James Tooley recently wrote in these pages of the success of private schools in Africa and India, which in the past few years have exploded in number, offering an education for as little as £3 a term – which even the poor of Somalia can afford. In contrast, he recounted how pupils of government schools in Ghana are left waiting on the doorstep while their teachers play truant, and how pupils of government schools in Hyderabad are forbidden to learn English and are forced instead to do the domestic chores of the teachers.
Having made a convincing case for private education, Mr Tooley ended his piece with the question, ‘What on earth is government doing in education at all?’ The answer is perfectly straightforward: governments persist in running schools because they are obliged to under the United Nations Charter on Human Rights.
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