The gurus of international development seem convinced that improving public education is the answer to the problems of  illiteracy and failing schools in the developing world. What most education officials, researchers, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) tend to ignore or downplay is that the poor have abandoned public schools in favor of low-cost private schools. The Beautiful Tree is an account of the poor who are tired of waiting for government aid and for NGOs to find creative, affordable alternatives to educate their children.

Among development experts, NGOs, governments, and celebrities, there appears to be a low opinion of the poor and their capacity to educate themselves, that they are helpless, and their situation will not improve until wealthy Western nations start giving more in aid and relief to the developing world. Until then, the poor have to wait patiently. But must they?

If you go to Hyderabad, India, you will see private schools not only in the wealthier areas of the city, but also in the shabbiest parts of the Old City. Hanging above shops and homes throughout the slums of the Old City are cheap, hand-written signs for schools. The names reference history and literature, like Little Nightingale’s High School or The Royal Grammar School. In one section of the slum, there are numerous signs for St. Mary’s and St. Peter’s. This is odd to see in predominantly Muslim parts of the slum, but some clever entrepreneurs are capitalizing on the excellent reputation that Catholic and Anglican schools enjoy in India.

A man in his late-twenties named Wajid runs a school at the edge of the slum called the Peace High School.  Wajid’s mother began the school in 1973 in the hope that she might create “a peaceful oasis in the slums,” and Wajid has continued her work.  It’s called a high school, but students from kindergarten to 10th grade attend. Almost 300 students attend. The school charges the equivalent of about two dollars per child per month. This is an affordable rate for parents who earn a dollar or two a day doing construction work, pulling rickshaws, or repairing bicycles. Even in the slums, parents put a premium on good education, and will scrape together what little disposable income they can to send their children to the best schools possible.

These are the common elements found in many low-cost private schools: engaged teachers who are teaching because it’s their passion, strong relationships between teachers and parents, payments that are affordable for the poor, and schools without sufficient staff or resources, but bursting with kids eager to learn.

This is not only a growing trend in India, but across the world. There are similar initiatives gaining support among the poor in Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, China, and other parts of the developing world.

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This discovery of the poor educating themselves in Hyderabad’s Old City met with shrugs from government officials and development experts affiliated with Delhi’s branch of the World Bank. They were skeptical and chalked it up to a handful of small-scale operations that receive NGO funding or corrupt businessmen preying on the unwitting poor. Neither of these explanations made sense of the dedication that the teacher-entrepreneurs like Wajid demonstrate, or the extremely modest salaries that teachers draw, or the fact that none of the schools said anything about NGOs assisting in subsidizing costs.

The development literature available raised more questions than answers about the phenomenon of private schools in slums. Nobel Prize winner Amartya Sen and others would make vague, passing references to private schools among the poor, but these were not central features of their investigations or conclusions. Authors would implicitly or explicitly dismiss these developments among the poor as insignificant. Another area in which writers spoke with one voice was the failings of public schools. Still, improving public schools is viewed as the best way to help the poor. Sen advocated for universal primary education as a feasible goal. Whatever public education might lack, private schooling was not the answer, according to leading development experts. Private schools were for the tiny sliver of elites.

What was odd was that between these common theses were statistics that painted a different picture. In the early 1990s, 30 percent of rural Indian school-going kids were enrolled in private schools. This figure has grown since then, particularly in areas where public schools are failing. Rural India is essentially poor India. 30 percent of rural India is a far larger proportion than the elite. In urban areas, the figures were even more arresting: 80 percent of students were enrolled in private schools instead of public ones. There is most certainly not an 80 percent elite. What this means is that, far from bastions of elitism, there’s a substantial proportion of poor students who are enrolled in private schools.

It is curious that the poor’s growing preference for private schools merit little more than a passing comment. If the goal of development experts truly is “education for all,” then perhaps they would be wiser to acknowledge the groundswell of private schools that are popping up in slums and shantytowns, and come alongside such efforts instead of ignoring or downplaying their existence.

A BBC film crew recently accompanied the author to Nigeria to film private schools among the poor in Mainland, Lagos. One of the interviewees was the chief educational administrator for the district that includes a shantytown called Makako.

When asked why there was a growing number of poor parents sending their children to low-cost private schools instead of public schools, her self-assured answer was that parents did not know that public education is free, that private schools were closer to their homes, and, most importantly, sending their kids to private schools was a status symbol, suggestive of wealth and concern for their children’s well-being. The parents in these hovels were, according to the education official, “ignoramuses.”

She went on to criticize the slum schools for their wretched conditions, and insisted that the students who  attend emerge with the illusion that they’ve been educated, but, at the end of the day, are ruined for gainful employment or taking up their family’s trade.

When the BBC interviewed the poor “ignoramuses,” they vehemently rejected her assessment. One fisherman firmly stated that he sends his kids to the private school because they receive a better education there than at the public school. The teachers teach from the heart and care that the students actually grasp the ideas. The public school teachers do not know how to teach—or simply do not care enough to teach at all.

The BBC crew saw this lack of care first hand when it made spontaneous visits to a few local public schools in Lagos. They entered one classroom and saw a student attempting to instruct the class from a tattered textbook while the teacher was asleep at his desk. Even the children’s joyful enthusiasm at the sight of the film crew was not enough to rouse the teacher from his slumber. Students tried to shake him awake, but he could not be moved.

The chief educational administrator for Lagos decried teachers at the low-cost private schools in the shantytowns as untrained and undisciplined. She maintained that they were also undedicated because pay is not regular and job security is not good. By contrast, she argued, public school teachers are disciplined and care about the students. There are very few firings for misconduct. This assessment, however, doesn’t line up with reality: the teacher sleeping in his classroom was not an atypical story. And far from feeling disincentivized by low pay, private school teachers chose to be there because of their care for the students.

The development research is unanimous concerning public education’s track record in the developing world. Teacher absenteeism, for example, is a persistent problem. In a study of northern India, only half of the teachers observed during  random visits were actually in the classroom doing their jobs. The others were sleeping, drinking, or had not even bothered to show up. Oftentimes, these delinquent teachers are not held responsible for failing to do their jobs. An article was recently published about Calcutta teachers’ unions and how attempts to hold teachers accountable were snuffed out by teachers’ unions that were too powerful to be concerned about any backlash. Officials with intentions of reporting a school or teacher  were targeted and dragged through the mud by unions.

Another problem is the attitude of superiority that some teachers display. It’s not uncommon for government teachers to dislike teaching the poor, particularly teachers who live in wealthier areas of cities. This social distance leaves many poor parents feeling snubbed, that their children are of little concern to the teachers who are supposed to be engaged in the task of educating them. Government school teachers and principals often mistake students dropping out as students turning their hand to a trade. This is certainly the case some of the time, but the parents of many of these students vehemently insist that they have removed them from government schools because the teachers treat students and parents like trash.

Government schools in or near shantytowns also tend to be in horrible shape. One school in Bihar, India, was reported to be perpetually soggy, making it a beacon for disease-carrying mosquitoes. No drinking water was available nor washroom facilities, so the playground was full of the urine and feces of students and even neighbors adjacent to the school.

Another perennial problem is low standards in public schools. With teachers who fail to teach and abysmal conditions, this is hardly a surprise. In Tanzania, studies found that some students had learned next to nothing in the seven years they had attended school. A recent report on sub-Saharan Africa mentioned that more than half of the students leave elementary school illiterate.

All these problems are for the fortunate children who are enrolled in school. But almost one in every five elementary-aged students in developing nations doesn’t attend school at all.

So with all these failures, why do development experts unanimously uphold improving public schools as the solution? Why would they not assist the grassroots initiatives that are already gaining momentum in the world’s shantytowns? It is time for us to remember Gandhi’s reflections on education in India. He saw India’s small private education establishments as a beautiful tree that was needlessly uprooted because they weren’t “good enough.” All the fancy methods, resources, and curricula that the British brought did more harm than good because a poor country like India was unable to afford or sustain the superimposed structures. Gandhi advocated a return to the village schoolmasters who would dot the country’s landscape. His recommendation flies in the face of today’s conventional wisdom that better buildings, more resources, and elaborate programs will solve these educational issues. But we would be wise to take a second look at his prescription. Whether they realize it or not, the poor have done just that. These low-cost private schools are a return to days of the village schoolmasters. Their efforts must be brought to light, celebrated, and supported instead of buried beneath prepackaged remedies that fail to help the poor. If we do so, then perhaps we will begin to see the restoration of that beautiful tree.

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