Private Benefits, Costs and the Pecking Order among Schools

Abstract

How does the private sector behave when it is a large provider of education? And how does it affect the nature of the public sector? Are private schools in the vanguard of pedagogical innovation, or are they carbon copies of the public schools? Does the diversion of students to the private sector reduce society’s willingness to spend on public education? Do private schools become the élite schools, providing selective superior education to the children of the rich, while the poor are left to receive low-quality, low-cost education in the public schools? Does this system therefore lead to a segmentation of society, by economic class, racial or social background, and does it reduce socioeconomic mobility by correlating educational opportunity with family’s initial endowments? These questions are at the core of American and British concern over privatisation of education, and over public policies (such as tuition tax credits or voucher plans) that might lead to a larger private sector. What light can the Japanese experience with a large private sector throw on the answers?