编译 | 经济学人：私人教育-阶级的分界线

原文出处：The Economist

不代表本平台观点

Governments should celebrate the boom in private education, not suppress it

政府应当鼓励而非打压私立教育的发展。

If spending is a measure of what matters, then the people of the developing world place a high value on brains. While private spending on education has not budged in real terms in the rich world in the past ten years, in China and India it has more than doubled. The Chinese now spend 5% of household income on education and the Indians 4%, compared with 2.5% for the Americans and 1% for the Europeans. As a result, private schooling, tuition, vocational and tertiary education are booming in developing countries.

如果增长是衡量某个事物重要性指标的话，那么发展中国家的人民最重视的无疑是对下一代的教育。发达国家在过去十年中，私立教育支出实际上没有显著变化，而在中国和印度等发展中国家，私立教育的支出则增加了一倍以上。中国人每年将5％的家庭收入用于教育支出，而印度人则达到4％，对比美国人仅为2.5％，欧洲人则为1％。因此，私立学校在发展中国家，随着整体行业的发展，学费和教育水平都水涨船高。

Since brainpower is the primary generator of progress, this burst of enthusiasm for investing in human capital is excellent news for the world. But not everybody is delighted. Because private education increases inequality, some governments are trying to stop its advance. That’s wrong, they should welcome it, but spread its benefits more widely.

知识是人类进步的阶梯，因此对私有教育不断增加的热情和投入，对世界来说是个好消息。但并非所有人都对此事持乐观态度。由于私立教育增加了社会的不平等性，某些政府正试图阻止其发展。虽然毫无疑问这是错误行为，他们应该欢迎私有教育并更广泛地传播它的优点。

Education used to be provided by religious institutions or entrepreneurs. But when governments, starting in Prussia in the 18th century, got into the business of nation-building, they realised they could use education to shape young minds. As state systems grew, private schooling was left to the elite and the pious. Now it is enjoying a resurgence, for several reasons. Incomes are rising, especially among the better off, at the same time as birth rates are falling. In China the former one-child policy means that six people—two parents and four grandparents—can pour money into educating a single child. The growth of the knowledge economy means that the returns to education are rising at the same time as the opportunities available to those without any schooling are shrinking.

过去教育是由宗教机构或资本家出资提供。但当18世纪普鲁士政府开始建设自己的国家时，他们意识到可以利用教育来影响年轻人的思想。随着国家制度的不断发展完善，私人教育被留给了精英和虔诚的人。现在，由以下几个原因导致它正在复苏。如在中国，出生率不断下降的同时，人民的收入却正在不断上升，尤其是在富裕人群中更加明显。中国的独生子女政策意味着六人——即两个父母和四个祖父母——可以为一个孩子的教育投入资金。知识费用的增长意味着，在受教育水平低的人获得的机会不断减少的同时，教育的回报也在增加。

All over the developing world, people want more or better education than governments provide. Where cities are growing at unmanageable speed, the private sector is taking up the slack. In India the private sector now educates nearly half of all children, in Pakistan more than a third, and in both countries the state sector is shrinking. Even where the state does pretty well, as in East Asia, richer people still want better schooling for their children than the masses get. Thus Vietnam, which has an outstanding state-school system for a poor country, measured by its performance in the OECD’s PISA test, also has the fastest-growing private sector.

在所有发展中国家，人们总是希望获得比政府提供的教育水平更好的教育。在城市以无法控制的速度增长的情况下，私立教育正在弥补这一缺陷。印度的私立学校几乎培养了印度一半的儿童，在巴基斯坦，这个数字超过了三分之一，这导致许多国家的公立教育都开始萎缩。甚至在公立教育最好的东亚，富有的人总是想要自己的孩子接受比一般民众更好的教育。因此，根据经济合作与发展组织（OECD）PISA测试的表现，越南作为其中排名靠前的落后国家，不光是因为有着出色的公立学校制度，更得益于飞速发展的私立学校。

In most ways, this is an excellent thing, because the world is getting more, and better, schooling. In rich countries, once the background and ability of the children who attend private schools are taken into account, their exam results are about the same as those in the state sector. But in developing countries private schools are better—and much more efficient. A study of eight Indian states found that, in terms of learning outcomes per rupee, private schools were between 1.5 times more cost-effective than state schools (in Bihar) and 29 times (in Uttar Pradesh). 

对于大多数人来说，这是一件很棒的事情，因为世界正因此在变得越来越好，学习条件也因而变好。在发达国家，考上私立学校的孩子的背景和能力，与公立学校的考试成绩大致相同。但在发展中国家，私立学校却水平更好，效率更高。一项针对印度八个州的研究发现，就每卢比的学习成果而言，私立学校的成本效益比公立学校（比哈尔邦）高出1.5倍，而在北方邦则为29倍。

But private schools also increase inequality. They tend to sort children by income, herding richer ones towards better schools that will enhance their already superior life chances and poorer ones towards shoddy establishments that will further undermine their prospects. That is one reason why many governments are troubled by their rise. Other reasons are less creditable — teachers’ unions, which often have a hold over governments, tend to oppose them, and their growth reduces politicians’ power. So for good and bad reasons, governments are squeezing private schools, banning profits, cutting or capping fees, and using regulations to close them or make their life difficult.

但私立学校也确实增加了不平等。他们倾向于按收入对儿童进行分类，将较富裕的儿童放在更好的学校，他们已经十分优越的生活条件将得到优秀的教育资源，而较贫穷的学生则倾向于较差的学校，这将进一步破坏他们的未来发展。这就是为什么许多政府对其崛起感到不安的原因之一。还有其他可能并不足为外人道的原因 – 教师群体会往往对政府持有反对意见，而他们的成长会降低政治家的权力。因此，出于好的和坏的原因，政府正在挤压私立学校，没收利润，削减或限制费用，并使用法规来关闭它们或使他们的生活变得困难。

Governments are right to worry about private education’s contribution to inequality, but they are wrong to discourage its growth. The freedom to spend your money on improving your child’s potential is a fundamental one. Whether governments formally allow it or not, people will find ways of buying private education, by tutoring children out of school or bidding up the price of property near good state schools.

政府担心私立教育会影响社会不平等是对的，但是阻止其增长是错误的。花钱来改善孩子潜能的自由是一个基本问题。无论政府是否正式允许，人们都会采取购买私立教育的方法，通过放学后请家教辅导孩子或者提高公立学校附近的房产价格来达到目的。

Governments should instead focus on improving the public sector by mimicking the private sector’s virtues. Freedom from union power and independent management are at the root of its superior performance and greater efficiency. Governments should therefore do their best to weaken unions and give school principals more autonomy to innovate and to fire under performing teachers.

相反，政府应该通过学习私营部门的优点来集中精力改善公共部门的不足。如削减工会独立管理的权利使其可以通过绩效以达到更高效率的目的。因此，政府应该尽力削弱工会，让学校校长有更多的自主权进行改革和创新，以及解雇不负责任的教师。

To spread the benefits of private schools more widely, governments should work with them, paying for education through vouchers which children can spend in private schools, or paying privately managed schools to educate publicly funded children. These schemes do not always succeed, but Chile, Pakistan and the Netherlands have all demonstrated that big, properly designed and managed voucher systems can work well. Children in Chile, whose entire system is voucher-based, do better than in any other Latin American country for which the OECD collects data. But vouchers should be limited to non-selective schools that do not charge top-up fees; otherwise governments will find themselves subsidising the better off and increasing inequality.

为了更广泛地传播私立学校的好处，政府应该与他们广泛采取合作合作，通过儿童可以在私立学校接受教育的代金券来支付教育费用，或者支付私立管理的学校来教育公共资助的儿童。这些计划并不总是成功，但智利，巴基斯坦和荷兰都表明，大型、设计合理、管理良好的凭证系统可以很好地运作。智利的儿童，其整个系统都是以代金券为基础，经合组织收集的数据显示它比其他拉丁美洲国家做得更好。但优惠券应限于非选择性学校，不收取额外费用; 否则政府会发现自己的补贴加剧了不平等现象。政府应该停止他们对私立教育所做的行为，世界当前面临大量的问题，但私立教育会增加寻找解决方案的机会。

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西

野

点

评

　　国外关于教育的视角和观点不一定正确，但是对于我们的教育可以作为一个参考。

　　翻译这篇文章的本意并不是说同意或者反对这篇文章的观点，仅仅是将这篇文章的观点拿来给大家看看，目的是为了在我们自己的教育改革和发展中，怎样才能真正做到均衡教育，平衡教育资源，我们目前的教育体制和教育改革可以从哪个方向改，怎样做才能真正发挥我们自己的制度优势，这才是翻译这篇文章的意义所在。

　　不管怎样，我们拥有全世界最好的基础教育，但是我们的高等教育还有很大的发展空间，关于高校意识形态阵地存在的问题，也是需要关注的焦点。十年树木，百年树人，教育是国家大事，也是与每个家庭息息相关的民生事业。

　　希望我们的教育事业可以发展的越来越好，尽可能的减少走弯路，尽可能的趋近于公平，真正意义的实现人民教育人民办，人民教育为人民。

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英文来源@经济学人

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