Educational Vouchers

THE CRITICAL IMPORTANCE of education in the life of an individual, family, and nation is widely understood. Education, at least school education, is commonly considered the basic social infrastructure. In order to guarantee education to all, governments around the world run or finance schools. However, the quality of government education in poor communities and nations is generally found to be low. This means that the poor who cannot afford private schools and can only attend government schools get a lower-quality education, which limits their chances of having a better future. How do we then assure better quality education to the poor?

The idea of education vouchers is conceived as a means to empower poor students so that they can attend a school of their choice. The poor would have the same choice as the rich and schools would compete for all students. The same student who goes to a government school today can take the voucher from the government and go to any school of his or her choice. That choice in turn creates competition among schools to attract and retain students. Choice and competition work together to provide universal access to and higher quality of education to all.

Basically the idea behind education vouchers is that the money that governments spend on government schools is converted into education vouchers and given directly to poor students. Instead of funding schools, governments fund students. The education voucher is a coupon offered by the government that covers the full or partial cost of education at the school of the stu-dent's choice. The schools collect vouchers from [Page 298]students and present them to government for the amount of money specified on the voucher. The education voucher combines core competencies of the private and public sectors: efficiency and accountability of the private sector and equity and independent supervision of the public sector.

In the present system in the United States, the schools are accountable to the state governments and communities. The voucher system makes schools accountable directly to students since they pay for the education through vouchers. If the student does not like the school, he or she can take the voucher to another school. Under the voucher system, money follows the student rather than the school, as in the present system.