Free Education
If economic productivity is our goal, should education be free?
“Free Education” is a highly emotive topic in Sri Lanka. In fact, for many it is a religion; sacrosanct — not to be questioned. There are also many, especially devotees of the Market Religion, who proselytize that the market should run education. Who is right? What is best? Should Education be Free?
Education is a topic far too complicated to be left in the hands of the simplistic religionists described above.
To start with Why Education? What is its purpose?
Why Education?
There is no simple answer. But since it is impossible to draft an article like this without some goal, I will restrict myself to just one of the goals of education, which for many and myself is the most important goal.
The most important goal of education is to provide individuals with a set of skills that will make them economically productive.
While the real “test” of whether or not education has succeeded in this respect, is how economically productive they said individuals are in the real world, most education systems also provide accreditations (also known as “pieces of paper”) which are believed to be correlated with future economic productivity.
If economic productivity is our goal, then should education be free?
“If you don’t pay for it, you are not the customer.”
If, like me, you accept this adage, then we see that there is an important difference between free education and paid education.
In free education, the “customer” is not the student. Because the student is not paying for the product. But then who is?
When in the 1940s, C. W. W. Kannangara and others were discussing significant reforms to Sri Lanka’s education system, many of the more progressive ideas were generally opposed by the social and economic elite of the time. However, there was a vocal minority of rich industrialists who supported the move, who realized that these reforms would benefit them. One claimed that within a generation, there businesses would be populated by workers skilled through free education. Sure enough, a quarter of a century later most of Sri Lankas private sector was worked and run by products of free education.
For me, these are the “customers” of the education system. Not just rich industrialists, but anyone who can benefit from the talents of a skilled workforce. And in an ideal scenario where the economy is equitable; this should be the whole country. Hence, in an ideal world, “the whole country” is the customer of education.
We discussed the “customer.” But let us consider the “product”.
Pieces of Paper
From what I said above, you might think that the product is “economically productive skills.” And this is indeed the primary product, and in a free education system, this is principally what the “customer” (i.e., the whole country) cares about and pays for.
But what about in a paid education system? When the customer is actually the student? Or their parents?
In theory, the primary product still exists. The customer does acquire an economically productive skill. And often, this acquisition is superior to that from many free education systems.
However, there is also a secondary product, i.e., the degree, the diploma, the accreditation, the certificate; or collectively, “the piece of paper.”
Too often, the customer doesn’t really care about the primary product as long as they get the secondary product. And since they’ve paid for it, they often demand it. And the market demands that supply obeys.
“Do as I do, not as I say.”
I don’t like to tell you what to do. Instead, let me tell you what I do.
I wouldn’t describe myself as a “rich industrialist.” That said, I do employ skilled individuals in economically productive activities, from time to time. And all else equal, I’d more often employ a product of free education.
Why? Two reasons.
Firstly, the correlation between academic performance (grades, classes, medals) and employment performance, is much stronger in candidates from a free system as opposed to a paid system (at least in my field — Computer Science). This is understandable given that in a paid university if the bar for a “first class” is too high, then the students can easily go to a different shop.
Secondly, it is easier to find an “excellent” employee (as opposed to one that is merely “good”) from a free system. “Excellent” is necessarily an outlier. And to catch outliers you have to cast your net wide. And if the net only covers rich kids, you’re going to miss a lot of excellent candidates.
Best in the world
The top universities in the world for Computer Science (my field) are all paid universities (at the time of writing, MIT, Berkeley, CMU, Stanford etc.). So, given the opportunity, would I not hire candidates from these places?
Of course, I would. And I have.
But every single candidate I’ve hired didn’t pay a dollar of tuition. They were funded entirely by scholarships and other merit based financial aid. And so, effectively, these top institutions provided free education for them. And hence, at least for these students and their like, these universities are able to reap the benefits of a free system, from broad intake to high standards.
(There is an unofficial saying at such elite universities: “Tuition is for losers” — which gives you some sense of what even paid establishments think of paid education.)
Tuition Types
Conversely, much of the “free education” one would see in Sri Lanka is not free. For example, most school children attending government schools patronize private tuition shops. Like paid education, these claim to guarantee supply of the secondary product of education: i.e., pieces of paper.
And similarly, I tend to be reluctant to hire people who look the “tuition type” — those who only seem to possess patterned, rote skills. Note — not everyone who’s gone for tuition, is a “tuition type.” Many students are good enough not to need tuition. They just go because their friends do, or because their parents are afraid.
Why is tuition so prevalent?
Part of the reason is definitely our herd instinct. But the other reason is severe underfunding of our free education system. Free education cannot work if it is insufficiently funded. And there is no point blaming it for its deficiencies, if its teachers are the lowest paid in the world, and its buildings are falling down.
Concluding Thoughts
I respect choice. For me, and for others.
Those who are happy with pieces of paper should have the option of procuring them from the market at the best price. And those who want to hire these people, for whatever reason, should also have the freedom to hire them.
And then there are people like me. And since you’ve read this article almost to its conclusion, likely people like you — People who have benefitted from Free Education in both Sri Lanka and overseas — People who continue to benefit from Free Education for others — The ideological descendants of that minority of industrialists who were brave enough and visionary enough to support free education.
If we want to continue to reap the economic rewards of free education, we need to make sure that the system survives.
And not only survives, but also thrives.
