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How To » Education » K-12 » Home & Private Schooling » How To Compare Private and Public Schools
How To Compare Private and Public Schools
By Heather Scoville
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Improve Your Computer Skills, Sign Up Now For Free Online Courses free-online-training-courses.com It may seem like comparing public to private schools is like comparing apples and oranges, but they are actually more similar than you might think. Choosing the right school for you and your child is an important decision. How can you weigh the advantages of private school against those of public school? There are several things to take into consideration when choosing between public and private schools. 1. Size-Private schools are generally smaller and have more favorable student-to-teacher ratios, but this is not always the case in some rural areas. Smaller is not necessarily better, either. Size of the student population may limit resources such as variety of classes or extracurricular activities offered. 2. Quality of instruction-It may seem counterintuitive, but most private schools do not pay their teachers as well as public schools. While salaries are generally competitive, private schools attract teachers by offering smaller classes and "better behaved" students. Since private schools do not always pay as well, quality teachers may be hard to retain and turn over rates could be high. Again, this is not always the case, but it would be wrong to assume private schools offer a higher quality of teachers.

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3. Cost-The obvious difference between public and private schools is the cost. By law, every child is entitled to a free and equal public education. Public schools are required to live up to standards set by the government. The cost of private education varies from school to school, but usually results in the ability to afford more up to date resources. Oftentimes there are scholarships available on a needed basis. 4. The future-What are your future education goals for your child? Most private schools are geared toward college bound students with a rigorous curriculum. Students who do not plan on post-secondary education may struggle in this type of environment. Public schools sometimes have two different tracks to satisfy all students regardless of their plans after graduation.
Deciding on what type of education your child needs is a decision you should not take lightly. Examine all possibilities before deciding what is best for your family. There is no one right answer for everyone. Quick Tips: * Be sure to include your child in this decision. It is his or her future you are deciding. * Visit with the administration at both the public and private school you are considering. They will be happy to get you the information you need to make an informed decision.
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<<previous | index | next>>IV. The Indirect Impact of Insecurity on EducationWhen a family wants to send their daughters to school but they see the school is not close or it’s not a good building or there are not qualified teachers, many parents don’t send their children to school because they see some danger, some problem. It’s circular. . . . Three components are very important: 1. security, 2. teachers, 3. buildings. All are impacted by security.
—Mohammeed Azim Karbalai, Director of Planning Department, Ministry of Education, Kabul, December 15, 2005.Regardless of the motivation for attacks on teachers, students, and schools in Afghanistan, their effect is devastating and far-reaching: parents are afraid to send their children to school, teachers are afraid to teach, and schools are shut down. Education providers—the Afghan government and NGOs—are forced to withdraw from insecure areas or are unable to expand to areas that desperately need them. In every respect, girls, who have much more limited access to education to begin with and who are typically the first to be pulled out of school because of insecurity, are disproportionately affected.This climate of insecurity has seriously retarded, and in places even stopped, the crucial task of educating Afghan children. The problem is particularly acute outside of larger urban areas and off major roads, although early 2006 saw new attacks on previously secure schools in urban areas. In southern and southeastern Afghanistan, where a new rash of suicide bombings and targeting of teachers and schools has directly put schools in the line of fire, insecurity has cast an even more serious pall. Yet it is impossible to gauge the exact impact of insecurity on education because no one––including the government and the United Nations––has a comprehensive view of the number of schools and other educational settings operating in the south and southeast at any given moment (the failure to monitor attacks on education is discussed in the section on government and international responsibility below).Even when schools continue operating, students may not attend after a threat or an attack. Each incident affects the risk assessment that parents and students undertake nearly every day. Single episodes, even from far away districts, accumulate to establish a pattern: in a country as traumatized by violence as Afghanistan, teachers, parents, and students are keenly attuned to fluctuations in this pattern and decide to continue—or stop—their education based on how they view the general climate of insecurity and how it will manifest itself in their immediate environment.290 Parents have an even lower threshold for insecurity when it comes to the school attendance of their daughters, as noted above. One senior Western education expert explained: “The closure of a school is bound to have a ripple effect so that many other schools close around [one affected school] for no particular reason except that the school was burned. When it reopens, fewer girls come back, more boys.”291 This “ripple effect” magnifies the gravity of each attack and raises fears elsewhere. For example, after the office of the Afghan NGO Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance (CHA) in Panjwai was attacked in April 2004 and two staff members were killed, residents of a neighboring district subsequently decided not to go forward with an accelerated learning program aimed at women and girls.292A staff member of a major international NGO with extensive experience in education provided a similar assessment, describing how threats against schools can create a climate of fear:[The problem with nightletters] happened in Pol-e Khumri [near Kabul] last spring. And so many times in the southeastern provinces: Logar, Wardak, Ghazni. People cannot make decisions very easily. For a month or two months you cannot see any children in school because they may fear very bad news from people who distributed night letters or attack or bomb the school. For weeks you cannot expect to have children back in schools.293Without an effective government or credible media that can track and speak definitively about the security environment, Afghan parents and students are forced to assess their risk based on rumors and incomplete information. “There is a sense of insecurity and fear; maybe it happened to someone’s daughter, it creates a sense of concern. Because of limited reporting, a very limited number of attacks are getting reported, but people fear the worst,” said Horia Mossadeq, of Human Rights Research and Advocacy Consortium, which has investigated the state of Afghanistan’s educational system for several years.294 For example, the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, which investigated rumors in Mazar-e Sharif about the kidnapping of students in 2004 and 2005 that decreased student attendance, found only one incident in that city.295 Local investigators with the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission believed that local individuals opposed to education magnified the incident in order to discourage school attendance.296In another example, the mother of five girls attending school in Kandahar explained how she assesses the incomplete information about security circulating around her community. She keeps her daughters at home, she said, “at times when the security gets particularly bad. When people talk about it. There is no official announcement but the community talks about the situation getting worse so we stop them from going.”297Insecurity not only impedes education when it keeps children and teachers home, shuts down schools, and prevents the government and NGOs from opening new schools; it also exacerbates other factors that keep children from enrolling in or staying in school in Afghanistan. These include: * insufficient development aid and services; * schools that are too far away or simply unavailable, especially girls’ schools in rural areas and girls’ secondary schools; * school facilities that are physically inadequate or culturally inappropriate; * a shortage of qualified teachers, especially female teachers; * the poor quality of education offered; * poverty that requires children to work for income or in the home, or that places school supplies and transport out of reach; * negative attitudes about girls’ education or girls being seen outside the home; and, * early marriage of girls.298Because decisions about whether to send children to school are complex, it is often impossible to point to a single reason children are kept out.299 The statements of a school official from Maywand district, Kandahar, illustrate this complexity: around three to four years before, he told us, girls in his district went to school for one year. But they stopped, he said, “because of the threat from the outside and because of the cultural norms of society—people teased those who sent their girls, and there were no separate schools or female teachers available.”300What is clear, however, is that insecurity heightens the effect of existing barriers to education on girls and women, making it especially troublesome that there are far fewer girls’ schools than boys’ schools. “Anything in security terms is more serious for women,” said a staff member of an NGO providing home-based education. “Distance, permission to leave home, quality.”301 Insufficient Development Aid and ServicesEven before the recent upswing in suicide bombings and attacks on education, the aid community in Afghanistan faced increasingly widespread and lethal violence in 2004 and 2005. Although worse in the south and east, attacks also spread to the north and west, where more NGOs operate.302 NGO staff are literally paying with their lives.Everyone we spoke with who was involved with development in Afghanistan told us that insecurity—including ideological targeting of NGOs and general criminality—had hurt their work. These included staff of more than fifteen international and national NGOs, as well as the World Bank, USAID, a USAID contractor, U.N. staff, and government officials.At minimum, the threat of violence has caused NGOs and government officials to take precautions such as changing their vehicles, removing NGO logos, using more secure but less direct routes, and not traveling before or after certain hours.303 NGOs also described difficulties recruiting people to go to insecure areas and having to open and close field offices depending on the security climate. For example, one Afghan NGO staff person told us that the organization closed its office in Logar the previous year when “a mine was laid in front of the door.” (In this case the office was able to reopen when “local people came and said, ‘please come back and we will guarantee security.’”)304Interruptions in operations and other constraints slow the pace of work and can hurt the quality of services provided. For example, a staff member of an NGO in Kandahar told us:Security has held us back. I used to go out a lot more, but more and more I feel that I can’t do that as much as I would like to. We always have to be careful when we do women’s activities—our words, statements, physical appearance—so that because of our activities women are not targeted. It hinders our progress—something that can take a month may take us four to five months because we have to be so careful. This makes us look bad to someone in Washington. This is not rocket science, so why is it taking so long? But it is the insurgency that hampers us from moving faster.305Several NGOs and others told us they could not monitor projects in the way they would like.306 For example, some must bring project representatives into provincial centers instead of traveling to projects and seeing them for themselves.307 Another NGO staff member noted that insecurity in parts of Paktia and Nangahar “does prevent staff from making field visits. Last year in these provinces there were moments when we didn’t let staff in and couldn’t carry out training, monitor and supervise, distribute materials, and that slows our training.”308International organizations have severely restrained their foreign staff from traveling and working in many areas of the south and southeast. An American USAID contractor noted: “Security very much impacts our movements and our staff here in Kabul. In the provinces we just don’t get out as much. Our monitoring and evaluation team are Afghans. I’d love to go with them, but when I go security and movement are compromised.”309 A World Bank official confirmed:Security does affect my work. . . . I know my project would move faster if I could go there. I have projects in Helmand, Zabul, Kandahar. Kandahar, I go. Helmand, Zabul, no one is going, not even the deputy minister. . . . There are NGOs who work there but it’s very difficult to monitor. So security is huge there.310Some NGOs and other agencies have been forced to close down operations because of insecurity. A senior U.N. official, who did not wish to be named, told Human Rights Watch in December: “Areas are becoming more insecure. There are areas where no agencies can operate; the government can’t operate; PRTs aren’t there. More and more areas are closed off to us.”311“Security is a defining concern for us,” said a staff member of a prominent education provider. In several districts, she said, the organization has had to turn over its schools to the government and other organizations because it “couldn’t send in national staff to ensure quality of programming.”312 Another NGO worker described why the organization had ended its already limited work in Paktika: “The central government does not have enough power and control in Paktika, and because there are different anti-government groups there, nobody can work with open hands there because there are a lot of threats.”313 Oxfam, which was one of the few international humanitarian organizations working in rural Zabul and Kandahar, drastically scaled back its work to Kandahar city in late 2003 after some of their staff were threatened and beaten, and their vehicle hijacked.314 Similarly, employees of an NGO working primarily in the north and west told us that they phased out their program in Kandahar in mid-2005 “primarily due to insecurity and availability of resources . . . but if security permits we would definitely like to go back. But for education, we would think several times before doing it there. That area has strong Taliban influence. First, there is the physical presence of the Taliban. Second, even when they are not there, their influence is felt.”315Moreover, many NGOs who have historically worked in other parts of Afghanistan have not expanded to the south or southeast. As one staff person noted simply: “Security impacts where we choose to work. If there is a high risk that staff will lose their lives, then it’s a [key consideration].”316 Staff of an Afghan NGO that has weathered serious security problems explained to Human Rights Watch why he had urged the coordinator of a joint NGO program not to expand the program to Helmand:I said, “please don’t include Helmand province in your target areas because we will have to hire staff two times: we will send staff and they will be killed.” This is not a joke. We cannot take charge of working there. This is the main place where the Taliban operates. It’s close to Pakistan and they can easily infiltrate during the night.317The government of Afghanistan suffers from problems similar to those of NGOs. Increasing insecurity and targeting of educational staff has placed nearly unbearable burdens on the Afghan government’s already inefficient bureaucracy. Local Ministry of Education officials and district heads from different areas in southern and southeastern Afghanistan told Human Rights Watch that they were greatly limited in what they could do because of the threats directed at them and their educational staff. For example, the head of the education department in Saydabad district of Wardak province, about an hour’s drive south of Kabul, told Human Rights Watch: “I cannot go out after dark. . . . I have a lot of responsibility for my schools and the district but [security] concerns make it so that I cannot travel freely outside.”318An experienced teacher who works with the Ministry of Education’s Teacher Education Program in northwestern Afghanistan, described the problems faced there:I set up my course in Murichag, [Badghis,] with eight women teachers, three months ago. They wrote night letters saying, “We will close your school.” So we closed the program. After a few days, we convinced people that this program is good, so we managed to succeed. On November 25, 2005, we tried to hold a meeting with teachers from Ghor, Herat, and Badghis. But there was fighting between two commanders in Ghor, so no one from Ghor could come and visit.319Mohammed Azim Karbalai, Director of Planning for the Ministry of Education, explained that the insecurity has significantly impeded the Afghan government’s efforts to increase the educational rate throughout the country:An important policy of the ministry is balanced education in all provinces and all districts so each year we have a plan. So each year we plan for the construction—each province has to have a certain number of schools constructed, but if we have some security problems, we don’t achieve these targets by the end of the year. We ask NGOs and companies that have to go to these areas—they don’t go if they have security problems. It is the main obstruction, problem for the reconstruction of schools. 320 Insecurity, and the attendant difficulty of government agencies, foreign reconstruction agencies, and NGO aid workers working in insecure areas, has also distorted national-level reconstruction policies in Afghanistan. Southern and southeastern Afghanistan, which have suffered most from insecurity, have witnessed a significant drop in reconstruction activity. A senior Western education expert working in Afghanistan expressed his concern about this phenomenon: “We are very concerned about disparities that we’re creating. We’re not covering the whole country. There are some places in the country that have never seen a U.N. operation.”321 The failure to provide adequate aid to southern and southeastern Afghanistan has had significant political impact because it has fostered resentment against the perceived failures and biases of the central Afghan government and its international supporters. “Insecurity leads to driving NGOs away, which leads to low development, which leads to local resentment which leads to insecurity,” explained a U.N. observer.322 The then-provincial U.S. commander in Helmand told journalists in January 2006 that recent attacks on schools and the killing of a teacher had left many residents of the province, including influential tribal leaders, hedging their bets. “People are straddling the fence. They do not want to commit to the government yet.”323Home-based school in Kandahar City. © 2005 Human Rights Watch/Zama Coursen-Neff.Shortage of Schools and InfrastructureAn estimated 80 percent of existing schools in Afghanistan were either damaged or destroyed during the years of war.324 Despite the construction or refurbishment of more than 1,100schools since 2001, Afghanistan still has far fewer schools that it needs: more than half of rural communities had no primary school at all in 2003.325 As explained in the background section above, there are many more boys’ schools than girls schools, despite the greater impact of distance on girls; the shortage of girls’ schools is even more acute at the secondary level.An analysis of the 2003 National Risk and Vulnerability Assessment (NRVA) found that many parents said they didn’t send their children to school because it was “too far away.” But parents are more likely to consider schools too far away if they perceive the route to be risky: the researchers concluded that the reason for not sending a child to school did not “always refer literally to distance. The actual distance a child walks to school may be short but if for example, the journey is unsafe or girls must walk through a busy bazaar then it is considered by respondents to be ‘too far away.’”326 As an education specialist for an Afghan NGO explained: Security is a very big issue all over Afghanistan and sometimes it is an obstacle for education, but why are we thinking about security? To me it is not security but accessibility—it’s walking distance that stops girls from going to school. If a school is very nearby or in a house, then the issue is not security. There is no need to walk a long distance and be targeted by bad guys.327The mother of two girls in Kandahar city who attended after-school classes told us she was considering pulling them out of the classes because they have to walk home. “Education is good but security is bad,” she explained. “It’s the walking I fear. . . Of course I am scared. There are bomb blasts constantly so of course I’m very worried. I pray all the time that they will be protected. May God protect them. . . I hope that God can take this fear from me. . . . When there is security, I will not prevent my daughters from doing anything.”328Two eighteen-year-olds in the ninth grade in Parwan province told us that distance to school prevented many girls in their villages from attending. One said that she was the only girl from her village who made the thirty-minute walk to her school. “This school is a bit far and the way is not very secure. . . . I have many girl relatives my age. They don’t come to school because they don’t feel safe coming here.”329 The other woman explained:The majority of girls in my age are illiterate—they don’t go to school. It is because the school is far, and their families don’t let them to come to school. I come with my other sisters, and if I was alone to come by myself, I would’ve never come because I don’t feel safe coming alone to school. We walk through the main road of village because walking on the fields is unsafe.330Similarly, elders of Qala-e Wazir village in Bagrami district of Kabul province, only about ten kilometers south of the capital, explained to Human Rights Watch: There are two schools in the area, Qala-e Wazir and Sheraki, and they are far. We don’t like to send our kids to these schools for security reasons: kidnappings and murders and because of the heat during the hot season—it’s too hard to walk. . . .We are scared when our children go to school because of dangers, because the streets are not safe. There are no proper roads. The kids walk through the fields. When the wheat is high, we can’t see anything. It’s not safe.331And a grandmother in Laghman said:Yes, we send our boys to school, but not our girls. It is not safe for girls to go to school—the way is not good, they have to walk through fields that we don’t think is safe for them to cross. . . . Our younger girls ages six to nine were going to school, but their teacher got married and she went very far from here. Now my grandchildren [six- to nine-year-old girls] have not gone to school for months. For the older ones, as I told you, they don’t go.332In Herat province, the director of a girls’ middle school explained: “Compared with the population of the area, the number of girls is low. The area where school is located is safe, but families who live far away don’t let their girls to come to school.”333Hangama Anwari of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission confirmed: “All over Afghanistan security is the biggest issue, especially when it comes to girls. . . . If it takes more than ten minutes to reach a school, parents won’t send their girls to school. They send their boys though. Part of the problem is warlords and commanders.”334 Similarly, the Afghan Human Rights Commission found in research in 2005 that the most common reason interviewees gave for not sending girls to school was “distance too far; worried about security”—actually conflating these two factors; far fewer interviewees cited this reason for not sending boys.335The problem is especially acute at the secondary level, where there are far fewer schools. The statements of elders in Bagrami district, Kabul, illustrate this problem. As one said:If we had a high school in this part of the village, we would send our girls to this high school. We can assure you that. We are not against teenage girls being educated. We have some of them going to high school already. However, it is the tradition here not to allow grown up girls to go to school if they have to go far and to cross other villages. There is competition between villages and it is not good at all for these girls to risk being in contact with boys from other villages. Now we allow only girls from first to sixth grades to go to school. If we had a school on this side of the village, the older girls would attend. . . .In this village, if grown up girls are not allowed to go to school, it is for reasons of honor and security. We are not against them been educated—to the contrary.336A mother in Parwan province also explained to Human Rights Watch:If there is a high school for girls in our village, yes, why not? I will send my daughter to school, but if she has to go to city [Charikar] or even to district [Sayed Kheyl] I think she will not be able to go. It is not safe for girls to go to cities. Nobody sends their daughters in such far places. My son, he is a man, he can go. For him it is not a big risk, but for a girl who is young also, it is dangerous to go to city.337A staff member of an NGO that runs schools in the north, northeast, west, and southeast explained how, in the areas in which they operate, they try to overcome these barriers:Security problems and distance from schools are especially problems for girls. Plus, age—girls who become older, parents prefer not to send [them], plus there is a preference for boys’ education in many families. Some families are quite sensitive to girls’ education—they don’t want girls to be sent. . . . So we find that distances have a much greater impact on girls. So we decided to establish schools nearer their homes, community-based schools. This also decreases security problems, distance problems, encouraging girls to come to school.338Where schools do exist, families may find them inadequate, unsafe, or culturally inappropriate.339 In many areas, school are held in tents, private homes, donated structures, mosques, and outside.340 For example, a teacher in Nesh district, Kandahar, where there are no girls’ schools, told Human Rights Watch: “Most of our schools are mobile, they have no set place, no tent. They are held under trees, in mosques, wherever we can. The teachers move the blackboards and equipment, and the students receive some supplies from the Ministry of Education and UNICEF.”341 In insecure areas, parents and children may also place greater importance on secure buildings and thus may be less likely to send children to tent or open air schools, or schools without a surrounding wall.342 Director Mohammed Azim Karbalai gave an illustrative example of the vicious circle formed by the failures of reconstruction due to insecurity in southern and southeastern Afghanistan:In Afghanistan the main demand from families is a safe environment inside schools, so if they don’t have a building, then families don’t allow their children to go. Especially in Zabul and Uruzgan we have this problem. We haven’t reconstructed a lot of schools and families complained that they didn’t have suitable buildings for schools. But at this time we cannot do anything in this area.343 Human Rights Watch also interviewed a group of women and girls from a returnee camp in Paktia who said the camp elders were threatening them for leaving the camp to attend teacher training and their students for attending their schools in the camp: “Most schools are in tents, so our elders want a school in the camp. . . . In Gardez [the provincial capital], the security is better, so girls are encouraged to attend school.”344 In addition, there may be no separate school or shift for girls, the teachers may be male, or there may be no water, toilets, or wall around the school, all of which keep girls from attending school.345 Other infrastructure problems include a lack of school furniture, educational supplies, science and laboratory equipment for secondary schools, and heat during cold weather.346Shortage of TeachersExperienced and professionally qualified teachers, especially women, are in short supply. The lack of female teachers keeps girls, especially older girls, from attending school. “In some remote areas there are no women teachers, and parents won’t send their girls to school,” NGO education staff explained.347 The exact number of teachers and where they are is still not known. The Ministry of Education estimated that it had around 140,000 teachers in 2005-2006, but many others working with the ministry dispute this figure.348 According to the ministry, around 28 percent of teachers were female in 2004-2005, and most were in Kabul city, leaving an extreme shortfall in most areas.349 For example, the ministry reports that there were just seven female teachers in Uruzgan in 2004-2005, twenty-eight in Zabul, and 172 in Kandahar.350The problem is particularly acute in rural areas where qualified women are unable or unwilling to travel to or live. “Women teachers won’t go to remote areas because the salary is low, there is no facility available for living,” said an NGO staff person.351 Security problems may also prevent women from teachers even when they already live in the community. For example, a teacher in Deh Yek district, Ghazni, described the situation in his village: “There is a girls’ school up to third grade, built in 2002-2003. But we have no women for teaching girls. . . . There are women teachers in our district, but they are afraid to teach because of the Taliban.” Their fears appeared well-founded—at least two male teachers houses had been bombed, he said, after they received night letters warning them against teaching girls.352The government’s teacher training program and NGOs have focused on training local women. However, the lack of educated or even literate women in rural areas makes it difficult even to find women to train and can limit the quality of education provided.353 The government and NGOs also face problems sending women to rural areas to train female teachers there. A staff member of the government’s Teacher Education Programexplained: Our original object was to include women teachers. . . . We don’t have special measures to make sure that the trainers are women, but our original goal for master trainers was fifty-fifty. But there are limits because the women core trainers can’t travel. There are some provinces women couldn’t go to. Some could have mahram [a close male relative to accompany her], but some couldn’t get anyone to go with her. So we had to limit assigning women to the provinces. They are doing work here in Kabul. [The problems are]: security, transport, accommodation. Regarding security, in Wardak, in Ghazni, a woman traveling to visit schools is so unusual. You need to have a team so that women don’t look like a woman alone. We don’t have women traveling alone with a man because people are not used to it and women don’t feel comfortable. In Mazar and Herat, we sent women but they need transportation—they don’t feel comfortable sitting in a taxi and we can’t afford to hire a car. . . . So the only place they can work comfortably is Kabul.354Other barriers to recruiting more women teachers include: * low salaries (1,800-2000 afghanis (U.S.$37-$41) a month), depending on the teacher’s qualifications, which result in experienced teachers seeking other, or second, jobs;355 * the failure to develop efficient accreditation procedures and equivalence exams for women educated in Iran, Pakistan, and elsewhere that keeps many qualified teachers from teaching;356 and, * extremely low participation rates by older girls—the next generation of teachers—in secondary education and in teacher training colleges.357One teacher told Human Rights Watch that corruption further diminished his salary, that he and others had to pay a portion of their salaries—300 out of 1,800 afghanis (U.S.$6 out of $37)—to Kandahar provincial education department officials in 2004. Security problems led them to conclude that the meager pay was not worth it. “The teachers gathered and said that for 1,500 afghanis it’s not worth the risk of being accused of diverting from our religion,” he told us. “Big officials go by helicopter, even just to go to Spin Boldak [a major crossing point across the border to Pakistan, less than one hundred kilometers from Kandahar on a busy road]. They get their pay [regardless]. But we who were getting only 1,800 afghanis are open targets to the Taliban!”358Several individuals involved in training teachers with government and NGO programs told Human Rights Watch that the Ministry of Education needs to do more to attract and retain women teachers, including creating special measures for recruiting women, adopting more flexible accreditation programs for women teachers, and providing housing and protection at teacher training programs offered in urban centers so that women from rural areas can participate.359 Much more must be done to keep girls, many who would become teachers, from dropping out of school.Low Quality of EducationThe low quality of education also deters some parents from sending children to school. A staff member of an NGO that provides community-based education noted that the low quality of education and the low returns on education discourage children, especially girls, from attending school: “There’s the practical aspect of education—most children who do go to school for three years don’t know how to read and write. If they do, they lose it quickly because there’s nothing to read. . . . so there’s a problem with motivation to go to school, especially girls, because what are they going to do with it?”360Parents and children may also be less willing to take security and cultural risks if the value and quality of education is perceived as low. “‘Too far and too dangerous’ can be an excuse,” an education specialist for an international NGO noted. “Why take even a small risk if you don’t see the benefit?”361Classes are typically very large—with an average of seventy-one students per teacher at the primary level362—and meet for only around three hours a day. Schools lack teaching materials and schools supplies; many teachers rely on poor teaching methods such as rote-learning, use corporal punishment, lack knowledge of basic subjects, and are frequently absent;363 the curriculum is poor (although steps have been taken to reform the curriculum); and teachers and students may discriminate against children from minority ethnic groups.364According to women in Kandahar: “Most parents see that the standard of education is too low and they see that their children are not really learning anything—there are too many free periods without teachers.”365 A high school student in Kandahar city confirmed, noting that the previous day, her class had a teacher for only one class period, “the rest of the time was spent chatting. The principal teaches various classes but went off to Mecca,” she said. “Compared with Pakistan’s schools, it’s not even a school.” 366Many teachers have not finished grade twelve.367 For example, the Afghan Research and Evaluation Unit found in 2004 that in Wardak:[O]nly 6 percent of teachers have more than a grade 12 education. In Kandahar, more than 65 percent of teachers have not completed 12th grade. Some in-service teacher training is now being provided by NGOs, but most teachers have had little or no formal teacher training over the course of their careers. Training is still lacking for education administration, head teachers and school management.368 Some teachers have no formal education at all.369International donors, the Afghan government, and NGOs are all providing forms of teacher training, with a significant example being the internationally-funded Teacher Education Program (TEP), a joint project of the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Higher Education.370PovertyAfghanistan is one of the poorest countries in the world.371 Poverty keeps children from attending school because they have to work for income or in the home, or because they cannot afford school supplies or transport. Research by the Afghan Research and Evaluation Unit in 2005 found that 50 percent of households surveyed contained working children, that these children may be the family’s primary income earners, and that “[a] household’s poverty and the opportunity costs involved in sending working children to school are primary factors inhibiting the enrolment of both boys and girls (especially girls).”372 Both the opportunity costs and the actual costs of education increase as children grow older.373 The Afghanistan-based Human Rights Research and Advocacy Consortium estimated in 2004 that in Kabul province the average annual cost of sending a child to first grade was 350 afghanis (U.S.$7), to fifth grade 1,000 afghanis (U.S.$20), and to ninth grade 1,700 afghanis (U.S.$35).374 These costs range from 4 to 20 percent of the per capita income of around U.S.$300.375 Where poverty forces parents to choose among children, they are generally more likely to send sons rather than daughters to school (in part because of expectations of higher future earnings from boys). According to the Afghan Research and Evaluation Unit’s 2006 study on household decision making and school enrollment: “Parents may desire education for both sons and daughters, but be constrained by a combination of poverty (which inhibits the enrolment of both boys and girls) and their fear of negative social pressure (specifically in relation to girls’ enrolment).”376Security problems may increase the cost of education, such as making it necessary to pay for transport or spare another person to accompany children to school. Access to transport generally especially affects girls’ access to education, as the parents, teachers, and school administrators of girls’ schools in Gardez, Herat, and Kandahar city with whom we spoke emphasized.377 A mother in Kandahar explained why she thought her daughters were the only ones in her neighborhood who went to school: I hired a driver for my daughters so they won’t hear people talking about them while they are walking. We can afford to buy it. In Pakistan, I’ve seen school buses pick girls up for school directly in front of the house so they don’t have to walk. If that happens, more and more kids will go to school.378 The director of a girls’ middle school in Herat Province explained why he thought most girls in his area did not go to school: Only around fifty students manage to arrange their own transportation: they rented a mini-bus as a group and it is good, but not all people can pay money for transportation. If there is any support from the government side to provide girls school with transportation, it can be a good way to encourage girls’ education.379Negative Attitudes About EducationOpposition to secular education and to any education for girls predates the Taliban, which imposed the harshest restrictions observed in the last century. While there is now considerable demand for education, negative or conservative attitudes about education still keep many children out of school. These include beliefs that education is not important, that girls should not be educated, or that girls can be educated only, for example, by trusted female teachers, separated from boys, and behind school walls. However even in very conservative areas that Human Rights Watch visited, people told us that they wanted education for their girls and for their boys.In the 2003 Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS), when individuals were asked about reasons children were not enrolled, 15.0 percent answered “not necessary” and 4.4 percent answered “feel ashamed.”380 Mahmad Omar, of Kandahar, explained to a journalist why he was educating some of his sons but not his daughters: “School is not for girls,” he said. “I don’t let them go. Girls should be at home. If they go to school, people will see them on the street, and that would be very shameful for me. . . . After they go to school, girls think that they can go anywhere, that they do not have to wear the hijab [head covering], and that they don’t have to hide their faces. Islam does not accept that.”381 Practices such as early marriage of girls also result in their being taken out of school when they are engaged or married. The prohibition on married girls attending school was officially rescinded by presidential decree in 2004 but this is not necessarily known or enforced at the local level.382Resistance to educating girls increases as girls grow older, also the point at which most girls typically must travel farther to reach a secondary school, if one is available at all. A teacher in a girls’ school in Wardak explained that while there was a high school for boys in the village, there was none for girls, so no girls were attending secondary school. “The girls cannot go beyond sixth grade. It’s our culture—they can’t leave the village. One thing is culture, the other is security.”383 A girl in Parwan told Human Rights Watch: “We are concerned about the future, the next year, because the school now is up to ninth grade. For the next year we suggested extending the school into a high school. We as girls can not travel out of district. We need at least a high school for girls, and otherwise our education will remain incomplete.”384Insecurity may reinforce conservative beliefs about girls’ education, for example by exposing girls to real physical risks either at school or en route and by preventing or discouraging female teachers from going to certain areas. The World Bank has noted:[I]t is difficult to separate the issue of cultural barriers to mobility from those of security—how much of the constraint on women’s mobility, and allowing girls to walk to school, is related to the poor security situation—which may in fact improve as political stability comes about? How much of the demand is constrained by the lack of supply of female teachers, which in turn may be related to security as well as differing cultural norms?385A man heading a girls’ school in Parwan explained how insecurity affects his efforts to encourage girls to come to school:More girls can attend school with the emergence of a better cultural environment. And that is only possible with establishment of overall security. When the security of an area is guaranteed, families will not feel unsafe to send their daughters to schools, and, on the other hand, irresponsible persons will not have any chance to go around and disturb people, especially women and girls attending schools. I think security is the first priority—once it is safe, people are more interested in getting education. They will feel secure to send their daughters to school.386Because of insecurity problems in the area as well as “traditional society,” he said, “I would estimate only 10 percent of female students’ participation in the school, while 75 percent of boys are normally attending the school in the area.”387Moreover, according to a teacher trainer in Paktia, people ideologically opposed to education nurture parents’ fears about girls’ education: “In Paktia, the cultural problem for educating girls is that people feel shame about sending their daughters to school. But there’s also the influence of people who oppose girls’ education. . . . People who oppose the government, are under foreign influence, say girls’ education is against religion. Paktia is a border region, Pakistan has influence and agents who tell people their daughters will get stolen; people fear that their daughters will run away.”388Culture in Afghanistan varies widely among individuals and groups. One man’s description of how his heavily Pashtun community in Maruf district, Kandahar, reacted when the schools were closed there illustrates this variation, even within a single community:Ours is a Pashtun community and they are a very religious people who have always preferred madrassas to school, but when a school was there they sent their children. . . . [When the schools closed] there were different kinds of people with different thoughts. Those who have children or relatives with the Taliban were very happy, but those who wanted education and culture were very sad. If the Taliban find out now that there is a teacher or a student, then they will be very cruel to them.I have six sons [all previously enrolled in school]. I cannot send my children anywhere to get educated. You yourself judge—I’ve got money, I’m educated. But if I cannot send my children to school, how can a farmer, a shepherd, a carpenter send his children?389An education official in Maywand district, Kandahar, told Human Rights Watch: “It was long ago when people didn’t understand the need for education. Now everyone wants education but can’t get it.”390 And a tribal elder from northern Helmand said: “The people want schools, even for girls. We are losing a golden opportunity now to lift our children.”391One reason for greater openness to education now is Afghans’ exposure to school as refugees.392 An estimated 4 million Afghans fled from war to Pakistan and Iran between 1980 and 2001. In refugee camps, schools were organized and many Afghans developed an appreciation for education, or were exposed to education for the first time. As a district education director in Wardak explained to Human Rights Watch: “I was a teacher and I graduated from Kabul University in 1357 [1978-1979]. I didn’t like girls’ education, but since I moved to Pakistan as a migrant, although I was a mujahed fighting the communists, I changed.”393 Staff of an NGO providing community-based education in the southeast described the change as follows: “In the past years it was very difficult to establish girls’ schools in rural areas, but people went to Pakistan and other countries and they have come to understand the importance of education because in camps they had schools for girls and boys. They have changed their ideas.”394Returned refugees may find themselves in conflict with the members of their community who stayed in Afghanistan. A woman in Kandahar told us: “I was a teacher in Zargona high school before the elections, and I had students taken out of school—some were my relatives. I talked with mothers who told me that they didn’t want anyone to point at them, and some of them started crying and wanted to go back to Pakistan.”395A member of a women’s group in Kandahar city pointed out that “[w]hile culture is an issue, security is more important because even those people who want to break tradition are not able to.”396 NGOs cited measures that had allowed them to introduce education into communities for the first time, when they have the security to operate. Rangina Hamidi, with Afghans for Civil Society in Kandahar, described one approach that NGOs have been forced to employ:I’ve been working here for three years. Yes, it’s a conservative society but there are methods to deal with it. It’s true that a majority of people don’t send girls to school. But that’s because they haven’t seen the benefit of education in their lives and less because traditions are hard to change. So we suggest that home schools for girls be created. Our income generation projects have been successful because they are home-based. We give them an opportunity to earn money but also within their tradition and we give them information about the outside world. It’s long-term development so that the next generation of women hopefully their daughters will have better lives. But this is long term.”397 Human Rights Watch heard examples of women and girls, and their male family members, taking great risks to get education when opportunities are available, even in very culturally conservative environments. For example, one young woman in her late teens attending a teacher education seminar told Human Rights Watch, “We need education—we lied to come here. I told my mother I went to get water. I had to get my brother to convince my other brother and my mother to allow me to attend the workshop.”398 Researchers from the Afghan Research and Evaluation Unit also found: If a daughter is enrolled in school, the fear of being shamed by extended family members in other households, neighbours and others is widespread. “People talk,” and often this is too humiliating for members of a household—both male and female—to bear. . . . However, both villagers and urban-dwellers are aware that widespread changes are occurring in gender relations in both the public and private spheres, and many parents—fathers and mothers—choose to ignore gossip, take the social risk and send their daughters to school.399 Asefa, age eighteen, told a journalist that “[m]en in the street laugh at me, and call me names. They say, ‘Why are you going to school? You’re a girl and you don’t need this.’ But I begged my family for months to let me go, and they finally did.”400 But many of her friends had dropped out, she said.401Even individuals who are willing to take these risks cannot do so for long without protection or support from government, community, and religious leaders. For example, a teacher from Deh Yek district in southern Ghazni told us that despite great demand for girls’ primary education, “this year we had more girl students than we could handle,” he said, the bombing of teachers’ homes and threats against girls’ education may prove successful. “It’s a real possibility that girls’ schools won’t operate next year,” he concluded. “Generally the people support girls’ education. It’s the ignorant jihadis and the Taliban against the government who fight this. . . . The ignorant people say if you educate your girl, she will become independent, she won’t get married.”402The experience of teachers in Gardez, Paktia, who were attending a short teacher education seminar well-illustrates the need for protection for teachers and students.403 One told Human Rights Watch, “As returned refugees who were educated outside the country, we are now having problems, now we’re not allowed to learn because of tribal persecution. We were educated in Pakistan, but our parents and tribal elders now threaten us.”404 According to five eyewitnesses, on Saturday, December 3, 2005, a local malik named Yousuff Khan Berzat and his strongmen threatened the teachers as they prepared to leave the camp for the seminar and threw a rock at their car. According to one witness, Yousuff Khan said that “nobody should go [to the seminar] and if anyone goes then we will snatch off what you are wearing [or ‘we will make you lose your chastity’]. You are disgracing women. Nobody needs your education. Now that you got educated you have brought at bad name to us.” The teachers missed one day of the seminar but then sought help from local government officials. Yousuff Khan was arrested on Sunday, but released the same day. On the day that we interviewed the teachers, they said the tribe was deciding whether to banish them. This was no idle threat—we interviewed another teacher there who had already been banished for her work. “The Iskanderkhel tribe will decide whether to cast out whoever goes to the workshop,” one woman explained, “they will be thrown out of the camp. There are ten girls from the refugee camp, all Iskanderkhel tribe. We’ve all faced problems. But if I don’t work, there will be no money for the family. . . . We don’t have any security, if we become teachers, we can’t go to teach, our students will be threatened.”405 Another girl said: “We are afraid but we wish to continue teaching and also get educated ourselves. There are a lot of people among those against us who can’t even offer prayers correctly and we want to educate people. But there is no security.”
[290] For example, education staff of an NGO working in eastern Afghanistan noted that when there is fighting “in some villages, people don’t want to put their children in danger so they keep them home for a while.” Affected areas, he said, included Laghman (Alishing district), Nuristan, and parts of Kunar. Human Rights Watch interview with NGO education staff, Kabul, December 22, 2005.[291] Human Rights Watch interview with U.N. expert, Kabul, December 5, 2005.[292] Human Rights Watch interviews with NGO staff, Kabul, December 15 and 22, 2005.[293] Human Rights Watch interview with NGO education staff, Kabul, December 15, 2005.[294] Human Rights Watch interview with Horia Mossadeq, Human Rights Research and Advocacy Consortium, Kabul, December 4, 2005.[295] Human Rights Watch interview with director, Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, Mazar-e Sharif, September 11, 2005.[296] Ibid.[297] Human Rights Watch interview with mother of five daughters, Kandahar city, December 8, 2005.[298] Information about barriers to education is drawn from sources that include Human Rights Watch interviews with education staff from NGOs that provide or support home-based schools, Kabul, December 7 and 15, 2005; Central Statistics Office, and UNICEF, Afghanistan—Progress of Provinces, Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey 2003; Education working group, “Results and Discussion of Education Data collected in the Afghanistan National Risk and Vulnerability Assessment 2003,” April 2005, http://www.mrrd.gov.af/vau/NRVA%2003%20Downloads/NRVA%202003%20Education%20report%20English%20April%202005.pdf (retrieved February 9, 2006); World Bank, Afghanistan: National Reconstruction and Poverty Reduction—the Role of Women in Afghanistan’s Future, pp. 32, 48; Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission , Economic and Social Rights in Afghanistan.[299] See, for example, Education working group, “Results and Discussion of Education Data collected in the Afghanistan National Risk and Vulnerability Assessment 2003,” p. 24. [300] Human Rights Watch interview with Maywand director of district education, Kandahar city, December 10, 2005.[301] Human Rights Watch interview with NGO staff, Kabul, December 17, 2005.[302] See, for example, ANSO and CARE, “NGO Insecurity in Afghanistan,” p. 2.[303] Human Rights Watch interview with Afghan NGO staff, Kabul, December 15, 2005 (describing precautions taken in Ghazni).[304] Ibid.[305] Human Rights Watch interview with Rangina Hamidi, Afghans for Civil Society, Kandahar, December 8, 2005.[306] Human Rights Watch interviews with international NGO staff members, Kabul, December 3, 5, and 15, 2005.[307] Human Rights Watch interview with NGO staff, Kabul, December 4, 2005.[308] Human Rights Watch interview with international NGO staff, Kabul, December 2, 2005.[309] Human Rights Watch interview with Larry Goldman, Deputy Chief of Party, Afghanistan Primary Education Program (APEP), Creative Associates, Kabul, December 14, 2005.[310] Human Rights Watch interview with World Bank official, Kabul, December 4, 2005.[311] Human Rights Watch interview with U.N. official, Kabul, December 5, 2005.[312] Human Rights Watch interview with international NGO staff, Kabul, December 2, 2005.[313] Human Rights Watch interview with NGO staff, Gardez, December 5, 2005.[314] Human Rights Watch interview with OXFAM staff, December 10, 2005.[315] Human Rights Watch interview with international NGO staff,Kabul, December 13, 2005.[316] Human Rights Watch interview with NGO staff, Kabul, December 4, 2005.[317] Human Rights Watch interview with Afghan NGO staff, Kabul, December 15, 2005.[318] Human Rights Watch interview with district education director, Saydabad district, Wardak, December 21, 2005.[319] Human Rights Watch interview with Teacher Education Program trainer for Badghis, Kabul, December 3, 2005.[320] Human Rights Watch interview with Mohammed Azim Karbalai, Director of Planning Department, Ministry of Education, Kabul, December 15, 2005.[321] Human Rights Watch interview with U.N, staff, Kabul, December 5, 2005.[322] Rights Watch interview with U.N. official, Gardez, December 5, 2005. [323] Declan Walsh, “The Wild Frontier,” The Guardian (London), January 31, 2006.[324] World Bank, Afghanistan: National Reconstruction and Poverty Reduction—the Role of Women in Afghanistan’s Future, p. 32.[325] The Ministry of Education reported in 2004-2005 that 964 schools had been constructed and 236 had been rehabilitated by 2004-2005. Ministry of Education, Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, “Development Plan: Education Priorities for Improvement,” 1384, box 6. Regarding rural communities without schools, see Vulnerability Analysis Unit, MRRD, in collaboration with World Bank & WFP VAM, “National Risk and Vulnerability Assessment 2003 Policy Brief,” n.d., http://www.mrrd.gov.af/vau/NRVA%2003%20Downloads/NRVA%202003%20Policy%20Brief%20October%202004.doc (retrieved February 9, 2006).[326] Education working group, “Results and Discussion of Education Data collected in the Afghanistan National Risk and Vulnerability Assessment 2003,” pp. 23, 24.[327] Human Rights Watch interview with Waheed Hameedi, CHA, Kabul, December 15, 2005.[328] Human Rights Watch interview, Kandahar, December 8, 2005.[329] Human Rights Watch interview with eighteen-year-old woman in grade nine, village in Parwan province, May2005.[330] Human Rights Watch interview with eighteen-year-old woman in grade nine, village in Parwan province, May 2005.[331] Human Rights Watch group interview with Khaja Mohammed Shah Siddiqi, head of the shura [local council], and twelve elders, Bagrami district, Kabul, May 11, 2005.[332] Human Rights Watch interview with grandmother of school-age children, village in Laghman province, June 7, 2005.[333] Human Rights Watch interview with director of girls’ middle school, Herat province, July 18, 2005.[334] Human Rights Watch interview with Hangama Anwari, Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, Kabul, May 7, 2005.[335] Of those surveyed, 56.2 percent (1,624) gave reasons for not sending girls to school: 838 of those persons cited distance and security as a reason for not sending girls, compared with 411 citing distance and security as a reason for not sending boys. Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, Economic and Social Rights in Afghanistan, p. 32. This survey likely underestimates the effect of security as researchers were unable to go to the most insecure districts and provinces, including Uruzgan. Ibid., p. 8.[336] Human Rights Watch group interview with Khoadja Mohamad Sha Sidiki, Rais of the Shura, and twelve elders, Bagrami district, Kabul, May 11, 2005.[337] Human Rights Watch interview with mother of a boy and a girl attending school, village in Parwan province, May 2005.[338] Human Rights Watch interview with NGO education staff, Kabul, December 15, 2005.[339] In 2003, 25.8 percent of families surveyed gave “inadequate facility” as a reason for not enrolling children in school.Central Statistics Office, UNICEF, “Afghanistan—Progress of Provinces, Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey 2003, pp. 68-69.[340] In 2002, only 29 percent of schools functioned in a dedicated school building; 10 percent were held outside. “Of the schools with buildings, 30 percent have been completely or mostly destroyed, 8 percent have sustained minor damage or only require cosmetic repair, and another 7 percent are partially destroyed.” Evans, et al, “A Guide to Government in Afghanistan,” p. 125, citing Rapid Assessment of Learning Spaces (Ministry of Education and UNICEF update, July 31, 2002).[341] Human Rights Watch interview with Abu Zaher, head teacher of Nesh district, Kandahar province, Kandahar, December 10, 2005.[342] Human Rights Watch interview with NGO education staff, Kabul. December 12, 2005 (regarding demand for surrounding walls).[343] Human Rights Watch interview with Mohammed Azim Karbalai, Director of Planning Department, Ministry of Education, Kabul, December 15, 2005.[344] Human Rights Watch group interview with TEP trainees, Gardez, December 6, 2005.[345] According to the Asian Development Bank, one third of schools had no water source and less than 15 percent had toilets for children in 2003. World Bank, Afghanistan: National Reconstruction and Poverty Reduction—the Role of Women in Afghanistan’s Future, p. 42 (citing ADB, 2003, p. 8). By comparison, the Rapid Assessment of Learning Spaces found in 2002 that “Fifty-two percent of the schools lack water facilities, and 75 percent lack sanitation facilities.” Evans, et al, “A Guide to Government in Afghanistan,” p. 125, citing Rapid Assessment of Learning Spaces (Ministry of Education and UNICEF update, July 31, 2002).[346] See Education working group, “Results and Discussion of Education Data collected in the Afghanistan National Risk and Vulnerability Assessment 2003,” April 2005.[347] Human Rights Watch interview with NGO education staff, Gardez, December 5, 2005.[348] Human Rights Watch interview with Mohammed Azim Karbalai, Director, Planning Department, Ministry of Education, Kabul, March 11, 2006. [349] According to draft data from the Ministry of Education, in 2004-2005 there were 121,838 teachers, of whom 28 percent of whom were female. Of those, 35 percent were in Kabul. Ministry of Education, Education Management Information System (draft), 2004-2005. There are far more male teachers than female teachers in all provinces except in Kabul city, where there are more women than men teachers. Spink, AREU, “Afghanistan Teacher Education Project (TEP) Situational Analysis,” p. 13. [350] Ministry of Education, Education Management Information System (draft), 2004-2005. According to these data, there were fewer than one hundred female teachers in 2004-2005 in the following provinces: Badghis, Kapisa, Khost, Nuristan, Paktika, Uruzgan, and Zabul.[351] Human Rights Watch interview with NGO education staff, Gardez, December 5, 2005.[352] Human Rights Watch interview with teacher from Dey Yek district, Ghazni, December 20, 2005.[353] For example, a senior education provider told us: “I just sent teachers to a training center in Jalalabad and encouraged women teachers and trainers but the literacy level is so low that where can I get the teachers from?” Human Rights Watch interview, Kabul, December 5, 2005.[354] Human Rights Watch interview TEP staff, Kabul, December 3, 2005. [355] “We lack senior teachers—ours get 1,800 afghanis [U.S.$37],” an education official from Maywand district told us. “Everyone wants to be a trader or a businessman or a shopkeeper to earn more—they can get 150-200 afghanis (U.S.$3-$4) per day.” Human Rights Watch interview with district education for Maywand district, Kandahar city, December 10, 2005. A teacher from rural Ghazni said, “Our pay is another big problem. The 2000 afghanis pay is too low—it discourages teachers. Trained teachers instead work for NGOs.” Human Rights Watch interview with teacher from Deh Yek district, Ghazni, December 20, 2005. See also Spink, AREU, “Afghanistan Teacher Education Project (TEP) Situational Analysis,” p. 16.[356] Human Rights Watch interview with former teacher trained in Iran. Kandahar, December 8, 2005; Spink, AREU, “Afghanistan Teacher Education Project (TEP) Situational Analysis,” p. 34 (describing complicated, bureaucratic, and costly process for accreditation of returning teachers that deters most teachers from going through it).[357] There were only 375 female students in pre-service training in Afghanistan’s sixteen functioning teacher training colleges in 2004, 285 (76 percent) of whom were studying in Kabul, where Pashto language was not offered. Another 4,241 students attending in-service training, around half of whom were women. Ibid., pp. 17-19.[358] Human Rights Watch interview with teacher from Maruf district, Kandahar, December 10, 2005.[359] Human Rights Watch interviews with TEP staff, Kabul, December 3, 2005; and NGO education staff persons, Kabul, December 2 and 4, 2005.[360] Human Rights Watch interview with staff of NGO providing home and community-based education, Kabul, December 7, 2005.[361] Human Rights Watch interview with NGO education specialist, Kabul, December 2, 2005.[362] The ratio varies by province and drops dramatically at the secondary level. Spink, AREU, “Afghanistan Teacher Education Project (TEP) Situational Analysis,” p. 11 (citing data from the Ministry of Education and noting that data on the numbers of teachers and students are incomplete).[363] See Ibid., pp. 30-31; Education working group, “Results and Discussion of Education Data collected in the Afghanistan National Risk and Vulnerability Assessment 2003,” p. 27.[364] See Ibid., p. 32 (citing UNHCR, “Returnee Monitoring Report 2003-2004,” unpublished document, 2004).[365] Human Rights Watch group interview with women who served on the constitution commission secretariatto women’s affairs, Kandahar city, December 8, 2005.[366] Human Rights Watch interview with eleventh-grade student, Kandahar, December 8, 2005.[367] Although the Ministry of Education told us in March 2006 that 71 percent of teachers (99,300 of 140,000 teachers) had finished grade twelve or higher, information from the Teacher Education Program (TEP), which is affiliated with the ministry, indicates otherwise. See Spink, AREU, “Afghanistan Teacher Education Project (TEP) Situational Analysis,” p. 14, citing the Ministry of Education the National Development Plan (50 percent); and Human Rights Watch interview with TEP staff, Kabul, December 3, 2005 (40 percent). [368] Evans, et al, “A Guide to Government in Afghanistan,” p. 125.[369] According to a representative of TEP program: “About 20,000 teachers have no formal education—mosque education, some literacy, that’s it.” Human Rights Watch interview withTEP staff, Kabul, December 3, 2005. See also Agha Khan Development Network, “Survey Results from the Rural Education Support Programme,” Baghlan, Afghanistan, 2004, cited in Spink, AREU, “Afghanistan Teacher Education Project (TEP) Situational Analysis,” p. 14 (10 percent of 3,332 teachers surveyed in Baghlan province had never attended any form of formal education).[370] Since 2003, some 52,000 teachers have received short term training courses, which included pedagogy, language arts and mine risk education etc. Education and Vocational Training—Public Investment Program, March 29, 2005, pp. 7, 15, cited in Munsch, “Education,” p. 3.[371] UNDP, Human Development Report 2005, p. 45.[372] Pamela Hunte, “Looking Beyond the School Walls: Household Decision-Making and School Enrollment in Afghanistan,” AREU Briefing Paper, March 2006, p. 5, http://www.areu.org.af/publications/Looking%20Beyond%20the%20School%20Walls.pdf (retrieved April 4, 2006). The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission reached similar conclusions in 2006, based on research it conducted the previous year. Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, Economic and Social Rights in Afghanistan, pp. 14-18.When asked about causes of not enrolling their children in school in the 2003 Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS), 17.2 percent of parents cited domestic work, 7.1 percent cited household Income, and 5.2 said school was expensive. Vulnerability Analysis Unit, MRRD, “National Risk and Vulnerability Assessment 2003 Policy Brief,” The World Bank, Afghanistan: National Reconstruction and Poverty Reduction—the Role of Women in Afghanistan’s Future, p. 47.[373] The Human Rights Research and Advocacy Consortium, Report Card…, p. 2.[374] Ibid.[375] According to Afghanistan’s Central Bank governor Noorullah Delawari, per capita income in 2005-2006 reached U.S.$293 dollars. “Afghanistan 's per capita income likely to rise, says central bank,” Agence France-Presse, April 1, 2006.[376] Pamela Hunte, “Looking Beyond the School Walls…, p. 5.[377] Human Rights Watch group interviews with directors of girls’ schools, Herat, July 18, 2005; administrator and teachers at girls’ high school, Gardez, December 6, 2005; trainees at a teacher education seminar, Gardez, December 6, 2005; and secondary school teachers, Kandahar, December 11, 2005.[378] Human Rights Watch interview, Kandahar, December 8, 2005.[379] Human Rights Watch interview with director of girls middle school, Herat province, July 18, 2005.[380] Central Statistics Office; UNICEF, “Afghanistan—Progress of Provinces, Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey 2003, pp. 68-69.[381] Wahidullah Amani, “No School Today,” IWPR, December 23, 2005.[382] Human Rights Watch interview with Horia Mossadeq, Human Rights Research and Advocacy Consortium, Kabul, Dec. 4, 2005 (noting that in many schools, the principal and teachers do not like engaged girls to attend); World Bank, Afghanistan: National Reconstruction and Poverty Reduction—the Role of Women in Afghanistan’s Future; Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, Economic and Social Rights in Afghanistan, 32.[383] Human Rights Watch interview, Wardak, December 21, 2005.[384] Human Rights Watch interview with twenty-two-year-old woman in grade nine, village in Parwan province, May2005.[385] World Bank, Afghanistan: National Reconstruction and Poverty Reduction—the Role of Women in Afghanistan’s Future, p. 32.[386] Human Rights Watch interview with male head of girls’ school, village in Parwan province, May 2005.[387] Ibid.[388] Human Rights Watch interview with Shahghasi Zarmati, TEP trainer in Paktia, Kabul, December 3, 2005. [389] Human Rights Watch interview with representative from Maruf district, Kandahar, December 9, 2005.[390] Human Rights Watch interview with district education director for Maywand, Kandahar city, December 10, 2005.[391] Human Rights Watch interview with Haji Hamdan Ahmad Khan, tribal elder from Kojaki province, northern Helmand, Kandahar, December 7, 2005.[392] See also Pamela Hunte, “Looking Beyond the School Walls …,” p. 3.[393] Human Rights Watch interview with district education director, Saydabad district, Wardak, December 21, 2005.[394] Human Rights Watch interview with NGO education staff for the Eastern district, Kabul, December 22, 2005.[395] Human Rights Watch interview with women provincial representative, Kandahar, December 11, 2005.[396] Women’s group discussion, Kandahar city, December 8, 2005.[397] Human Rights Watch interview with Rangina Hamidi, Afghans for Civil Society, Kandahar, December 8, 2005.[398] Human Rights Watch group interview with TEP trainees in Gardez, December 6, 2005.[399] Pamela Hunte, “Looking Beyond the School Walls…,” pp. 5, 7.[400] Wahidullah Amani, “No School Today,” IWPR, December 23, 2005.[401] Ibid.[402] Human Rights Watch interview with teacher from Deh Yek district, Ghazni, December 20, 2005.[403] The following account is taken from Human Rights Watch interviews with the teachers and with a male eye witness, Gardez, December 5 and 6, 2005.[404] Human Rights Watch group interview with TEP trainees in Gardez, December 6, 2005. [405] Ibid. 1. <<previous | index | next>>EducationPrivate SchoolsTop of FormBottom of Form * Private Schools * Find a School * Admissions * Pay for School * * Share * Print Top of FormFree Private Schools Newsletter! Bottom of FormDiscuss in my forumPrivate vs Public SchoolsPrivate and Public Schools ComparedFrom Robert Kennedy, former About.com GuideSee More About: * private vs public schools * private and public schools comparedThe ClassroomPhoto © Milon Biswas AdsGrammarly®: Official Sitewww.Grammarly.comAdvanced Proofreading & Writing Support. Instant Results. Try Free!Dive Career Training-USAwww.hallsdiving.comFL Keys/Total Training/Cert 3-14wks Financing available/100% PlacementOnline MBA in $1400www.dbuglobal.comMBA Programs from Don University India for Working Professionals.More Private Schools Ads * Find a Private School * Private School in Toronto * Private Education * Jobs at Private Schools * Primary Public SchoolsAdsBest Sarasota Schoolswww.oda.eduPK-12 College Preparatory Program Ranked in Top 1% in the NationHigh School Onlinewww.aiuhs.orgSelf-paced online courses help you Finish High School your way.The IssueWhich are better? Private or public schools? How do they compare? It 's a question we parents ask often as we consider sending our children to private school. Any serious discussion of the issue has to consider the following factors: * facilities * class size * teaching * budgets * administrative supportFacilities Many public school facilities are impressive; others are mediocre. The same is true of private schools. In the public school system, the twin engines of political support and economic revenue base are critical.In private schools the ability to attract endowments and other forms of financial support are just as critical. Private school facilities reflect the success of the school 's development team and that of the school to continue to generate alumni support. Some private K-12 schools have facilities and amenities which surpass those found at many colleges and universities. Hotchkiss and Andover, for example, have libraries and athletic facilities on a par with those at Brown and Cornell. They also offer academic and sports programs which make full use of all those resources. It is hard to find comparable facilities in the public sector. They are few and far between. Public schools also reflect the economic realities of their location. Wealthy suburban schools will have more amenities than inner city schools as a rule. Think Greenwich, Connecticut versus Detroit, Michigan, for example. So, who has the edge? Let 's call it a draw, all things considered. Class Size According to the NCES report Private Schools: A Brief Portrait private schools win out on this issue. Why? Most private schools have small class sizes. One of the key points of private education is individual attention. You need student to teacher ratios of 15:1 or better to achieve that goal of individual attention. On the other hand a public system has to take almost anyone who lives within its boundaries. In public schools you will generally find much larger class sizes, sometimes exceeding 35-40 students in some inner city schools. At that point teaching rapidly degenerates into babysitting. Teaching Public sector teachers are generally better paid. Naturally compensation varies widely depending on the local economic situation. Put another way, it 's cheaper living in Duluth, Minnesota than it is in San Francisco. Unfortunately low starting salaries and small annual salary increases result in low teacher retention in many public school districts. Public sector benefits have historically been excellent; however, health and pension costs have risen so dramatically since 2000 that public educators will be forced to pay or pay more for their benefits. Private school compensation tends to be somewhat lower than public. Again, much depends on the school and its financial resources. One private school benefit found especially in boarding schools is housing and meals. Private school pension schemes vary widely. Many schools use major pension providers such as TIAA-CREF Both public and private schools require their teachers to be credentialed. This usually means a degree and a teaching certificate. Private schools tend to hire teachers with advanced degrees in their subject over teachers who have an education degree. Put another way, a private school hiring a Spanish teacher will want that teacher to have a degree in Spanish language and literature as opposed to an education degree with a minor in Spanish. Budgets Since local property taxes support the bulk of public education, the annual school budget exercise is a serious fiscal and political business. In poor communities or communities which have many voters living on fixed incomes, there is precious little room to respond to budget requests within the framework of projected tax revenue. Grants from foundations and the business community are essential to creative funding.Private schools on the other hand can raise tuition, and they also can raise significant amounts of money from a variety of development activities, including annual appeals, cultivation of alumni and alumnae, and solicitation of grants from foundations and corporations. The strong allegiance to private schools by their alumni makes the chances of fund-raising success a real possibility in most cases. Administrative Support The bigger the bureaucracy, the harder it is to get decisions made at all, much less get them made quickly.The public education system is notorious for having antiquated work rules and bloated bureaucracies. This is as a result of union contracts and host of political considerations.Private schools on the other hand generally have a lean management structure. Every dollar spent has to come from operating income and endowment income. Those resources are finite. The other difference is that private schools rarely have teacher unions to deal with. ConclusionSo, who comes out on top? Public schools or private schools? As you can see, there are no clear-cut answers or conclusions. Public schools have their advantages and disadvantages. Private schools offer an alternative. Which works best for you? That 's the real question which you have to answer. Resources * A Brief Profile of America 's Private Schools * Class Size Matters * Private Schools: A Brief Portrait * School Redesign * School Size Matters * Teacher Compensation Surveys About Schools * Private Schools in a Minute * 5 Reasons to Attend Private High School * Private vs Public SchoolsChoosing Schools * Choosing A Prep School * Can I Choose a School on My Own? * Where Do I Start?Finding Schools * Private School Finder * Private School Profiles * GuidebooksRelated Articles * Teaching at Private Versus Public Schools - Public School Compared to Priva... * Public vs. Private Schools - Teaching in Public vs. Private Schools * Private versus Public Schools * Public School Students Outperform Private School Students in Math * what do private school teachers earn?AdsFree Resume TemplatesResume-Templates.Resume-Now.comAmerica 's #1 Resume Templates. Build A Perfect Resume. 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Get AppRelated Searches greenwich connecticut inner city schools economic realities teacher ratios colleges and universities twin enginesExplore Private SchoolsMust Reads * How to Pick the Best School * Prepare for Private School Interviews * Choosing a Special Education School * Advantages of Single-Sex Private Schools * How to Pay for Private SchoolMost Popular * Starting a Private School * Top U.S. Boarding Schools * Top New York City Schools * Private School Teacher Salaries * Private vs Public SchoolsSee More About: * private vs public schools * private and public schools comparedBy Category * About Private Schools * Choosing a School * U.S. Schools * School Profiles * Affording a School * Getting Into a School * For Parents * For Students * International Schools * Starting a SchoolPrivate Schools 1. About.com 2. Education 3. Private Schools 4. Starting a School 5. Running Your School 6. Employment 7. Free Advice 8. Private vs Public Schools - Private and Public Schools Compared * Advertise on About.com * Our Story * News * SiteMap * All Topics * Reprints * Help * Write for About * Careers at About * User Agreement * Ethics Policy * Patent Info. * Privacy Policy * Your Ad Choices©2013 About.com. All rights reserved. Secondary school: Private vs. Public * Home * Articles of Interest * Surveys * Statistics * Discussion & Conclusions * Sources Cited * About MeThe figures below are based off 25 responses to a survey of ten questions, the respondents are University of Notre Dame undergraduates.Did you attend a public or private institution of secondary education?When compared to the percentage of schools that private secondary institutions represent, about 25%, this statistic shows an above average number of students from private schools in attendance at the University of Notre Dame. The observed 56% of students coming from private secondary schools is surprising, especially in comparison to the other survey on this site. However, many factors must be taken into account, such as the small sample size (25 students). Also, Notre Dame, being a catholic institution, inevitably attracts more applicants from catholic backgrounds, especially those taught in catholic schools, which belong to the category of private institutions. Rate your High school (in terms of curriculum, faculty, and facilities).This figure shows that a greater number of students from private schools regard the curriculum, faculty and facilities of their High school as being the best possible, relative to students from public schools. However, it should be noted that not one respondent regards their school negatively. This suggests that while private institutions may be regarded more highly by their students, those at ND hailed from very good secondary schools, regardless of their denomination. Rate the quality of your secondary education as it applies personally.Here, private institutions evoked a more positive response in terms of what the student took away from the experience. While absolute comparisons and conclusions cannot be made from this survey, this questions at least suggests a slightly more confident mindset on the part of the private-schooled student.As a HS student, rate your confidence in your academic prowess. Here the figures from Public and Private-schooled students look almost identical. A trend is developing in that the students that were surveyed are currently at Notre Dame, as such they performed well in during their years in secondary school. Just as every student surveyed considered their school to be either the "best" or "good" in terms of the facility, Every student surveyed was a confident, successful student in High school. As a HS student, rate your motivation in academic pursuits.Motivation among students at Notre Dame is likewise high, no matter the secondary education. The trend has now expanded to show that generally, Notre Dame students attended quality High schools and were both effective and motivated students. However, based on the numbers of respondents in the survey a slight edge in motivation is given to students from public schools, this however is a weak suggestion based on the current data. Rate the level of influence your parents imposed upon you towards academics. The data clearly shows that students who attended private schools received a greater degree of influence to perform academically from their parents. This can be explained by a multitude of factors. Firstly, students attending a private school are likely to come from families who place a greater emphasis on education. Students who attend a private school may do so if the public schools in their area aren 't as strong, suggesting this greater parental emphasis on education. Also, private schools require the payment of tuition, parents are most likely to push for academic success so that their investment in their child 's education is not spent carelessly. There are both positives and negatives to this trend. Less influence from parents, as in the case of those students from public schools can create a situation in which the student is self motivated and self sufficient. Earlier data showed that there is no appreciable difference in the motivation levels between students at Notre Dame from public or private school backgrounds. Rate your confidence as a student when you first arrived at ND.While both groups of students were very confident with their academic performance during High school, a divergence from this trend is seen when applied to the Notre Dame setting. Students who attended private school were generally more confident of their academic ability when first arriving on campus. This could be a result of more rigorous coursework in private schools. Likewise, it could be a result of presentiments on the quality of private school education and the mindset it instills on a student. Rate how well your HS provided the resources for academic success for those who sought them. With this figure we perhaps arrive at the crux of the issue. As Notre Dame students, every respondent was inherently successful during HS. The more important question then becomes, what of the student body at every school who were not as motivated, talented, lucky, or successful as those who made it here? When surveyed, students attending private schools felt that their school more effectively provided resources to students who sought them, not just the typical ND student, but every student in between. Rate how much you had to adjust to the rigor of collegiate courses. This figure again speaks in favor of Private schools. The data shows that private-schooled students generally felt that their adjustment to collegiate level courses here at Notre Dame was less severe than those who attended public schools. This could either be attributed to a greater level of confidence or simply a more rigorous curriculum in private schools, either way it shows an instance of clear benefit in attending a private secondary school. As a HS student were you towards the top of your class?Again, the trend among Notre Dame students continues in that no matter the secondary school, the student body of Notre Dame finished towards the top of the class. Did you take full advantage of your opportunities in HS, did you work your hardest?The similarity between the graphs here again shows that Notre Dame students were very motivated and took advantage of opportunities in order to be successful during their High school years. I believe that the trend that has been demonstrated here would be true for any University of similar caliber. Do you believe an individual 's life-path is partially dependent on their origins? Both groups believe that one 's origins have an impact on their success during life. However, both groups qualified their responses in the open-ended sections by stating that while origins can supplement one 's success in life, one 's odds are never insurmountable. Respondents generally stated that a combination of hard-work and natural talent can lead to success no matter who they are or where they are from. Create a free website with FIND SCHOOLS NOW: Boarding Schools | Montessori Schools | Private Preschools | Special Needs Schools | Christian Schools | Military Schools | Ontario Private Schools | BC Private Schools | | | | | PRIVATE SCHOOLS | CAMPS | PROGRAMS | EVENTS | VIDEOS | BLOG | COMMUNITY | EXPOS | E-BOOKS | ADVICE GUIDE | SCHOOL LOCATOR | TYPES OF SCHOOLS | APPLYING TO SCHOOL | PAYING FOR SCHOOL | | Private Schools, Public Schools | Use our search to find private schools | | | | | | | | | Top of FormBottom of Form | Need more options? Advanced School Search | | | | | | | | Private Schools Vs. Public Schools | You want to give your child the best but you also have income constraints to think of. So how do you choose between private schools versus public schools? Put another way, how do you decide private education is really worth it? Here 's a rundown of issues pertaining to private schools vs. public schools in North America: Private school tuition vs. public school taxesEveryone pays taxes, so you are already supporting the public school system. Why pay for both, you might ask yourself? The fact is that in numerous provinces and states, you can get tax breaks when you send your child to private school over a public school. This tax break can come in many different forms depending on what state or province you are in. Schools Near You • Schools in BC• Alberta Private Schools• Prairies Private Schools• Ontario Private Schools• Quebec Schools• Maritimes Private Schools• US Private Schools | More About Private Schools • Private School Financial Aid• Ranking Private Schools• Paying for Private School• Private School Grants• Private School Scholarships• Private School vs Homeschooling• Schools Requiring the SSAT |
Most private school parents view the "dollars and cents question" as a materialistic reduction. For example, for Jewish or Christian parents, a private school that bolsters religious faith offers something invaluable. Parents of Waldorf or Montessori school students feel much the same.Depending on what kind of private school you decide on, tuition can range from $4,000 per year up to more than $100,000. Public school costs nothing, of course. Is it more important to you to spend the money on private school tuition versus having money to treat your kids well in other respects? How much are you willing to sacrifice? Do you think the best things in life are free – or do you believe you get what you pay for? Private schools admittance vs. public school admittancePrivate schools are allowed to expel students and can choose not to allow certain students admittance. In fact, many private schools are difficult to get into. Public schools allow all students, regardless of religious creed, academic abilities or any other factor. Sending you child to a private school means enrollment is selective and demands are uniformly higher versus a public school where they will be exposed to a wider variety of people and abilities. In today 's world, both are likely to incorporate students from various cultures and backgrounds. Student population at private vs. public school In most areas, your children will attend public school with other kids from the same area. However, a number of states are moving toward a policy where you can request a change if you desire. When parents choose a private school, they often do so based on their desire to give their children a specific peer group, whether that is based on discipline, cultural or religious background, or philosophical beliefs. In most private schools, students are excluded or expelled if they do not adhere to the school 's policies or standards. Interested in private schools? Go to our private school search engineClass size in public vs. private schoolsOvercrowding of public school classrooms is one of the most common complaints about the public education system, a significant problem that inspires parents to seek private school alternatives. School governanceBecause they do not use public funds (or in some areas, less funds), private schools are not as restricted in their program development or curricula. Private schools are not subject to budget limitations imposed by the state (although, they may in fact, have more restrictive limitations).This freedom allows private schools to develop their own curricula. As long as parents agree with the intellectual, philosophical or religious basis brought to the curricula, this independence from 'government interference ' is seen as a great advantage of private schools over public. On the other hand, public schools use curricula designed to include all students, thus invoking in them a tolerance for others. Learning in both public and private schools is measured through standardized testing. Teacher certification in private school vs. public All teachers in public schools in almost all states and provinces in North America are required to have some form of federal, state or provincial certification along with a bachelor 's degree. In the more prestigious private and boarding schools, there are likely to be teachers who are much more highly qualified, with graduate degrees and higher level awards. Actual teacher certification on a state-by-state or province-by-province basis varies and is always being revised, so blanket statements are not helpful or appropriate. Public school vs. private: quality of educationPrivate school and public school administrators and educators all do their best to create the best learning environment possible. There are excellent public schools and there are excellent private schools. In Canada, the Fraser Institute ranks schools, often finding favour with private schools, although it does highly rank some public schools. In the USA, the situation is similar: there are good public schools but many of the best overall schools are privately funded. A study by Harvard University found that private school students averaged higher than their public school counterparts in standardized tests in 11 of 12 comparisons of students.In the final analysisAs a parent, you need to decide for yourself. Visit schools and see what the schools and teachers are like. We think the option of private school makes all schools better and gives parents alternatives they may certainly want to pursue in finding the right education for their children. Ourkids.net lists private schools from across North America and Europe. Start a deeper investigation of North American private schools right now, using our private school search engine. | | | | | Like our articles and advice? Get insider tips about private schools and summer camps, for free. | Private Education Focus: |
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Home > Articles > Evaluating Public Schools > Public vs. Private Schools
Public School vs. Private School
Published December 04, 2007 | by Grace Chen
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Know the issues involved when considering public versus private schools. Read more about these considerations in this article.
As a parent, you’re always looking out for your children, trying to make the best decisions for them and their futures. When it comes to schooling, parents often have to work out whether to send their children to private school or keep them in public school. Hopefully this article will help you decide which school is best for your family. We’ll first talk generally about some of the different factors that impact decisions regarding public and private schools. Then we’ll go over some national statistics regarding public and private schools. Finally we’ll leave you with a conclusion that should help you decide what is best for you. Factors affecting Private versus Public school decisions Public schools are schools that are provided by state and federal funding. Ninety percent of the children today in America attend public school. Private schools include both parochial schools and non-parochial schools. According to a special report published by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) in 2002, in 1999–2000, approximately 27,000 private schools accounted for 24 percent of all schools in the US and 12 percent of all full-time-equivalent teachers. Clearly, there are many more public schools that provide education to American students than their private counterparts. Usually when considering private versus public school, parents will have one or more factors that concern them. When looking at public or private schools, the following factors come into play: * Academic reputation and college preparation * School size and Class size * Safety reputation * Special programs * Costs * Religious and Moral instruction * Location * Ideology
Academic reputation plays a big role when considering private versus public schools. School systems vary greatly in their academic reputation. For as many wonderful public schools that exist, there are also those that perform under the bar. Unfortunately for most families, children must go to the public school that their home is zoned in. Usually there is a perceived or statistically supported issue with a public school’s academic record that flags a parent’s concern and willingness to move their child into a private school. Private schools usually have a more rigorous academic reputation. But within the public school system, Charter Schools and Magnet schools both blur the distinction between public and private schools. Related to the academic reputation is the focus of the school on college preparation. Within the public school system, the percent of children that go on to college differs depending on the location of the school. You can’t lump all the schools together. However, you can look at the school’s overall focus and whether it is on college preparation or not (and whether that is your shared focus). School Size and Class Size can be correlated to a school’s ability to execute on its academic goals. Basically, when a school gets too big, it can become burdensome to administer. Students and programs may fall into the cracks. But a school that is too small may not have enough money to support specialized programs. Class size is another factor that parents will look into when considering private or public school. How many children will the classroom teacher be responsible? What is the overall student to teacher ratio? Usually, the smaller the class size, the more attention each individual student will receive. Safety at school and the general school environment is another factor that parents use to decide whether or not to keep their children in public school or move them into private school. Many public schools have perfectly safe environments, yet in some school districts, children may be safer in private schools. Some of this may have to do with the fact that private schools may pick and choose who they enroll, therefore keeping their classroom milieu safer. Special programs impact parents in two different ways when considering private versus public schooling. Because public schools have a responsibility to teach all students, public schools often have in place special programs for children with special needs (whether it is academically or mentally). Private schools, while they may have special programs for gifted students, will rarely have programs for children with special needs unless that is what the private school specializes in. There are also other kinds of special programs, for example, ones that specialize in the arts. Military, boarding, and single-sex programs are usually only found in a private setting. Cost is another important factor that impacts the private school versus public school decision. Simply put, private schools charge tuition whereas public schools are offered free of charge. For many parents, this is the hardest factor with which to come to terms. A factor that plays a large role in parents deciding whether to send their children to public or private school is whether or not they want religious and or moral instruction to play a part of their children’s academic setting. Overall, religious and moral instruction does not play a part of public schooling. Location is as important a factor as any other when considering whether to enroll your children in a public school or a private school. For public schools, you are either within the zoning district of the public school you want or not. If you are, then you don’t need to worry about anything. If you aren’t, you’ll need to consider whether relocating your family is desirable and feasible in order to get your children enrolled in your public school of choice. For private schools, you’ll need to consider if the location is feasible for your family. Public schools provide transportation to and back from schools. Private schools may or may not. Finally, for many families, a final factor that impacts their decision making process is their ideology regarding private schools or public schools, classism, elitism, etc. Parents are not usually on the fence about this factor. They either believe that going to private school is okay or they believe that going to a public school is better in the theoretical sense. Private and Public School Statistics Now that we understand some of the main factors that families consider when deciding whether to enroll their children in private or public school, let’s look at the facts. Here are statistics on both private and public schools in America: * * Academic Programs Public schools offer a general program, designed for all. This usually includes math, English, reading, writing, science, history and physical education. In addition, many public schools offer programs in music and art too. What students learn is decided by the state. In most states, learning is measured through standardized tests. The content and minimum achievement criteria in each course offered in public high schools are put forward by the state and each student must achieve this minimum criterion before receiving credit. The charter school movement is also picking up momentum in many states; these schools are public, but offer specialized programs and smaller classes. There are not that many charter schools in the United States. According to the Center for Education Reform, there are approximately 3,400 public charter schools in America as of 2005. Charter schools are often closed if their students do not show academic progress. According to a report by educationnext.org, there were 3,100 magnet schools in America as of 2001/2002. Private schools have the flexibility to create specialized programs for students. For example, private schools may use art or science in all classes, or take children on outdoor trips. They can create their own curriculum and assessment systems, although many choose to use standardized tests. Many parents are drawn to the alternative curriculums that private schools have to offer. Private school students generally perform higher than their public school counterparts on standardized achievement tests. As with earlier results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), private school students performed higher than public school students on the NAEP: 2000 tests. Their average scores were above those of public school students on the 4th-grade reading test and on the 4th-, 8th-, and 12th-grade science and mathematics proficiency tests. Private high schools typically have more demanding graduation requirements than do public high schools. Compared with public schools, private schools required more coursework (in 4-year high school programs) in 1999–2000 in social studies, mathematics, science, foreign language, and computer science. For example private schools required on average 3.1 years of mathematics, while public schools required 2.7 years. The figures for foreign language study also differed: 1.5 years at private schools but 0.5 years at public schools. In addition, about 40 percent of private schools required some form of community service for high school graduation, four times the rate for public schools (10 percent). * School Financial Support System Public schools depend on government funds (local, state, and federal) and occasionally on funds from corporations and organizations. Private schools depend mainly on tuition fees and funds coming from non-public sources such as religious organizations, endowments, grants and charitable donations. Private schools can participate in federal breakfast and lunch programs, but they usually don’t need to. * School Size Public schools are, on average, at least twice the size of private schools, according to US Department of Education Data. School size usually correlates to the population density of the local area. The average private school had 193 students in 1999–2000. The average public school had 535 students in the same area. Another way to look at this is to see that 80percent of private schools have less than 300 students enrolled while only 29percent of public schools have less than 300 students enrolled. While smaller school size may be correlated to a more controlled academic setting, the flip side is that there is strength in numbers. Small schools, have some disadvantages as well such as providing a narrower set of programs and services. The smallest high schools may not be able to offer advanced courses because they have too few students, a shortage of qualified teachers, or both. Larger schools can often be set up to support specific groups within their student population (such as those requiring English as a Second Language targeted help). Overall, research is debatable over whether a smaller school size is correlated with a better academic setting. * Class Size Average class size in public schools is larger than private schools. Many states recognize the value of small classes and have provided funding to keep class sizes small in grades K-3. As students become older, class size tends to get bigger in public schools, especially in large school districts and urban schools. On average, private schools have smaller average class sizes and lower student/teacher ratios than public schools. The average class size reported by teachers was larger in public schools than in private. Teachers in Catholic schools had an average of 23 students in their classes. For public schools, teachers have an average of 24 students per class. Another aspect besides the actual class size is the student/teacher ratio. This is different from the actual classroom head count because a school may have extra teachers that help set up programs or help with special coursework. Private schools average 13 students per teacher, compared with an average of 16 students per teacher in public schools. Another way to look at this is to see how many schools have a student/teacher ratio less than 10. Thirty-six percent of private schools have a student/teacher ratio lower than 10 to 1. Only 10 percent of public schools have student/teacher ratios lower than 10 to 1.If you feel your child would learn better in a smaller setting, then you’ll need to look towards private school. If, however, you child works well in larger groups, public school may be the way to go. * Quality of teachers Teachers in public schools are state certified, which means that they have gone through the training required by the state including student teaching and coursework. They are required to hold college degrees and to be licensed by the state. Public schools cannot terminate the terms of their teachers abruptly. After completing a probationary period, teachers are granted tenure by law. They cannot be dismissed without first going through a twelve-month rehabilitation period. This too, can only be done after a public hearing in which charges of incompetence or misconduct must be proven. On the other hand, private school teachers may not be required to have certification, and often have subject area expertise and a degree in the subject they teach. Private schools have their own personnel requirements. Private schools can terminate the terms of their teachers abruptly. Schools are free to deal with personnel matters. * Level of Education Most schools—61 percent of private and 71 percent of public—were elementary. Ten percent of private schools and 25 percent of public schools were secondary. Finally, a higher proportion of private schools (30 percent) combined education levels (usually grades K–12 or 1–12), compared with only 4 percent of public schools. Usually public schools are broken out due to their size. If having your child around kids that are much older or younger bothers you, you may have an easier time finding a public school that meets your needs than a private school. * Special needs Another aspect that needs attention is regarding children with special needs. Special education laws make it mandatory for public schools to educate and meet the special needs of these children. Therefore, most of the public schools have special programs and teachers for these students. Public school systems often will have specialized schools to support children with multiple special needs. Private schools on the other hand, have no such obligation; most private schools do not have special education programs or teachers. However, there are private schools that cater specially to special needs. If your child has a special need, you’ll need to research your options to determine whether public or private school best suits your child at this time. * Obligations Public schools are obligated by law to educate all children, so to enroll in a public school you simply register your child by filling out the necessary forms. Public schools must accept any resident student who applies for admission, regardless of sex, race, religious affiliation, economic status or physical or mental handicap. Public schools must also meet state graduation requirements, which vary state by state. Public schools can kick children out if their behavior is too disruptive; but the public school system will usually have in place an alterative school that the child will attend until they are no longer under the care of the public (18 years of age). Private schools are not obligated by any laws regarding admission. Therefore, private school admission is competitive. Also, private schools are not required to provide educational programs for children with special needs. Private schools are also under no obligation to keep a student enrolled. If a child’s behavior disrupts the school’s milieu, they can be kicked out. Another scenario to keep in mind is that if a child’s academic progress is not acceptable, they may be kicked out as well. Graduation requirements for private schools are decided by each school and are not subject to any state requirements. Many private schools do choose to align themselves with private school associations which will mandate graduation requirements. * School admissions In public schools, all students are admitted. In private schools, students must apply and then are invited to enroll. * Cost Cost is another important factor that helps in deciding the type of school parents want to send their children to. State Constitutions prohibits public schools from charging residents any form of tuition or other fees for materials, supplies, textbooks or transportation. On the other hand, private schools do not receive tax revenues but are funded through tuition, donations and private grants. Therefore, private schools cost more than the public schools. According to National Association of Independent Schools, the median tuition fee for private day schools in the United States is close to $12,000 for grades 1 to 3, $13,000 for grades 6 to 8 and $15,000 for grades 9 to 12. The median tuition fee for boarding schools is $12,000 for grades 1 to 3, $27,000 for grades 6 to 9, and $28,000 for grades 9 to 12. Fees in parochial schools are a little less. Another study found that parochial schools cost $4,200 a year while other private schools charge $8,500 per student. One thing to consider however, is the location of public schools. That is, better funded public schools are usually found where the average housing costs are higher than in neighboring zip codes. That said, although public school is free, you may find yourself paying more out of pocket to live in a specific school zone. * Support services Public schools are required to provide academic and health-related services under Federal and state laws. More schools provide extended-day programs. Free and reduced-price meals must be provided to all qualified low-income students. Private schools are permitted, but not required, to participate in the federal lunch and breakfast programs. * Religious affiliation Not all but many private schools are religiously affiliated. Public schools are not religiously affiliated. In a study of private schools in 1999-2000, seventy-nine percent of all private schools were found to have a religious affiliation. Thirty percent were affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church and 49 percent with other religious groups. The remaining 22 percent were nonsectarian. Although Catholic schools accounted for 30 percent of the total number of private schools, they enrolled 48 percent of all private school students. Public schools do not have a religious affiliation. * Location Most private schools were located primarily in central cities (42 percent) and the urban fringe or large towns (40 percent). Only 18 percent of private schools were found in rural areas. In contrast, 24 percent of all public schools were in central city locations, 45 percent in the urban fringe or large towns, and 31 percent in rural areas. * Demographic characteristics of students Student populations vary on race/ethnicity, and limited-English proficiency status. In 1999–2000, 77 percent of all private school students were White, compared with 63 percent of all public school students. The private school sector as a whole had lower proportions of Black and Hispanic students than the public school sector as a whole. Public schools were more likely than private schools to have any minority students in 1999–2000, as well as to have high concentrations of minority students (more than 30 percent). Although many private schools had a racially diverse student body, about 14 percent had no minority students, compared with only 4 percent of public schools. Private schools are less likely than public schools to enroll students who are eligible for the National School Lunch Program. The eligibility rate for the National School Lunch Program is a reasonable proxy for the incidence of school poverty in public schools but a less reliable measure in private schools. Approximately 25 percent of private school respondents in 1999–2000 did not know whether any of their students were eligible. Virtually all public schools (99 percent) had students eligible for subsidized lunches, about twice the percentage for private schools (49 percent). Among schools participating in the subsidized lunch program, 42 percent of students at public schools and 10 percent at private schools, on average, were eligible. * Governance Public schools are governed by local, state, and federal laws including specifics about funding, program development and curriculum. Public schools are required to operate for a minimum of 180 days as per the compulsory attendance law. In addition, public school teachers must be employed for at least 16 days beyond the school term. Private schools are not subject to as many state and federal regulations as public schools. They are not subject to the limitations of state education budgets and have more freedom in designing curriculum and instruction. Private schools are required to operate for a minimum of 170 days as per compulsory attendance law. There is no regulation on employing a private school teacher beyond the school term. * Teacher’s Impact and Perception For most teaching practices—selecting teaching techniques, evaluating and grading students, disciplining students, choosing course content and skills to teach, and selecting textbooks and materials—private school teachers were more likely than public school teachers to report having a lot of influence on school policymaking. In four areas of school policy linked closely with teaching—establishing curriculum, setting student performance standards, setting discipline policy, and evaluating teachers—the sector differences were substantial. For example, 68 percent of private school teachers said they had a lot of influence on establishing curriculum, compared with 44 percent of public school teachers. In addition, private school teachers were more likely than public school teachers to say that they had a lot of influence on setting student performance standards (63 versus 38 percent) and on student discipline policy (48 versus 30 percent).
Conclusion

In conclusion, you will find that there is no overall right or wrong answer regarding whether private or public school education is best for children today. The best thing to do when making this decision is to consider the factors and weigh which ones are important to you. Many people are so polarized around the option of having a religious affiliation that this may be the only thing important to you. For others, the costs of private school rule it out outright for them. In addition to working out what is important to you, you’ll need to arm yourself with real numbers and information regarding the public and private schools that you are considering for your children. Go to the schools and get numbers. Finally, start early. Most private schools begin their open house and enrollment processes the year before the school year. Don’t wait until summer to consider where to place your child.
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Private Schools Open In Afghanistan
By Armen Hareyan G+ 2009-05-09
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With the Taliban-era ban on girls from attending school still fresh in the minds of Afghans, the country 's education system can already boast that nearly 40 percent of students are girls. Since the authorities opened the way for private investment into Afghanistan 's education system nearly two years ago, more than 300 private schools have opened, from Kabul to remote provinces.
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* Society
Parents ' welcoming of private schools is seen by many Afghans as a further sign of growing stability and optimism for a better future.
Maftah is the first private school in Afghanistan 's northern Parwan Province. But its history is brief, having opened its doors only two months ago.
Enrollment fees, at $15 per month, are beyond the reach of most Afghans, but the presence of 300 children at the school shows that a number of families have decided it is worth the price.
The school claims it can offer better teaching facilities, and more qualified teachers than public schools.
And Samiullah, a 10-year-old student who attended a public school before enrolling in Maftah, says he notices the difference.
"Our teachers work hard with us. They are very strict," he says. "In public school, teachers don 't try hard. My parents put me in private school so I could learn more."
Since the authorities opened the way for private investment into Afghanistan 's education system nearly two years ago, more than 300 private schools have opened from Kabul to remote provinces.
Success Story
And not all parents who have enrolled their children at Maftah are wealthy.
Parwan resident Hajji Rahmatullah says he saved money and took up extra work to cover the costs of his son 's private education. He views it as an investment in his son 's future.
"A month ago, I brought my son to private school, and I can already see during that one month that my son 's schoolwork has improved," Rahmatullah says.
The emergence of private schools, the majority of which are secular, and parents ' eager interest in educating their children is seen by many as a sign of growing stability and optimism for the future.
Only eight years ago there wasn 't a single secular school in Afghanistan, and those who were able to receive an education attended religious schools. All the students -- less than half a million per year -- were boys, since girls were completely banned from schools by the hard-line Taliban regime.
This academic year, more than 7 million children are attending Afghanistan 's nearly 9,000 schools -- both private and public, with both systems boasting that girls make up 35-40 percent of their enrollment.
The revival of Afghanistan 's education system, especially girls ' return to schools, is considered one of the biggest achievements of the Afghan government that came to power after the defeat of the Taliban in 2001.
Violent Opposition
However, success has come at a dear cost. In volatile southern and eastern areas, militants have set fire to schools and have attacked teachers and students as soft targets.
More than 60 schools have been burned down in the past year, and some 650 more have been closed down due to the lack of security.
In a shocking example of the extreme lengths those opposed to girls ' education will take, two attackers sprayed acid on the faces of several female students in southern Kandahar last year, causing severe burns to their faces and arms.
By Farangis Najibullah http://www.rferl.org/content/Afghan_Private_Schools_Seen_As_Sign_Of_Hope_Optimism/1624801.html Copyright (c) 2008. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. *
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Afghan Private Schools Seen As Sign Of Hope, Optimism * Print * Comment (1) * Share:

With the Taliban-era ban on girls from attending school still fresh in the minds of Afghans, the country 's education system can already boast that nearly 40 percent of students are girls. * * * * *
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By Farangis Najibullah
May 09, 2009
Maftah is the first private school in Afghanistan 's northern Parwan Province. But its history is brief, having opened its doors only two months ago.

Enrollment fees, at $15 per month, are beyond the reach of most Afghans, but the presence of 300 children at the school shows that a number of families have decided it is worth the price.

The school claims it can offer better teaching facilities, and more qualified teachers than public schools.

And Samiullah, a 10-year-old student who attended a public school before enrolling in Maftah, says he notices the difference.

"Our teachers work hard with us. They are very strict," he says. "In public school, teachers don 't try hard. My parents put me in private school so I could learn more."

Since the authorities opened the way for private investment into Afghanistan 's education system nearly two years ago, more than 300 private schools have opened from Kabul to remote provinces.

Success Story

And not all parents who have enrolled their children at Maftah are wealthy.

Girls take a university admission test in Kabul.
Parwan resident Hajji Rahmatullah says he saved money and took up extra work to cover the costs of his son 's private education. He views it as an investment in his son 's future.

"A month ago, I brought my son to private school, and I can already see during that one month that my son 's schoolwork has improved," Rahmatullah says.

The emergence of private schools, the majority of which are secular, and parents ' eager interest in educating their children is seen by many as a sign of growing stability and optimism for the future.

Only eight years ago there wasn 't a single secular school in Afghanistan, and those who were able to receive an education attended religious schools. All the students -- less than half a million per year -- were boys, since girls were completely banned from schools by the hard-line Taliban regime.

This academic year, more than 7 million children are attending Afghanistan 's nearly 9,000 schools -- both private and public, with both systems boasting that girls make up 35-40 percent of their enrollment.

The revival of Afghanistan 's education system, especially girls ' return to schools, is considered one of the biggest achievements of the Afghan government that came to power after the defeat of the Taliban in 2001.

Violent Opposition

However, success has come at a dear cost. In volatile southern and eastern areas, militants have set fire to schools and have attacked teachers and students as soft targets.

More than 60 schools have been burned down in the past year, and some 650 more have been closed down due to the lack of security.

In a shocking example of the extreme lengths those opposed to girls ' education will take, two attackers sprayed acid on the faces of several female students in southern Kandahar last year, causing severe burns to their faces and arms.

This girl was injured when suspected Taliban militants sprayed acid on a group of schoolgirlsin Kandahar last year.
The lack of security as well as the deeply conservative society 's traditions still force many parents in rural areas to keep their daughters out of schools. In villages, education officials reach out to elders and influential religious leaders to help persuade parents to send their daughters to schools. In many towns and villages, local councils have been set up to protect schools.

Such efforts "are paying off," according to Mohammad Siddiq Patman, Afghanistan 's deputy education minister, who says that "the number of parents who don 't support girls ' education have significantly dropped in the past year."

Even in Kandahar, where the infamous acid attack took place, the victims have returned to schools after receiving medical treatment, Patman says.

Lack Of Funding

Such developments are taken as a success, as is the increased number of private and public schools. But the country still needs thousands of new schools to accommodate all school-age children, and in most of Afghanistan 's 34 provinces, schools desperately seek qualified teachers.

According to Deputy Education Minister Patman, some schools have had to hire students from higher grades to fill teaching vacancies. He says his ministry depends heavily on foreign aid to train teachers, provide textbooks, and to build new schools and other facilities.

"Without foreign aid we wouldn 't even be able to pay our teachers ' salaries," Patman says. "We still need 7,000 new schools. We need at least 5,000 school laboratories. Many of our students still sit on the floor. We need desks and chairs for them. We need new buildings. We have to train qualified teachers. All of these require money and Afghanistan cannot finance this without international assistance."

On the issue of financing, private schools may hold some advantages over their public counterparts.

Abdul Wasir Mirzad, the owner and director of Maftah, founded the school in Parwan Province with $20,000 of his own money.

Convinced there will be no shortage of parents willing to pay for their sons ' and daughters ' education, Mirzad is already making plans to open several new schools in nearby provinces.

Radio Free Afghanistan correspondent in Parwan Province Ahmad Hanaesh contributed to this report * Print * Comment (1) * Share: * * * * *
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by: Timo Haapanen from: Finland
May 10, 2009 17:17
This is really great news, I wish the best of luck to Mirzad and his pupils... Only education will help Afghan people create a brave new country, and here the role of girls is of utmost importance. Apart from donations for building schools and buying equipment, foreign organizations should start sponsoring individual kids whose parents would be willing to send them to school but cannot afford it.

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