Early childhood education vouchers were hastily created in Taipei and Kaohsiung in August 1998 as a "gift" to voters in that election year. Despite the effort, both Chen Shui-bian (
The debate over the pros and cons of the vouchers has been rekindled by KMT presidential candidate Lien Chan's (
The concept of such vouchers was first conceived of by Nobel-prize winning economist Milton Friedman and first implemented in Chile, when he was acting as economic advisor to military dictator Augusto Pinochet.
Vouchers are in use in a number of US states, despite opposition from the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers -- the largest organization of teachers in the country. Education vouchers has also been declared "unconstitutional" in a number of Californian school districts.
The First Amendment of the US Constitution rules that church and state must remain separate. Most private schools in the US are run by religious organiza-tions. Thus, government-issued vouchers were ruled to be a subsidy to religious groups. The dispute finally receded when the government decided to subsidize families instead of schools.
Presidential candidate George W. Bush, the current Texas governor, is in favor of education vouchers. He has proposed giving parents of Title I students trapped in persistently failing schools federal education dollars in a portable account to use in the school or program of their choice (from a selection of 440,000 schools). Bush proposes that parents apply for education vouchers of US$1,500 directly from the fund.
Democratic candidate Al Gore contends that Bush's proposal is too rash and radical and is an "ideological mistake," setting the stage for a heated future debate.
Unfortunately, education policy in Taiwan is guided by the demands of elections and the needs of special interest groups. The education vouchers in Kaohsiung and Taipei not only put public schools at a disadvantage, they also discriminate against low-income families (who are not eligible as they already receive children's subsidies).
In fact the purpose of the "children's subsidies" is to allow families to "raise" their children, while the education vouchers' goal is to help families "educate" their children. They should not be confused with one another. The rash education policies carried out in Kaohsiung and Taipei will only lead to further injustice and inequality in those cities.
Many people are concerned that education vouchers will take government education funds away from other projects. But money spent by the government on education should not be listed as an "educational expenditure" but rather as a "social welfare expenditure," as funds spent benefit families and not schools.
Education vouchers will not solve all the educational problems that children face. The movement to institute vouchers is a move by private educational institutions to protect their vested interests and a government attempt to cover up the fact it is unable to provide sufficient welfare benefits to all citizens.
A more positive way of dealing with the problem would be to revamp the entire educational system: raise the quality of teaching in nursery schools, standardize compensation for public and private school teachers and establish more nursery schools.
Chen Han-chiang is a professor at the Graduate School of Education at National Chengchi University.
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