Seriputra5

Salam.

Melalui IDEAS (salah satu institut pemikir) satu idea bagi membolehkan sekolah swasta berkembang dengan peruntukan kerajaan. Pada pandangan saya, idea ini sangat bagus kerana ianya membenarkan situasi menang-menang bagi semua pihak terlibat. Pihak swasta sudah tentunya gembira kerana pengambilan pelajar yang lebih ramai. Sekolah kerajaan pula boleh merasa lega akibat kesesakan yang berlaku sekarang (tengok sahaja di SK-BSP). Ibubapa, boleh memilih sekolah yang terbaik buat anak-anak mereka. Manakala guru pula berpeluang untuk memilih sama ada untuk bekerja dengan pihak swasta atau kerajaan tanpa mengadaikan minat mereka dalam bidang pendidikan.

Selain itu, pastinya ada juga yang mengatakan keburukannya seperti perebutan tempat ke sekolah yang terbaik sahaja. Tapi bayangkan jika semua sekolah adalah terbaik kerana wujudnya persaingan sihat, maka anak anda boleh sahaja dihantar ke mana-mana sekolah.

Khaiatbsp

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Open the school gates to the private sector

By Wan Saiful Wan Jan, for The Edge 4 June 2011

On Tuesday 31 May 2011, we organised a national conference on public-private partnerships (PPP) in the school system, in partnership with Razak School of Government. In addition to inputs from our founding president Tunku 'Abidin Muhriz, we also had local and international experts sharing their views, including from PEMANDU, Khazanah, CfBT Education Trust (UK) and the Asian Development Bank. Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin delivered a keynote address.

PPP is not totally new in Malaysia. Between 1983 and 2010, there were 510 privatisation and PPP programmes in various sectors including transportation, road, communications, health and energy. Under the Ninth Malaysia Plan alone, 22 projects with an estimated value of RM12 billion were undertaken via privatisation and PPP.

It seems certain that PPP will play a pivotal role in the future of our country. The government has made a commitment to further reduce its role in business, as part of the effort to make Malaysia a developed high income nation by 2020. It would be presumptuous to say that we are heading towards a 'limited government'. But the optimistic me is suggesting that the first of several thousand steps is now being put in place. Eventually, we should aim for a situation in which the government acts as a commissioner and facilitator rather than the operator of businesses.

The Tenth Malaysia Plan states that a wave of privatisation and PPP programmes will be implemented. 52 projects with an estimated value of RM62.7 billion is already being considered for implementation between now and 2015. I hope there will be more as we move forward.

When it comes to education, especially schools, PPP clearly has a big potential that is waiting to be realised. Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin announced on 10 December 2010, that those 10 schools have been placed under a pilot project for the Trust School Programme run by Yayasan Amir, which is a non-profit arm of Khazanah Nasional Berhad.

The Trust School Programme is an exciting one. The aim is to create new environment in which we can improve student outcomes and school performance. Under this partnership, Khazanah and Yayasan Amir play a major role to drive the implementation of the pilot project, while the Ministry of Education continues to regulate the framework, accept and assess sponsor applications, and monitor outcomes.

The success of this pilot is crucial for the future of PPP in Malaysia. And that is why I call Khazanah to be open and transparent about this pilot. They must disclose the performance of these schools annually so that the public can scrutinise their work. Engaging the public will help them get criticisms and suggestions from a wider section of society, which can only be a good thing. This is the time to be bold and brave, not secretive.
Many parties are sceptical about the involvement of private companies in delivering education. The most common reason is that such a move would push up costs and make schooling more expensive and beyond the reach of the poor. But this is a misconception of the very essence of liberalisation and market competition.

For example, we invited Norman LaRocque, Senior Education Specialist from Asian Development Bank to our school PPP conference last week. During our nasi kandar dinner, he gave me a new report by ADB and Unicef entitled "Non State Providers and Public Private Partnerships in Education for the Poor".

The research paper describes a variety of models how pro-poor policies can be executed effectively by involving the private sector. The paper even states that if we look at the experience of other countries globally, non-state providers are actually already serving a large and growing number of poor children.

Liberalisation of the education industry will not necessarily push up costs. Instead, if implemented properly, liberalisation will push quality up and costs down. If we have more private schools in Malaysia, the existing private schools would be forced to compete in terms of both quality and fees. That is the benefit of greater choice and competition.

The challenge for us is to identify a model that is suited for the Malaysia. Tan Sri Muhyiddin in his keynote speech at our conference alluded to a possible model. He said, "We must explore new methods and thinking so that an education model based on the concept of social enterprise can be introduced. Using this concept, a school could be managed by the private sector, but just like in the public sector, they will hold to a clear social aim and aspiration wherein surpluses are reinvested to ensure costs do not shoot up and quality can be continuously improved. This model will be universally beneficial to all sections of society, regardless of race, religion or geography."

At IDEAS, we are now looking at creating an education unit so that we can focus our research and advocacy in the area of private sector involvement in education. Models like social enterprise schools proposed by Tan Sri Muhyiddin are firmly in our agenda. We are also planning more researches in the areas of government funding for privately run schools, similar to the model now being practiced in many Scandinavian countries, as well as private schools for the poor like those in India, Ghana and China. There is not yet a concerted effort in this important area and hopefully we will be able to fill the gap. We would most welcome suggestions from readers.

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Wan Saiful Wan Jan is chief executive of the Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs. Slides from the School PPP Conference can be downloaded from the 'Publication' section on www.ideas.org.my