Regulating private school tuition

With the school year less than a week away, the Ministry of Education has disclosed that no less than 30,000 students have been transferred from the private school system to the public one. This is going to add to already heavy financial and administrative burdens assumed by the public school system in the country and increase the cost of public education.

Why so many students have been shifted from the privileged private schools to the public ones is obvious. Economic conditions in the country have deteriorated, and most parents can no longer afford spending thousands and thousands of dinars annually to educate their children.

A second reason could be because private schools’ fees are steadily on the increase, making it virtually impossible for many middle-class parents to keep their children in private schools.

Given the undeniable gap in the quality of education between the private and public schools, and the heavy drain on the national budget if this trend continues, efforts must be made to contain this phenomenon, and even reverse it if at all possible.

Granted that the quality of education in public schools is generally good, with their graduates scoring the highest grades in Tawjihi (General Secondary Education Certificate Examination); still the private school system offers more to students than public schools do for obvious reasons.

There is no denying that the quality of teachers in private schools is superior to what can be found in public schools, due, in part, to the much higher salaries that teachers earn. Private schools’ infrastructure and facilities are generally superior to what can be found in public schools.

However, affordable private school education must be promoted. The tuition that most private schools charge parents keep many middle-class families away. This adds financial and administrative burdens on public schools and the Education Ministry.

The answer could be found in regulating tuition fees in private schools and making them affordable to middle-class parents.

True, some private schools would continue to be domains exclusive to only the richest of the rich, but many middle-income parents would still be able to send their children to private schools that are affordable. As is, there are no affordable schools for most middle-class parents.

Whatever the remedy is, the country cannot afford to have most of its students attending public schools at a time when the national debt is on the increase. Low-cost private schools can certainly fill the gap and must become a state policy.