Public education in almost all developing countries is under-funded, and therefore of poor quality. One result is that developing countries fall further and further behind developed countries in human capital. Their poorly educated graduates just cannot compete with those from developed countries.
Private schools spring up in developing countries in order to meet the demand for higher quality graduates. Of course, poor families cannot afford to send their children to private schools, so this situation exacerbates inequalities in the social fabric. Education is only for those who can afford it, and they will benefit with better skills, jobs, etc.
In fact, there are inequalities even within the private system, as the very elite can send their children to the most elite schools, while the middle class must be content with more middle class private schools.
Worse, every student who attends private school is one fewer for the public education system to cope with. Governments welcome private education, as it relieves them of much of the burden of providing quality education for all. If you are a parent sending your children to private schools, you won’t be pressing government for better public schools.
Even worse yet, the government ministers and all their friends and relations send their children to expensive private schools. For them, there is no problem with the educational system. The poor schools, especially those out in the countryside, are out-of-sight, out-of-mind. The public education system becomes forgotten, as government shirks its responsibility.
Since there is a hierarchy of private schools, the richer schools become symbols of conspicuous consumption for the rich — status symbols. The elite send their children to elite schools not for their educational value, but for their snob value. The richer schools become country clubs, where status symbols become more important than learning.
The owners of these private schools understand this. They are in the game for the money, not especially for the education. Education is sacrificed to profits. The owners also realize that these parents are easy to fool. The owners preach ‘quality!, quality!, quality!’, when in reality, quality is sacrificed to false images, glitzy buildings, swimming pools, and the like. Only a few dedicated teachers are interested in education, and they are often frustrated when they must forego science equipment in favor of a gaudy new Mercedes school bus.
In another post, I mentioned how these rich schools pretend to be ‘international schools’, when in reality there is nothing ‘international’ about them.
Cambodia has actually made great strides in public education. Twenty years ago, the grade 12 examination system was so rotten that it became the butt of a lot of jokes. Today, the grade 12 exams are more or less legitimate, as students must actually learn things in order to pass. Thus, public education is at least an option for students, whereas in the past it really wasn’t. This competition may be forcing the private schools to become more extreme when it comes to the country club mentality.
At one of the prestige private high schools in our city, the pass rate on the state grade 12 exam was actually below the national average of public schools. Why would a parent send a child to that school, when they would learn more at a public school? However, the attendance at the private school is still booming. It would seem that there are priorities other than learning at issue there.
One problem with Cambodian society is its patronage system, as opposed to meritocracy. The old adage, “It’s not what you know, it’s whom you know,” applies on steroids in Cambodia, to the extent that learning in many schools and universities has become almost irrelevant, if not non-existent. A few years ago I was asked to help interview our university finance major graduates working in banks. I went to all the major banks, and couldn’t find a single one of our finance graduates. They were working in their daddies’ businesses in other fields, not finance. From what I have observed, their knowledge of finance and banking was nearly nil, despite four years of university. Can you imagine an accounting graduate who doesn’t understand compound interest?
This has all been pretty negative, but I have hope for Cambodia and for similar countries. As Cambodia is drawn more and more into the arena of international business, there will be an increasing need for employees who can actually do something. Thus, I see a trend — slow, I admit — away from the current know-nothing patronage towards some kind of meritocracy. This will require schools and universities actually to teach the students something. There are a few schools in Phnom Penh who are realizing this and are requiring their graduates to learn useful skills.
Still, the requirement for useful skills will further exacerbate the rich-poor divide, as the elite will have the educational qualifications for jobs, while the poor will not. That is the dilemma for developing countries around the world.