EKIP– Expert Club for Economics and Politics A Different Opinion
Let's imagine a small, but tall and boisterous child. Let's call him Peter. The child suffers from what psychologists call "accumulated behavioral deficits". Simply put - he is aggressive and boisterous. He often comes into conflict with his classmates. He bullies them mentally and physically. In general, he interferes with the education of his entire class. Peter's parents are not from a wealthy family - they have financial difficulties and definitely cannot afford expensive specialized private education or homeschooling.
How the current system harms children with special needs
At the moment, Petar cannot be expelled from the school system – he can be expelled from one school and transferred to disrupt the learning process in another. Fortunately, a rule has been introduced that he cannot repeat between the 1st and 4th grades – this is good, because in small classes the age difference is significant and if he repeats a grade, he will have to appear even bigger and even stronger compared to his new classmates. However, many people in Bulgaria insist on introducing repetition in small classes. The pressure in the guild is strong (many teachers want to be able to solve their own current problem by “getting rid” of students who are inconvenient for them) and I would not be surprised if the rule about not repeating is changed soon. But even if the current situation remains, we clearly have a problem. There are many similar examples like Petar described above.
What is the solution for Peter under the current system? There is none. The school will offer him a psychologist, possibly a resource teacher, but if this does not help him in any way and does not lead to progress, everyone will come to terms with it. The teachers will usually bully him in the hope that he will give up and stop attending school. Or they will not bully him, but will turn a blind eye to the aggression at school… and that's it. The system is helpless to help Peter, but nevertheless it insists on trying to help him at all costs. His parents are also helpless, because they have neither the finances nor the competence to deal with the problem.
The system is in dire need of decentralization
What is the outcome for Peter's classmates? They can complain, protest, and get rid of Peter. First, he will be transferred to a neighboring class. Then he will be thrown out by his neighboring class and transferred to another school. Then the same things may happen again. In the end, Peter will be spun like a top in the hope that somehow a place will be found for him. If he does not find a place, his classmates will have to endure him until the whole saga ends – be it with Peter's premature withdrawal from the education system or with the completion of some education for him. All the time, the current system tolerates such children in the hope that their aggression will pass by itself. I said that it is incapable of helping them, and this is obvious – it applies planned and centralized general recipes that always aim for a leveled environment, respectively, are always inadequate in the end, i.e. the exceptions.
And since we talked about the ends, let's imagine Ivan. He is also a problem child, but in the opposite direction – quiet, shy, worrying. To put it very crudely and not politically correct – he is a clumsy child. He may even be a smart child, but he is extremely strange and does not fit in with the crowd in any way. When I say “problematic”, he is not problematic for the teachers – on the contrary. He is problematic from the point of view of his own socialization in the class he has ended up in. Children at an early age are cruel – outside of class they may make fun of him and even bully him. He has a hard time finding friends at all. Yes, he does not bother anyone, but he himself suffers.
Such children are in dire need of an alternative form of education, far from the classroom, which unfortunately his parents cannot afford financially. So you can guess that the case is the same as Peter's, but just on the other side of the coin. This little boy is forced by circumstances to endure bullying from his classmates if he wants to get an education. The effect of his problems is not visible outside his inner psyche - that is precisely why society rarely thinks about the needs of these children. Would you say that these cases are very few? Yes, indeed, the cases of such children are rather the exception. But should we dismiss them lightly and say that they should not be paid attention to?
More efficient allocation of money for education is needed
What possible alternative to the current situation could be devised for both Peter and Ivan? Imagine that a real “money follows the student” system was introduced. Imagine that school education was not compulsory, and each student received his own voucher, which could be spent on an educational service of his own choice. Perhaps then the parents of Peter and Ivan would have a significantly better opportunity to invest their vouchers not in the neighborhood school (as is mandatory according to the zoning in the current model), but in a specialized private one, or why not in an individual program with private lessons at home, or in paid specialized courses? And why not even a mixed one – part of the voucher in one place, another part in another?
Is a voucher system based on the principle of "money follows the student everywhere"will it solve all the problems? No, it won't. There will continue to be children like Petarcho and Ivancho in schools. But if this helps save the childhood of even one Ivan, why not? And if it helps even one Petar to receive more adequate help for himself and at the same time provide an opportunity for a better learning environment in the municipal school for his classmates, why not?
Note that we are not talking about more money here. We are talking about a more efficient distribution of current state funds for education. Such a distribution that takes care not of the financial provision of certain schools, but of the adequate education of children! All children! The idea is actually much simpler than it seems. This is not some antagonistic fight against state education. This is simply an acceptance of the inevitable fact that central planning is incapable of covering special cases – genius children, marginalized groups, children with SEN. The market economy, on the other hand, is very flexible and can adapt.
The voucher system is simply a way to separate special cases from the general mass so that they can be served more adequately. State education does not disappear - it simply slightly narrows its scope. I do not dispute the effectiveness of the classroom system. Yes, it is the most economically effective of all the other options known to us so far, as far as the population of a country as a whole is concerned. But this does not mean in any way that all children should be forced into it. On the contrary. If there are children who have the financial means and can study under more individualized conditions, they should be supported to make this choice, because this is the best choice for them personally!
Voucher system would help educate minorities
However, this is not all and the benefits do not end there. When talking about non-compulsory school, people immediately think of Roma from the ghettos and other marginalized communities – naturally the question arises “what happens to them – won’t they stop going to school altogether?”. As strange as it may sound at first glance – no, on the contrary.
Let's imagine Assen - a Roma boy from an extremely poor family, in which education is not considered a value at all. In the current system, attending school is an obligation for him, from which his parents see no benefit. They force him to go there by force - with threats of stopping child benefits and other benefits. And when their child falls into the marginalized environment of other students of the same profile as him, he really does not benefit from going to school - he simply wastes his time there doing stupid things. And by doing stupid things, such children ruin the learning process of the rest - those who actually went there with a desire to learn something.
Let's see what happens with the voucher system with Assen. His family receives the voucher in question. They can spend it, or they can not spend it - they have no obligation. Well, a normal thought for any person, no matter how uneducated, is that if you own something, it is better to use it than to throw it in the trash. There is an option to try to send him to school. He may fit in there, he may not fit in. If he does not fit in, the school will do everything possible to keep him, but if nothing happens, they will definitely prefer to "get rid of him" because he brings more white than financial benefits.
However, Assen's voucher has not yet been spent! It is sitting there and the money in it has not been used. Here again comes the moment of the market economy – private individuals will inevitably appear who will try to find a way to use this money. It is a matter of time before private organizations appear that will actually start working with problem families from the Roma communities. This way, Assen will still have a chance to get some education. A chance that he currently does not have – by ending up in a school working according to state educational standards, he is taught subjects in a language that he does not even speak (this is Bulgarian).
