) describes how, in Kenya, the only mark that mattered at the end of primary exams was English. Without a pass in English a child could not move up the educational ladder no matter how bright they were and how well they scored in other subjects.

            In Mozambique the intent on paper was like that of the British and French although the implementation of the colonial education system was hampered by the lack of development of the colonial power itself (Madeira 2005). In official Portuguese political discourses, the plan was to create a shared Portuguese culture across all of its ‘overseas provinces’ where black Portuguese citizens would be created. This plan was only haphazardly implemented and never came to fruition (ibid). Portugal had been economically dominant in the region of what is now Mozambique since the 1600s but towards the end of the 1800s Portugal itself had failed to industrialise to the same extent as other European powers and therefore was unable to promote the economic development of Mozambique (Cross 1987). Instead, from the 1930s it sought to use Mozambique to shore up its own economic position through the exportation of forced migrant labour and the provision of jobs in Mozambique for Portuguese settlers who lacked employment opportunities in Portugal. Thus, on the eve of independence the Portuguese ruled Mozambique directly from Lisbon with ‘the main objective [being to] quite nakedly to get the maximum benefits and profits…for the mother country’ (Gaster 1969 pp 151). The ‘almost absolute lack of African participation in positions of economic and political leadership’ (Cross 1987) was caused by a failure of the Portuguese to fully assimilate the indigenous population through education, creating a very weak, small, and fragile assimilado (‘Africans considered to have divested themselves of all tribal customs…and assimilated Portuguese values and culture’ (Cross 1987 pp 553))petty bourgeois.

In the early days of colonial education in Mozambique (1800-1930), education of the indigenous population was left to the catholic missionaries. However, by 1900, Portugal effectively only controlled around 10% of modern Mozambique and so influence in many areas was gained by the British through the activities of protestant missionaries (Madeira 2005). Madeira (ibid) claims that in the first decades of the 20^th century up to 1948 there were more schools operated by protestant missions (and under the influence of the Americans and British) than there were catholic. The Portuguese state operating in Mozambique focussed its energies initially on the provision of public academic education for the children of white settlers, mulattos (people of mixed race (Cross 1987 pp 553))and assimilados. Education of the indigenous population was left to the missionaries who favoured literacy for the catechism and the elements of training needed for the indigenous population to fill the unskilled labour roles (Madeira 2005). This resulted in an effectively two-tiered education system within Mozambique where the indigenous population who had access to schools (most didn’t) was taught just enough to be able to read and write the catechism and to fulfil their role in society as forced migrant labourers (Cross 1987, Madeira 2005). The curriculum that existed was Portuguese in values and culture and Portuguese was the language of instruction, the use of local languages in the education system were banned in 1921. This system left Mozambique with a literacy rate that stood at 5% in 1967 (Gaster 1969).

The Mozambique Liberation Front, FRELIMO, was formed in 1962 from the fusion of several exiled organisations and succeeded in its aims of securing independence during the liberation war that spanned 1964 to 1975 (Cross 1987, Gaster 1969). From its inception FRELIMO was aware of the need for education (Mondlane 1967, Gaster 1967, Samuels 1971) to ‘train cadres and promote general literacy’ (Samuels 1971 pp 69). Thus, even during the war of independence FRELIMO started schools in the areas that they were active in and began a secondary school for refugees from Mozambique in Tanzania, called the Mozambique Institute (Mondlane 1967, Gaster 1969, Cross 1987). FRELIMO adopted Portuguese as the language of instruction ‘to unite all Mozambicans above diverse languages’ (Hall & Kidd 1978 pp 124), and they were aware that ‘education must prepare us to develop a new society and meet its demands’ (ibid pp 125). Education was thus seen consciously by FRELIMO to build a successful post-colonial society. However, despite efforts post-independence, the educational picture in Mozambique is still severely underdeveloped with a recent report citing an average years of schooling at 3.2 years of education amongst the population and high levels of illiteracy (Härmä 2016).

Section 2: The African learning crisis and Enko education

The educational situation in Mozambique presents echoes of a wider African ‘learning crisis’ (Oketch 2021) recently described as severe by the World Bank (The World Bank 2017). The argument put forward by Oketch (2021) is that the increased access to education brought about by EFA has caused a decrease in the quality of education in some African contexts, for example Malawi (Inoue & Oketch 2008, Härmä 2016). The crisis has arisen because schooling is not the same as learning. There has been improvement in access to schooling, but the quality of that learning is poor or declining with many children not meeting minimum indicators (Oketch 2021). Other authors cite country and school contextual factors to explain differences in learning outcomes for children in different African countries (Carnoy et al 2014). Studies show that a large proportion of students across Africa are 3 years behind where the curriculum expects them to be in terms of literacy and numeracy (The World Bank 2017).

Because of this perceived poor quality in public education many families have turned to the private sector. The education systems of low-income countries have witnessed increased privatization and the creation of education markets, through the rise of LFPS and an increase in Public-Private-Partnerships (Unterhalter et al 2020). Many authors have documented this trend (Tooley 2009, Härmä 2020) and there have been some large-scale studies examining the evidence of the effectiveness of private schooling (Day Ashley et al 2014). This is a global trend that affects many low-income contexts. Added to this learning crisis there has been an increase in the middle class of the Global South in recent decades who have been clamouring for more and higher quality education (Gardner-McTaggart 2014, Härmä 2016). One of the ways this demand for private schooling from an emerging middle class in Africa is being met is by private actors through for-profit education companies like Enko Education.

Enko Education is a for-profit educational company, inspired through the meeting of Cyrille Nkontchou, from Cameroon, and Eric Pignot, from France, at MIT Sloan School of Business in 2012. It has been funded by private and institutional investment finance from both inside and outside Africa including Proparco, Oiko Credit and Enko Capital (Materia 2021). The founders of the company worked in Management Consultancy and Finance in Europe before starting the company (according to their LinkedIn profiles). The founders were puzzled by the seeming lack of African students at their university, relative to students from other comparable regions like India (Allen 2020). Enko education was established with the mission to:

‘increase access to the world’s leading universities through high-quality international education.’ (Enko 2021).

To illustrate what Enko means by high quality international education, most Enko schools offer IB programmes as well as Cambridge International programmes. ‘World leading’ is an ambiguous phrase, but the fact that in 2017 a student from their first cohort gained a scholarship to study at Yale in the US (Allen 2020) serves to illustrate the company’s intent. Their aim is quite simply to help African students go to university in the Global North as this is where most world leading universities are located according to international ranking criteria. At an estimated 3000 USD cost per year in fees, Enko schools are catering for a growing middle class in Sub Saharan African countries. Currently they operate 16 schools across Africa with nearly 3000 students, with the first school being founded in Yaounde, Cameroon in 2014 (Enko 2021). Currently Enko has three schools in Mozambique: Enko Riverside which offers the IB DP; Enko Sekeleka which offers international A levels and Enko Benga which will offer programmes to both local and international students.

Section three: The IB

Whilst there are a variety of international curriculums available, here I will examine the IB which was officially founded in 1968. Its first programme, the DP aimed to provide a broad, balanced and challenging education that could promote international mobility by providing an internationally recognised university-entrance examination. The first DP exams were delivered in 1970, but its philosophical roots go back further (IB 2021b). The ideas that were embryonic to the IB can be traced back to the publication of a UNESCO booklet entitled “Do Education Techniques or Peace Exist?”by Marie-Thérèse Maurette (1948) who was the director of the International School of Geneva at that time. The concern for promoting peace continues to be reflected in the mission statement of the IB:

“The International Baccalaureate® aims to develop inquiring, knowledgeable and caring young people who help to create a better and more peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect.”

           (IB 2021c)

Language	Number of students taking exams
1st language exams	2nd language exams
Amharic	50	0
Arabic	864	1323
Sesotho	12	>10
Swahili	38	172
Ndebele	0	>10
Shona	0	>10
Zulu	0	>10

Today the IB provides four educational programmes for children from primary age all the way through to pre-university secondary level. All programmes are underpinned by a similar educational philosophy. At the time of writing there are 5,500 schools across 159 countries delivering educational programmes to nearly a million children (IB 2021a). Of these around 80 are in Africa or 1.5% of the total IB schools worldwide (Hill 2018). As of 2018 there were no government or state schools offering any IB programs in Africa despite attempts throughout the history of the organization for it to work with governments across Africa notably in Senegal and Ghana (Hill 2018). Uptake of the IB by African schools since the 1970s has been slow and not in line with the early vision of the founders who felt that the IB had something to offer the education systems of newly independent states in Africa (Bunnell 2016). Cost is identified as one factor for this slow growth (Bunnell 2016). IB programmes are expensive for schools to run and therefore most schools that offer the program are catering to communities that can afford this type of global education, so called traditional Type A international schools (Hayden & Thompson 2013). Other barriers to adoption of the IB by schools in Africa are cited as: lack of IB conferences and teacher support on the continent; the fact that the IB in Africa is managed from the Netherlands; and a Eurocentric bias in its pedagogical outlook and philosophy (Blunnel 2016).

The IB emphasises constructivist, learner-centred, and inquiry-based pedagogy being heavily influenced by the pedagogical approaches of John Dewey, A.S. Neil, Jean Piaget, Jerome Bruner, all of whom were influential educationalists in the early to mid-20th century (IB 2021b). These principles are at the core of all IB programmes and are highly aligned to current global education policies. In addition to its core pedagogy IB programmes aim to be broad and have strong focus on languages. Students from around the world can take their DP subject exams (like maths, history or science) in English, French or Spanish and can study a variety of world languages as a first or second language. It is also possible for schools to request language exams for languages that may not have a large representation globally. Table 1 shows the number of students who took first or second language exams in each African language available in the May 2020 DP exams.

Section four: Underdevelopment

In the first three sections I have examined the colonial and post-colonial education system, the rise of private education in low-income contexts and the IB. In this section I will use the theoretical framework of underdevelopment as described by Rodney (2018) to analyse these trends.

Africa, taken as a whole, has been drastically underdeveloped by its historical interactions with Europe, according to Rodney (2018), who describes how the pre-colonial trading relationships between Europe and Africa, served to widen what was only a narrow economic gap initially around 1500 into a chasm by 1870. It is claimed that these trading relationships, which were focussed on the exportation of human beings from Africa, served, in the main, to stall the development of African societies from this point on. Several reasons for this stalling are claimed, but primarily it was the forced exportation of human labour, which is the foundation of development, that was the keystone of underdevelopment. These relationships also corroded social relationships within African societies.

Rodney (2018) contends that because of the stagnation of development in Africa through pre-colonial trade, European imperialists were able to invade and dominate the African nations in the colonial period. Education was seen as necessary to change the population to accept colonial administration, as discussed earlier. Education during colonial times, developed an administrative middle class in many countries, who had vested personal economic interests in keeping the economic relationships established between the colony and mother country intact. As Wa Thiong’o (1986) writes: ‘By education children are brought up in the culture, values and world outlook of the dominant class which may or may not be the same as the class of their birth and family. By choice they may opt for one or the other side in the class struggles of their day’ (ibid pp 104). This policy has been documented in Mozambique by the creation of assimilados despite the Portuguese being less successful in this than the British or the French. Writers like Fanon (1961) described how, following the liberation movements across Africa, the stage would be set for a new relationship: neocolonialism. In neocolonialism Fanon (ibid) describes how ‘the former dominated country becomes an economically dependent country’(ibid pp 77). He goes on to write that ‘the colonies have become a market…the important thing is not whether such-and-such a region in Africa is under French or Belgian sovereignty, but rather that the economic zones are respected’ (ibid pp 51). After independence and in the neocolonial period, the ruling political elites who have been educated under the colonial system have more in common with European interests and less with their countrymen. Fanon describes these political elites as ‘spoilt children of yesterday’s colonialism and of today’s national governments, they organise the loot of whatever national resources exist’ (ibid pp 37).

The adoption of the IB by Enko schools in Mozambique sits in this historical narrative and has implications that need to be considered in this light. From this starting point we will examine first how the Enko model of education fits into this narrative followed by the role of IB in supporting decolonization in societies like Mozambique.

Section 4.1 The Enko model

As presented, the Enko model of education, provides access to international education programmes, at a fraction of their normal cost, to African students to enable them access to universities in the Global North. International education programmes are adopted as these are seen to be of higher quality than the state education system and easily recognisable by admissions officers at universities in the Global North. Although there is a focus of getting access to university more broadly (not every African student in the schools can win scholarships to Yale), the stated intention is to gain admittance to ‘world leading’ universities. Although the term ‘world leading’ is appropriately ambiguous for marketing by implication this means access to universities outside of Africa. Afterall, according to data, only four African universities make it into the top 500 global universities, with highest placed being at number 226 (QS 2021). For the sake of this paper, I assume that by world leading, Enko means ‘outside Africa’. This model when analysed by the underdevelopment framework presents several issues.

The model of European finance providing investment to African children to attend universities in the Global North is reminiscent of situations described by Rodney (2018 pp 258) where colonial governments provided investment opportunities for their businesses, seemingly to develop Africa but which ultimately benefited the colonial state. In similar fashion with the Enko model, investment is provided to Africans to ultimately pay very high international student fees to relatively expensive universities in the Global North. Thus, investment ultimately goes to providing income for the education industry of the Global North. During the colonial period, trade from Africa to Europe and America was encouraged to the exclusion of trade between Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Colonial powers blocked development of machinery and skills within Africa in the colonial period to ensure that African industry did not compete with European industry. By focussing on world leading universities (as measured by western metrics) history is in danger of being repeated through modern trade in educational markets. This situation potentially leads to further underdevelopment of African universities and is in danger of creating educational dependency on Northern educational institutions. Dependency is increased because more Mozambicans become dependent on the northern education institutions.  In time these individuals may have a vested interest in maintaining this economic status quo.

Clearly capital is needed to run schools, but the profit motive shifts the overall aim of education away from the needs of individuals and their communities and to the needs of shareholders keen to recoup their investment. Afterall, these schools are creating and exploiting an education market, and aiming to make a profit; any excess that is made is not necessarily entirely reinvested back into them, as would be the case in a not-for-profit private school. For-profit schools have been known to close at short notice when the profits do not materialise, putting children, who may be halfway through a program, at a severe disadvantage, particularly if there is no alternative provider of the same program (Jones-Nerzic 2020). Making a profit is therefore the primary aim, education is secondary.

The financing of these schools through investment by Global Northern finance illustrates Fanon’s markets as quoted above and means that ultimately any profits made by these schools are taken out of Africa and back into the Global North. This clearly serves to underdevelop the community as money that is made by families in Mozambique for example, is used to pay schools fees, some of which goes into paying teacher salaries and other administrative costs but some of which finds its way back into the Global North via the repayment of loans and profits to non-African shareholders and finance. This ultimately leaves fewer financial resources available for the local communities than if these schools were run by the government or as not-for-profit entities. It could be argued that without the profit motive, investment would not be available to run these schools which provide education and employment. I would argue that every government has an obligation to provide quality education for all its citizens and investment in education should be provided through these channels for the ultimate benefit of society.

International education of this type may bring benefits to the individual, but the benefit to the wider Mozambican society is harder to ascertain. Individuals who reap the benefit of this education and move abroad are not likely return unless there are suitable jobs and opportunities for them to do so, a problem that schools like Enko do not seem to address in their mission. This model potentially serves to increase inequality in Mozambican society as the very poorest are excluded from these opportunities. By overlooking this, these schools could potentially contribute to continued underdevelopment of the society by encouraging the removal of human resources from Mozambique, creating an additional problem for the government: providing suitable opportunities to encourage diaspora to return and loss of intellectual talent needed in society. It seems unlikely that this model of schooling will help to provide Mozambique with more Doctors, nurses, and teachers. Here we see the tension between the needs of developing individuals and the need to develop a society. I argue that education of this sort is not helping to create a socially just society and will continue the legacy of European interaction with Mozambique as highlighted in the quote at the beginning of the essay.

Section 4.2 An international education

Some writers have highlighted the problems arising from transplanting IB programmes into non-Eurocentric cultural contexts. Drake (2004) examines the cultural dissonance and tensions that arises from the implementation of the IB in Hong Kong for example. The pedagogical approaches that the IB favours were developed in the context of liberal democracies where individual freedom is stressed. These educational philosophies reflect the societies that they were gestated in and may not always be appropriate in all cultural contexts.

Liberal individualism runs to the core of IB philosophy and educational approach, not surprising considering that the key educational thinkers who the IB based its approaches on were all European or American men and were developing their theories within the liberal culture of those societies. Thus, the drive for learner-centred, inquiry-based education where the individual student takes control of their learning has roots in this Eurocentric way of understanding the world. Not all societies place such emphasis on the individual and it is documented that pre-colonial education within African societies was generally based on the needs of the society not the individual. Education may be beneficial for the individual but if there are no jobs suitable for the individual to come back to then it won’t benefit society but instead continue its underdevelopment.

Not only is the IB Eurocentric in its educational philosophy but it is also Eurocentric in its content. There is some scope for African study in history and through African languages, but as a science teacher of IB curriculums I know there is little to no mention of African scholarship in these curriculums. The narrative of these subjects is firmly outside Africa. In the IB DP biology curriculum there is no mention of any African scientist or the contributions of Africa to the advancement of scientific knowledge. In fact, the guide for DP biology only mentions Africa once as, a side note. This lack of African perspective demonstrates a possible lack of involvement by Africans in the development of the content. For biology alone it is possible to find examples of content that could link well to the African context for example the development of knowledge in biochemistry from foodstuffs derived from Africa.

African writers have provided ample examples of the misfit of European based education programs under colonialism being imposed on African society (See Wa Thiong’o 1986, Rodney 2018 pp 300-304) and I do not have space to include them here. But these programs served to Europeanise the indigenous population and ‘it followed that those that were Europeanized were to that extent de-Africanized, as a consequence of the colonial education and the general atmosphere of colonial life’ (Rodney 2018 pp 304). If international education is really going to serve the interests of African societies, then it needs to become more culturally sensitive in terms of its philosophy and content, allowing more flexibility to and representation of local needs and wants in its educational approaches and providing more input from African scholarship across its content. Even in Enko schools which employ African teachers (not necessarily local teachers) the head of school is normally from the Global North. This individual is likely to have limited sensitivity to the issues raised here and will be steeped in the cultural atmosphere of international education as described above.

Finally, the IB provides access to its curriculum in the colonial languages of English, French, and Spanish, so that students can study their entire DP in either of these languages if they wish. It is interesting to note that even in Mozambique, FRELIMO decided on using the language of the coloniser in its educational system with the aim of uniting different groups. Other African writers have criticised the adoption of European languages as national languages by independent governments and emphasised the need to adopt local African languages. While the use of European language by governments may have been pragmatic, it is a symptom of the neocolonial relationship. If this is the case, the IB would do well to adopt an African language more broadly in its African schools.

Conclusion

I set out to explore the question “To what extent can low fee international education programmes, aid the process of decolonization in post-colonial Mozambique?”. My argument suggests that the model of for-profit low-fee international education programs risks continuing the process of underdevelopment and increasing dependency. It potentially does this is by making the better off and more educated members of Mozambican society dependent on higher education institutions located in the Global North. Society in Mozambique cannot fully decolonise until Higher Education institutions of quality are developed and economic opportunities for skilled individuals become available in the country. This requires investment from the government. In a sense we are witnessing the creation of education markets in Mozambique. It is my contention that these markets serve to strengthen the position of northern higher education institutions.

 Another way dependency is increased is through the removal of capital from Mozambique back to institutions outside of Africa. The for-profit model does not ensure that finance is contained within the communities the schools serve and it promotes loss of intellectual talent. If those individuals that can access higher quality education ultimately leave the country, then developing a robust, independent society in the long run is potentially hampered. These relationships mirror many of the situations of the colonial period of Africa as described by Rodney (2018). Ultimately the exportation of finance and human capital to the Global North from the Global South will not serve to build an independent Mozambican society in the long run.

Finally, the pedagogies encouraged by the IB are Eurocentric in philosophy and origin, while the content taught in many courses could be developed further to encompass more of the African local experience and context; I provided one example for one course but there is scope that this could be the case in other subjects. The involvement of more diverse viewpoints in the development of IB content would be one way that this organisation could aid the decolonisation process.

References

• Allen, K. (2020) Increasing Educational Opportunities in Africa. International School. Vol 22 (2) pp 49-50
• Bunnell, T. (2016) The dearth of international schools across Africa. Africa Education Review Vol 13(2) pp 181-195
• Carnoy, M., Ngware, M., Oketch, M. (2014) The Role of Classroom Resources and National Educational Contect in Student Learning Gains: Comparing Botswana, Kenya and South Africa. Comparative Education Review. Vol 59 (2) pp 199-233
• Cross, M. (1987) The Political Economy of Colonial Education: Mozambique, 1930-1975. Comparative Education Review. Vol 31(4) pp. 550-569.
• Datzberger, S. (2021) ‘Lecture Session 1: Histories of Education in and about Africa: Pre-colonial times, colonialism, nationalism and post-coloniality’ Simone Datzberger CMII008 African Studies and Education available at: https://moodle.ucl.ac.uk/mod/resource/view.php?id=2927558
• Day Ashley. L, Mcloughlin C, Aslam M, Engel J, Wales J, Rawal S, Batley R, Kingdon G, Nicolai S, Rose P (2014) The role and impact of private schools in developing countries: a rigorous review of the evidence. Final report. Education Rigorous Literature Review. Department for International Development.
• Drake (2004) International education and IB programmes. Journal of Research in International Education. Vol 3 (2) pp 189-205. IBO & SAGE
• Enko (2021) https://enkoeducation.com/ accessed on July 21 2021.
• Fanon, F. (1961) The Wretched of The Earth. Penguin. London
• Gardner-McTaggart, A. (2014) International Elite or Global Citizens? Equity, Distinction and Power: The International Baccalaureate and The Rise of The Global South. Globalization, Societies and Education. Vol 14 (1) pp 1-29
• Gaster, P. (1969), “FRELIMO: A revolution in education”, Education + Training, Vol. 11 No. 4, pp. 151-152. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb016117
• Hall, B.L. & Kidd, J.R. (1978) Adult Learning: A Design For Action. Pergamon.
• Hayden, M. and Thompson, J. 2013. International Schools: Antecedents, current issues and metaphors for the future. In International Education and Schools: Moving Beyond the First 40 Years ed. R. Pearce 3-24. London: Bloomsbury Academic.
• Härmä, J. (2016) Study of non-state provision of education in Maputo Final Report. Department for International Development. UK AID.
• Härmä, J. (2020) Low Fee Private Schooling and Poverty in Developing Countries Bloomsbury Academic. London
• Hill, I. (2018) IB Developments in Africa. International Schools Journal. Vol 37 (2) pp 27-35.
• IB (2021a) available at: Facts and figures accessed 26th June 2021
• IB (2021b) available at: The history of the IB accessed on 26th June 2021
• IB (2021c) About the IB Mission accessed on 26th June 2021
• Inoue, K & Oketch, M (2008) Implementing Free Primary Education Policy in Malawi and Ghana: Equity and Efficiency Analysis. Peabody Journal of Education. 83 pp 41-70
• Jones-Nerzic, R (2020) July 3^rd https://twitter.com/JonesNerzic/status/1279011018769907713 accessed 23rd July 2020
• Madeira, A.I. (2005) Portuguese, French and British discourses on colonial education: Church-State relations, school expansion and missionary competition in Africa, 1890-1930. Paedagogica Historica International Journal of the History of Education. 41:1-2, pp 31-60
• Materia (2021) https://materiainc.com/masiv/benga-riverside-school/ accessed 14 July 2021.
• Maurette, M.T. (1948) Techniques d’Education Pour La Paix accessed 26th June 2021
• Mondlane, J.R.M (1967) The Mozambique Institute. Southern Africa Bulletin. American Committee on Africa, New York.
• Oketch, M (2021) ‘Lecture 4: Is there a learning crisis in Africa’ CMII0008 – African Studies and Education 2020/21 available at: https://moodle.ucl.ac.uk/mod/resource/view.php?id=2927553
• QS (2021) https://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2022 accessed 21st July 2021.
• Rodney (2018) How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. Verso. London. New York.
• Samuels, M.A. (1971) The FRELIMO School System. Africa Today. Vol 18. No. 3 pp 69-73.
• Tooley, J. (2009) The beautiful tree: a personal journey into how the world’s poorest are educating themselves. Cato Institute. Washington
• The World Bank (2017), The Learning Crisis. Learning to Realise Education’s Promise. World Development Report. Washington DC.: International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / The World Bank (Part 2). http://www.worldbank.org/en/publication/wdr2018 accessed July 2nd 2021
• Wa Thiong’o, N. (1986) Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature. James Currey. Woodbridge.
• Unterhalter, E, Ron Balsera, M, Dorsi, D (2020) What can be done? The Abidjan Principles as a human rights framework to evaluate PPPs in education in Critical reflections on Public Private Partnerships Gideon, J & Unterhalter, E Editors. Routledge.
• Vincent, W. (2021a) To What Extent Could Low Fee Private Schools Aid Development in The Republic of South Sudan. EDPS0057: Education and International Development: Concepts, Theories and Issues. UCL IOE. Unpublished Essay.
• Vincent, W. (2021b) Can The Expansion of Private Schooling in Developing Countries Serve To Improve Access, Efficiency, Quality and Equity in Basic Education: The Case of Primary Education in The Republic of South Sudan. SOCS0020: Economic perspectives on education policy. UCL IOE. Unpublished Essay

Originally posted on June 21, 2021 @ 7:03 pm

Introduction

The focus of this essay will be on the role of private actors in primary education in the Republic of South Sudan (South Sudan). This paper seeks to discuss how the expansion of private schooling, specifically the role of so-called low fee private schools, can serve to improve access, efficiency, quality, and equity to primary education in South Sudan, in the context of education for all (EFA). Low fee or cost private schools (LCPS) catering for basic education have grown in number in a variety of low-income contexts over recent years and data evaluating impact of these schools is agnostic. The concept of low-fee vs low-cost private schools is contentious (Day Ashley et al 2014), however in this essay I use the definition given by Verger et al(2018), “private schools that have been set up and owned by an individual or group of individuals for the purpose of making a profit and are supposed to be ‘affordable’ for low-income families” (pp 256). There continues to be debate about these institutions and the role they can play in development with one side claiming that they can improve access and quality and the other concerned with issues of equity. They may also not be the most efficient way of providing education for all. This essay aims to analyse the role that LCPS can play in the fragile state of South Sudan through the lenses of key economics of education principles. A fragile state can be defined as “lack[ing] political will and/or capacity to provide the basic functions needed for poverty reduction, development and to safeguard the security and human rights of their populations.” (OECD 2007, page 2). A fragile state provides an interesting case study for these economic concepts because of the inherent lack of government capacity to regulate markets and an extreme scarcity of resources will make it challenging to implement a nationalized education system.

This essay is organised as follows: in the first three sections I present a discussion of the relevant economic theory and its application to low-income contexts before moving on in section four to review the application of these theories specifically in South Sudan. I argue that private schools are an important ally for low-income governments to expand access to education, but their role needs to be carefully planned to ensure issues of citizenship and developing social cohesion are considered, alongside issues of equity of access and quality. Private education gives flexibility to meet the linguistic and cultural needs of communities through consumer choice. Private education may help overcome geographic and structural difficulties through market competition.

Section 1: Human Capital Theory and Education Investment

The relationship between education and the economy was first recognized as early as Adam Smith (1776) but it was not until Shultz (1961) and Becker (1964) that it was first formalized through their human capital theory (HCT). This theory positioned education as a form of growth for an economy as opposed to a consumption and has been the major justification for the investment in education systems of developing nations by external donors. Notable in this regard is the World Bank that oversees the human capital project and produces the human capital index (World Bank 2021a).

HCT justifies individual and societal investment in education by assuming that human skills, knowledge, and their development through education are all directly linked to economic productivity. If we accept this assumption, it follows that by increasing the level of education that any individual has, we can raise the education level of the population on average and therefore increase the productivity of an economy and allow it to grow. Education can bring both monetary and non-monetary benefits to individuals and society which can be partially measured through the estimation of rates of return. Amongst policy makers working in low-income contexts, HCT has justified concerns about making quality education of all levels accessible to individuals within any developing country. Once we agree that investment in education is essential for the development of a low-income economy, we then must agree whether this investment is best realized through government spending or through private markets.

Orthodox, neo-classical economics views individuals and markets as superior to government and regulation (Alcott 2021, Chang 2011). This view argues that individuals and markets lead to improvements in quality, efficiency, and equity far superior to any provided by the government. This is because individuals are supposedly rational and assumed to hold a high degree of knowledge about what is best for them to maximise their utility. In this way, markets are thought to be more responsive and flexible to the needs of the individual as opposed to the government. This responsiveness is theoretically due to the accountability of the market. Those actors in the market who are not responsive to demands of the consumer will lose out. In this way the market reflects Darwinian principles of natural selection (ibid). In addition to this view, Public Choice Theory (Buchanan & Tullock 1962) suggests that all elements of government action are made by self-interested actors creating a principal-agent problem. Public Choice Theory argues that governments cannot really provide anything for society because parties and politicians are self-interested and following their own interests in pursuing policies. Thus, from this view, an ideal society is one where people can make as many decisions for themselves as possible through markets. Finally, if we accept that individual citizens reap the greatest benefits from investment in their education, then there is a case that they should be the ones to pay for it through private markets. According to neoliberal economic principles this use of private markets for education would have the added benefit of driving up quality.

Arguments that favour government production of education justify it for several reasons discussed in this essay. Firstly, education brings benefits or returns to wider society, not just the individual. These societal benefits of education are described as “externalities” (Oketch 2021a), “neighbourhood effects” (Friedman 1962) or “semi-public goods” (Sen 1999) and can be monetary as well as non-monetary. Non-monetary societal returns have been suggested to include reductions in fertility and mortality rates, the avoidance of natural disasters like famines, and greater democratic participation (Sen 1999). Secondly, it may be more efficient for the government to provide education because of deviations from the first best economy model (Barr 2020). Finally, government provision of education is justified because education is a fundamental human right, and governments are best placed to ensure all their citizens can access it.

Despite these theoretical considerations, in low-income contexts there may be many barriers to effective government provision of education. These are documented by Tooley (2009) and include reasons, like graft, unmotivated teachers, and language barriers between teachers and students in poly-lingual societies. Finance is often an issue for the governments of low-income countries with data from UNESCO showing that in Sub-Saharan Africa alone 16 countries spend less than the UNESCO recommended 4% of their GDP on education (UNESCO 2021). South Sudan ranks the lowest among East African countries, currently spending less than 1% of GDP on public education investment (UNICEF 2019). Further to these concerns, in a fragile state like South Sudan a top-down national education system may not be the most efficient way to organise the system, because inter-group and intra-group trust may be lacking after a civil war. An important final consideration is that different ethnic groups may have different linguistic needs which may reduce the efficiency of a national education system if it takes a one-size-fits all approach.

Section 2: Access and Quality through Choice and Competition

If education returns benefits to wider society, then ensuring access to quality education for all citizens is of consequence to the development of that society. This access can be provided through private markets or through government intervention. Even neoliberal writers who argued for free markets also argued for some government intervention in education. Writing in 1962, Milton Friedman referred to the societal non-monetary returns to education as “neighbourhood effects”. For Friedman these effects are one of two major reasons why government should intervene in education, the other being paternalistic care for irresponsible individuals (children). Friedman recognises that government intervention is important: “A stable and democratic society is impossible without a minimum degree of literacy and knowledge on the part of most citizens and without widespread acceptance of some set of values. Education can contribute to both. In consequence, the gain from the education of a child accrues not only to the child or to his parents but also to other members of the society…” (Friedman 1962 pp 86). Even this simple recognition that education promotes a stable society is enough for us to consider the role that government should play in education.

            Ultimately however, Friedman (ibid) favours as large a role as possible in the market for private schools, and as limited role for government as possible. For Friedman the ability of users to exert choice through the marketplace, away from government intervention is the ultimate expression of democratic values and freedom. Friedman uses the word freedom to focus on freedom of choice and economic freedom primarily as opposed to wider freedoms expressed by writers like Sen (1999). Friedman suggests that general education for citizenship, literacy and numeracy should be government supported but what he terms “vocational training” should not be supported by the government because it renders most returns to the individual. For Friedman (1962) governments should limit themselves to ensuring access to basic education that provides a stable society through literacy and citizenship education. It is unclear what exactly he means by vocational training initially although he provides some clarity later with the reference to dentists and beauticians. Friedman argues that parents should not be forced to pay for education if they cannot afford it as their children are not an asset that they can rid themselves of unlike a car (or a flatscreen TV). He makes a good case for social responsibility and argues that one of the reasons family sizes can remain large is that people do not always take financial responsibility for the education of their children. Friedman (ibid) argues that government involvement in education should be limited to the imposition of minimum levels of education by law (to ensure basic and citizenship education) and the financing of primary and secondary education (through vouchers to allow market mechanisms to work). He argues against the nationalising of the education industry.

There are two major tensions highlighted in Friedman’s writing. Firstly, we value independence from government in education for a free-thinking society to exist, but we value government controls for citizenship education to ensure a stable society. Secondly, there is an apparent tension with HCT as Friedman claims that there are no externalities of vocational or professional training and that all benefit is accrued by the individual. He uses this argument to justify removing government funding for higher education. However, HCT argues that improving educational levels through tertiary education improves the growth of an economy generally and some authors argue that the returns to society from higher education are greater than those for primary or secondary (Patrinos 2016). I do not think Friedman’s assertions about vocational training are supported by evidence as more recent quantitative studies in the field fail to concur.

Friedman’s theories of economic organisation were developed in the context of a high income, stable, monolingual educated society, with a functioning government able to provide funding to education and are informed by a culture of liberalism. His proposals assume a market with no imperfections, discussed below. For now, I just want to highlight that most citizens cannot easily relocate and take their vouchers to whatever school they choose for their children.

 These assumptions mean that the application of Friedman’s thinking to low-income contexts some of which may be polylingual and unstable, with lower levels of education in the general population needs careful consideration. Härmä (2020) argues that even so called LCPS in low-income contexts can still be too expensive for many of the poorest children to attend. The fees are low to outside observers but not necessarily those members of the community that need access to education. If this is generally the case, then private schools may reduce access to education. For Härmä (ibid) because education is a basic human right, it cannot be left up to the private market in low-income contexts because many families would still be unable to enrol. Tooley (2009) argues that LCPS will sometimes increase access. Studying LCPS in Lagos, he found that many parents living in slums would send children to LCPS because the walk to a government school was too dangerous. Supporting this Pinnock (2013) found, despite the cost, that families use private schools because government schools are considered low quality, and other authors have found that LCPS increase access as they are found in areas where there are no government schools (Andrabi et al 2008). The case for LCPS increasing access in the absence of suitable government schools is very strong.

Section 3: Efficiency and Equity Considerations

While ensuring access to a quality education is important for development, resources (financial, human and material) are scarce and not equally available. The concepts of economic efficiency and equity help us consider how best to allocate and distribute those resources. Economic efficiency is concerned with the input of given resources into a system and the outputs achieved from those inputs. Equity is concerned with the distribution of those resources. In this section I will focus on the concepts of efficiency followed by equity in low-income contexts generally before applying them to the case of South Sudan in the next section.

Economic efficiency is concerned with the optimal allocation of scarce resources given peoples tastes (Barr 2020). Lockheed & Hanushek (1994) write that efficient systems are ones that obtain more outputs for given inputs or a comparable level of output for fewer inputs. In low-income contexts the most efficient system is one that will get more children into primary education for the same amount of funding. From this perspective, a country must be concerned with increasing access to education before considering quality. “For a country that does not have universal primary education, expanding exposure – almost regardless of quality considerations – is likely to be an appealing policy. But once general exposure, which can be justified on equity grounds, is reached, educational policies switch from purely quantity to considerations of differential quality.” (ibid). In other words, the primary focus of the education system, at least at first, in a developing country must be concerned with getting “general exposure” or as many children enrolled in school as possible. Once steps to achieve this are underway then concerns with quality become more important. Therefore, in terms of the allocation of scarce financial resources, we should aim to maximise the number of children enrolled in school for every dollar spent.

This maximisation of education is described as productive efficiency and as discussed by Oketch (2021a), is only one part of the economic efficiency concept. The second part is allocative efficiency which is concerned with how well resources are allocated across communities. And the final part is pareto efficiency which occurs when it is impossible to make one party better off without making someone worse off. In society we want to maximise pareto efficiency to ensure that the economy is as efficient as possible. In terms of the free-market, trades are efficient only when they better one party without compromising another party. A totally efficient economy is maximised when as many efficient trades as possible are made. For education this means ensuring that the production and allocation of education resources to one sector of society does not make another sector disadvantaged. It is not efficient to educate some at the expense of others.

When the market economy delivers an outcome that does not maximise efficiency in this sense there is a market failure. In the prior section we examined arguments in favour of a free market in education, where private providers can compete in the market and consumers can choose which provider to use. This could improve access and quality even in low-income contexts according to Tooley (2009). We will now consider whether it is economically efficient to rely on private markets considering market failure. Market failure would mean that a society does not reap the maximum social returns to investment in education.

Education markets can fail for a variety of reasons. One of these is information failure. Oketch (2021a) and Lockheed and Hanushek (1994) claim that poor illiterate parents are unable to choose a quality school, that these families may not be able to discern a quality educational product from another. “illiterate parents in developing countries are likely to send their children to schools having few material resources and poorly educated teachers” (Lockheed & Hanushek 1994). However, I think this characterization is weak. Tooley (2009) makes a compelling case that parents can tell when their children are learning nothing, citing this as a reason for parents choosing LCPS over government schools. It could also be argued that educated wealthy parents fail to make a good choice in schools as they can be swayed by marketing and fads, or their own experiences of schooling. The point is that parents may not always know what works, but they can tell when their children are making progress. They know when their child is learning to read, write and use numbers. It could be argued that in the education marketplace it is very hard to gain this information until your child attends a school. Since moving is school is not necessarily as easy as Friedman (1962) assumes and the results of which can have negative impacts on learning (Hattie 2008). Informational failures can occur in education markets even if multiple school providers exist in a community. Parents cannot always simply put their children in another school. Schools are often selected based on proximity to home, as Tooley (2009) shows in his work in Lagos and families are restricted by distance, dangers and transport making free choice in the market problematic.

Another reason for market failures in education markets is credit failure. This means that not all consumers can access the funds needed to access private schooling for their children. This could be particularly important in low-income contexts where the choice to send a child to school can mean a loss of income for the family. Parents have no collateral to gain credit and are unable to borrow money against the latent future earnings of their child. This may restrict their ability to from gain access to schooling from private providers.

Externalities, information, and credit failures are imperfections in the market. Taken together they are all examples of deviations from what Barr (2020) describes as the model of the first best economy: an idealised model state under which the market can allocate resources efficiently. Imperfections in the market move us to the model of the second-best economy which justifies some form of government intervention in the form of: Regulation; Finance; Production; Income Transfers (taxation). The choice of which will depend on context.

Equity, or the distribution of resources, is another reason for government intervention (Oketch 2021b). Equity is the fairness with which resources are distributed between individuals or groups. Here the government redistributes resources, shifting resources from some groups to others. This is needed to achieve pareto-efficiency. In this sense, equity can be seen as a form of efficiency. For example, if education is paid for entirely through private markets without government intervention, then those whose parents earn the most will get the most by accident of birth. This would be inefficient as discussed above but also not equitable. Thus, efficiency in this case this would mean ensuring that the access to quality education is evenly distributed.

In low-income contexts, EFA in primary education has been shown to increases access in terms of enrolment but reduce quality as more children place increased strain on the capacity of teachers to teach. The outcome of this is that more children are educated but to a lower quality (Inoue & Oketch, 2008). Specifically, EFA has increased equity but reduced efficiency and quality in Malawi (Inoue & Oketch, 2008). This highlights the need to consider equity of procedure and distribution, as well as efficiency when it comes to government provision of primary education in South Sudan.

When considering the scarcity of finance, we may have a trade-off between equity and efficiency. Cunha and Heckman (2007) note how there is a trade-off for the timing of investment in education. In terms of primary education in low-income contexts, where there may be polylingual ethnically diverse groups, there may be a trade-off between the distribution of access to education for different groups and the efficiency of providing access to education to those groups. Private markets funded by government vouchers may help to alleviate this problem.

Section 4: South Sudan

So far, we have discussed the key economic principles and their application to low-income contexts. I now move on to apply these concepts to South Sudan. Totally landlocked, South Sudan is a sub-Saharan African state that borders Sudan to the North, Ethiopia to the East, Uganda, Kenya, and the Democratic Republic of Congo to the South and the Central African Republic to the West. It was announced as the world’s newest country in 2011 but the birth of South Sudan has been difficult. Within two years, the country was plunged into its own civil war, after tribal groups, once united against the central government of Sudan, fought each other for control of the new country. This internal war lasted from 2013 until 2020 and left 400,000 dead (Checchi et al 2018). South Sudan is composed of 10 states, 60 indigenous ethnic groups and 80 linguistic partitions (UN 2021) and this diversity and distrust amongst groups has been a key driver of conflict. In addition to this recent endemic ethnic conflict, the country poses some extremely challenging terrain and suffers from flooding and a lack of infrastructure, and which leaves almost 60% of the country inaccessible for much of the year. 82% of the 11 million population is defined as living in poverty and the gross national income (GNI) is around 1090 USD (World Bank 2021b). All these factors have contributed to South Sudan been classified as a fragile state. In 2020 South Sudan ranked 3^rd on the Fragile States Index with a composite score of 110 out of 120 across the indicators (Fragile States Index 2021).

South Sudan suffers from an unusually severe educational situation (Global Partnership for Education 2012) with an adult literacy rate of around 27% and enrolment rates of 73% for primary and 11% for Secondary (World Bank 2021b). Resources for schools are stretched with learning materials and trained teachers being in short supply. This unique mix of challenges: lack of trust between ethnic groups and conflict, poor infrastructure, lack of material and human resources, linguistic, cultural, and geographic diversity, and limited finances present severe problems for a national government in South Sudan in the top-down implementation of a public school system.

The role of the government in South Sudan to achieve EFA is currently limited by the reasons outlined above. In this scenario it may be helpful to consider the role that providers of private education may play in helping citizens of South Sudan achieve equitable access to quality education that is efficient in terms of the allocation of scarce financial resources. The ideal state is to have a fully funded government primary education system that caters for the needs of all communities. However, at present there is a significant challenge to developing this system. Below I offer some suggestions on ways to achieve this, starting with supported private schooling that can be slowly replaced by government schooling over time.

In terms of education markets in South Sudan, there are several major concerns which need to be considered. Firstly, linguistic diversity which provides a challenge of access to the curriculum and thus quality of learning. Secondly, recent conflict which has left many children out of school (UN 2021), and thirdly lack of shared citizenship means that many different ethnic groups do not identify with each other’s common values of what it means to be a South Sudanese citizen. Education can be a powerful force for developing a national identity (Bereketeab 2020) and an understanding amongst divergent groups of shared South Sudanese cultural values, while different cultural identities can be also be respected. It may well be that private education markets within communities provide an initial solution to this problem as they provide an alternative to state-controlled top-down government-imposed education for all, which may be distrusted by some groups. Private actors providing education within communities may be more trusted, especially if the providers are managed by individuals from the community as they may offer an alternative to any apparent government agenda. Mechanisms should be put in place to support the development of education markets in areas of linguistic and cultural diversity, but government support as capacity grows will be essential to ensure that all children are able to access these opportunities.

One mechanism could be a voucher scheme funded by the government or NGOs helping families access schools in their local area. This would need to be backed up by incentives for families to send their children to school. Some families may lose income with their children attending school or they may not trust the individuals providing the schooling following on from events in the recent conflict. Parents will need to feel secure in entrusting their children to other adults. Providing the education will not be enough to overcome these barriers until trust is built and the benefits of education can be widely felt.

Another mechanism could be micro finance loans used to help entrepreneurs start schools in their local communities where none currently exist. This added to incentives for parents to let their children attend school and vouchers to support the costs of schooling could be combined to kick start education projects specific to the needs of diverse communities. These mechanisms could be regulated by the loan providers to prevent monopolisation of the education market which would create further imperfections.

A second benefit here is that there is the potential for children to be educated in their mother tongue at least at primary level. Learning in one’s mother tongue is essential in the early years of education (Taylor-Leech 2013) because without this provision children struggle to access the curriculum and make learning gains. This can mean that children who cannot access the learning can quickly fall behind children who can, and these learning losses will only be compounded with time. Studies like Young Lives have shown that many children in low-income contexts have learning levels below the grade they are currently enrolled in. This learning gap will get larger with time (Oketch et al 2020).

Private markets could improve access both in terms of enrolment, if it allows communities to overcome distrust and encourage families to enrol in schools, and in terms of linguistic access to curriculum if teaching can be delivered in students mother tongue. This would also improve the quality of learning, as more children would be able to make learning gains by accessing the curriculum more easily. In larger communities consumer choice and competition should allow for the maintenance of quality as consumers should be able to go elsewhere. Finally, private schools do not have to be for profit, they can be run as socially motivated schools (Pal & Saha, 2019), this could bring the costs of attendance down further, although there may be less incentives to establish schools in the first place. Education is important for securing citizenship values, but the challenge remains of uniting diverse groups. Anderson’s (2016) study of nationalism suggests that one way to achieve this could be through centrally administered higher education institutions that allow individuals who have been schooled in their own communities to meet and together develop a shared understanding of what it means to be South Sudanese, like the model adopted in Eritrea (Bereketeab 2020).

Conclusion

This essay set out to answer the question: can the expansion of private schooling in South Sudan serve to improve access, efficiency, quality, and equity in basic education? It is argued that it can, at least initially. While the government is currently unable to provide access to education, private markets should be encouraged for the societal returns of education to be realised. These returns to creating a stable society based on common shared values need to be prioritised.

Properly supported through vouchers and loans, families can make choices in the marketplace which will award some level of quality to the education received. The challenge is to ensure efficiency and equity. As the government becomes financially solvent and stable it can begin the process of producing education and replace the private markets. Clearly, as described above, in South Sudan we have a scarcity not just of schools as resources for learning but also finance to fund education. It may be more efficient to simply finance as opposed to build schools and supply teachers who may not speak the same language as the communities they serve. There will be high costs of production in terms of the materials needed to build schools and train teachers needed in different languages which will reduce the rate of return. These principles of productive efficiency would suggest that encouraging grass roots education initiatives in communities would get maximum education output for inputs.

If productive efficiency can be improved and consumption of education is improved, then we also improve allocative efficiency. This system would be a pareto improvement because all individuals would have a better chance of accessing education. A government-imposed system with a single national language as the method of instruction may advantage some groups over others, this would not be a pareto improvement, quite the opposite.

To avoid market imperfections and market failures the government would need to ensure that all schools are accessible and help parents financially to place their children in school. This can be done through vouchers for families and encouraging entrepreneurship to set up community schools. These do not need to be run for profit. Private schooling can overcome both issues if embedded in communities and provided by members of those communities. Private schooling does not need to be exclusive if the government can find methods to finance for all.

References

Alcott, B (2021) ‘Lecture 2.2 Choice and Competition in Education Markets: Conceptual Underpinnings’ Ben Alcott SOCS0020 Economic Perspectives on Education Policy available at: https://moodle.ucl.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=15247&section=8#tabs-tree-start

Anderson, B. (2016) Imagined Communities. 2nd Edition. Verso. London

Andrabi, T., Das, J., Khwaja, A., I (2008) A Dime A Day: The Possibilities and Limits of Private Schooling in Pakistan Comparative Education Review 52(3) pp 329-355\

Barr, N.A. (2020) The Economics of the Welfare State. 6^th Edition. Oxford University Press. Oxford.

Becker, G (1964) Human Capital: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis, with Special Reference to Education. University of Chicago Press. Chicago.

Bereketeab, R. (2020) Education as an Instrument of Nation-Building in Postcolonial Africa. In Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism 20(1) pp71-90

Buchanan, J.M. & Tullock, G. (1962) The Calculus of Consent: Logical Foundations of Constitutional Democracy.

Chang, H-J (2011) 23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism. Penguin Books. London

Checchi, F. Testa, A. Warsame, A. Quach, L. & Burns, R. (2018) Estimates of crisis-attributable mortality in South Sudan, December 2013-April 2018 A statistical analysis. Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Available at: https://www.lshtm.ac.uk/south-sudan-full-report accessed on January 2nd 2021.

Cunha, F & Heckman, J. (2007) The Technology of Skill Formation. American Economic Review. 97 (2) pp 31-47

Day Ashley. L, Mcloughlin C, Aslam M, Engel J, Wales J, Rawal S, Batley R, Kingdon G, Nicolai S, Rose P (2014) The role and impact of private schools in developing countries: a rigorous review of the evidence. Final report. Education Rigorous Literature Review. Department for International Development.

Fragile States Index (2021) https://fragilestatesindex.org/ accessed on April 1^st 2021

Friedman, M (1962) Capitalism and Freedom. The University of Chicago Press.

Global Partnership for Education (2012) South Sudan Programme Document: Delivering Quality Basic Education in Challenging Circumstances. Available at: https://www.globalpartnership.org/content/program-document-south-sudan accessed on January 2nd 2021

Härmä, J. (2020) Low Fee Private Schooling and Poverty in Developing Countries Bloomsbury Academic. London

Hattie, J. (2008) Visible Learning. Routledge.

Inoue, K & Oketch, M (2008) Implementing Free Primary Education Policy in Malawi and Ghana: Equity and Efficiency Analysis. Peabody Journal of Education. 83 pp 41-70

Lockheed, M. & Hanushek, M. E. (1994) Concepts of Education Efficiency and Effectiveness. Human Resources Development and Operations Policy. Working Papers. World Bank

Mehrotra, S. & Panchamukhi, P.R. (2006) Private provision of elementary education in India: Findings of a Survey of 8 states. Compare 36:4 pp421-442

OECD (2007) Principles for Good International Engagement in Fragile States & Situations: Principles – April 2007; Paris, OECD

Oketch, M (2021a) ‘Lecture 4.2: Seminar: Efficiency, Equity and Government Intervention’ Moses Oketch SOCS0020 Economic Perspectives on Education Policy available at: https://moodle.ucl.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=15247&section=10#tabs-tree-start

Oketch, M (2021b) ‘Lecture 4.3: Seminar: Efficiency, Equity and Government Intervention’ Moses Oketch SOCS0020 Economic Perspectives on Education Policy available at: https://moodle.ucl.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=15247&section=10#tabs-tree-start

Oketch, M, Rolleston, C. & Rossiter, J (2020) Teacher Value-Added Using Young Lives Ethiopia School Survey Data available at: https://riseprogramme.org/sites/default/files/publications/RISE%20Insight%20ETH%20TVA.pdf

Pal, S. & Saha, B (2019) Enhancing Excellence: Socially Motivated Private Schools of Nepal. The Journal of Development Studies. 55 (5) pp 765-785

Patrinos (2016) Estimating the return to schooling using the Miner Equation in IZA World of Labor DOI: 10.15185/izawol.278

Pinnock, H. (2013) The Potential of Low-Cost Community Private Schools to Boost Children’s Education in Lagos London: Save the Children Fund.

Sen, A. (1999) Development as Freedom Oxford University Press

Shultz, T.  (1961) Investment in Human Capital The American Economic Review 11(1)

Smith, A (1776) The Wealth of Nations

Taylor-Leech (2013) Finding space for non-dominant languages in education: language policy and medium of instruction in Timor-Leste 2000–2012, Current Issues in Language Planning, 14:1, 109-126, DOI: 10.1080/14664208.2013.766786

Tooley, J. (2007) Could for‐profit private education benefit the poor? Some a priori considerations arising from case study research in India, Journal of Education Policy, 22:3, pp321-342, DOI: 10.1080/02680930701278625

Tooley, J. (2009) The beautiful tree: a personal journey into how the world’s poorest are educating themselves. Cato Institute. Washington

Tooley, J. & Dixon, P. (2006) ‘De facto’ privatisation of education and the poor: implications of a study from sub‐Saharan Africa and India, Compare, 36:4, pp443-462, DOI: 10.1080/03057920601024891                                             

Tooley, J, Dixon, P, Shamsan, Y. & Schagen, I. (2010) The relative quality and cost-effectiveness of private and public schools for low-income families: a case study in a developing country, School Effectiveness and School Improvement, 21:2, pp117-144, DOI: 10.1080/09243450903255482

Tooley, J. Bao, Y. Dixon, P. & Merrifield, J. (2011) School Choice and Academic Performance: Some Evidence From Developing Countries, Journal of School Choice, 5:1, pp1-39, DOI: 10.1080/15582159.2011.548234

UN (2021) https://population.un.org/wpp/ accessed on January 23^rd 2021.

UNICEF (2019) Education Budget Brief South Sudan 2019. Available at https://www.unicef.org/southsudan/media/2186/file/UNICEF-South-Sudan-2019-Education-Budget-Brief.pdf

UNESCO (2021) http://gem-report-2016.unesco.org/en/chapter/target-4-8-finance/ accessed on May 6^th 2021

Verger, A, Fontdevila, C & Zancajo, A (2018) Constructing Low-Fee Private Schools as an Educational Model for the Global South: From Local Origins to Transnational Dynamics In Global Education Policy and International Development: New Agenda, Issues and Policies 2nd Edition Bloomsbury

World Bank (2021a) https://www.worldbank.org/en/publication/human-capital accessed on April 1st 2021.

World Bank (2021b) https://data.worldbank.org/country/south-sudan?view=chart accessed on January 23^rd 2021.