School Coupons.

(From Business Today (India))

Government funding of education is always controversial. Almost nobody argues that it should not be done at all; since the time of the Greeks, public education for everybody's long-term benefit has been considered a worthy project. Tempers flare when it comes to the 'how' part of it. One troubling issue is how to 'target' the public funds in a manner that would yield optimal results.

Just spending money on education is not good enough. In fact, state-run schools in many parts of the world are so derelict that the policy has become a zone of high cynicism. 'Why don't we simplify everything and open guns and drugs exchanges instead?' a TV comedian in America once asked.

For long, some people argued that the government cannot be expected to run anything, especially for the poor, with the efficiency of the private sector. Since state-run schools are not directly accountable to the people (least of all, to the poor), they have little incentive to perform. So the only thing to do is make sure nobody you care about has to go to one of these schools.

But then, somebody wondered why public schooling cannot make ...