The Advantages and Disadvantages of a Privatised Education System

The have been a lot of moves in Canada, the USA, and the UK within recent governments to privatise education systems, and while many teachers have been known to be very negative towards these changes, the pros and cons of such a move are far from being clear cut. Often times these changes are generally a mixed bag, which often seems to lead to improvements in average results, higher levels of teacher accountability, more community involvement and greater school choice for parents. Clearly, all of this is very attractive to parents but on the flip side, they will also have to contend with higher levels of corruption, a greater spread of investment into education; usually meaning better results for the wealthy and worse for the poor and unengaged.

Often times these changes are generally a mixed bag, which often seems to lead to improvements in average results, higher levels of teacher accountability, more community involvement and greater school choice for parents.

Clearly, all of this is very attractive to parents but on the flip side, they will also have to contend with higher levels of corruption, a greater spread of investment into education; usually meaning better results for the wealthy and worse for the poor and unengaged.

Many of these moves to privatised education is a result of decades of neglect of some schools, mainly in deprived inner city areas. Because, in most cases, students are assigned a school based upon their geographical area, and these schools are largely unresponsive to parents’ demands and the needs of their students, a quick workaround is to increase freedom of choice so that parents can choose to send their kids to another school.