Supporters and detractors weigh the merits of a voucher system
By Crystal Yip, Sally Yip & Riki Ueda
Sandy Wong Prof. Tam Man Kwan is one of the supporters of the voucher system.
"We should introduce the the voucher system in Hong Kong," said Prof. Tam Man Kwan
of the Department of Educational Administration and Policy of The Chinese University of Hong Kong.
"The problem of the existing education system is the lack of motivation for improvement." Prof. Tam said overprotection by the government accounts for the problem.
"Under the current education system, there is not competition among schools. Government distributes a fixed amount of education funds to each institution regardless of their quality.
"As a result, neither the principals nor teachers have the incentives to improve the education quality of their schools."
According to Prof. Tam, parents and students with direct assistance from the government can enjoy the right to choose schools under voucher system.
Therefore, the more students enroll, the more funding the school will receive.
As a result, poorly performing schools will likely be motivated to improve their performance.
In other words, schools will compete with each other so as to attract a sustainable amount of students and thus ensure their finance and survival.
"Since only schools with more students can get more funding, they will be motivated to improve themselves.
"Consequently, the general education quality can be improved.
"And the overall educational performance will then be raised," Prof. Tam said.
However, Prof. Tsang Wing Kwong, also of the Department of Education Administration and Policy at the Chinese University, opposes the voucher system.
He said a voucher system would be unsuitable for Hong Kong.
"It would only be possible for a successful implementation of voucher system if the supply for school places is greater than the demand.
"One major proposed advantage of the voucher system is that students and parents are free to make a choice.
"But such a free floating market can be achieved only if there is more school places supply than the actual demand," Prof. Tsang said.
According to him, the greater supply than demand in school places is why a voucher system is applicable in some American states.
Yet, in Hong Kong, government fixes the supply of school places and there are only a limited amount of school places in each school.
Consequently, there are not be enough school places to fulfill all students’ needs if government adopts a voucher system.
Besides the insufficient supply of school places, Prof. Tsang pointed out another problem.
"Land, which is a fixed capital, is lacking in Hong Kong.
"At present, it is obvious that the demand for schools is larger than the supply."
To him, this is the greatest obstacle because the the further establishment of schools is greatly restricted.
In addition, the amount of travelling expenses is another significant consideration.
Because school dormitories are uncommon in Hong Kong, Prof. Tsang said that travel subsidies should also be included in vouchers, if a voucher system is to be implemented.
"Expensive travelling expenses may discourage students to choose schools which are far from their homes, though those schools provide high quality schooling.
"Students may then choose schools which are nearer to their homes but with worse performance.
"If so, the voucher system will become ineffective," said Prof. Tsang.
He also worries that unrestricted vouchers, under which students would receive an equal size voucher regardless of their family backgrounds, would be unfair to students from lower income groups.
Claiming to offer better education, some schools might charge additional school fees apart from the vouchers.
"This would then be unfair to students from poorer families as they can't afford to pay extra school fees for better education," said Prof. Tsang.
Some scholars do not agree that education can be defined as pure consumer goods, as the system proposes.
Prof. Chong Tai Leung of the Department of Economics of the Chinese University said that the voucher system was too ideal.
"The idea of the system is good. But it is not practical in reality.
"It commercializes education, regarding it as consumer goods.
"The greatest problem of the voucher system is that it assumes all students are hard working and would only 'consume' the education with highest quality.
"But this is not essentially true," said Prof. Chong.
He said that, based on his observations, students nowadays do not choose courses that teach them the most.
"There are different kinds of students. Some might want to learn more.
"But there are always some students who only aim at graduating by putting the least amount of effort.
"So, easy courses might be a popular choice instead of those that are more demanding," said Prof. Chong.
Similarly, if a voucher system is implemented, there will be competition among schools which may use different methods to attract students.
"Students will of course choose schools with better reputations. However, reputations can't be built up within days.
"So, for schools without good reputations, some of them may try to attract students by improving their quality.
"But for others, they may appeal to student by offering higher grades or lighter workloads."
According to Prof. Chong, two phenomena would be found in society as a result.
First of all, schools with good reputations would be filled with enthusiastic students.
Secondly, schools with lower requirements or offering higher grades would be popular among lazy students.
"It is assumed that market competition among schools can lead to a general improvement in education quality.
"Yet, in reality, a voucher system may lead to the lowering of quality, which certainly would violate its aims," said Prof. Chong.
There are also some other uncertainties that would worry the community if a voucher system were implemented.
"For instance, schools that are popular might receive much funding and other resources.
"They could then employ more teaching staff, expand the school campus or even establish branches.
"While for schools with lower quality, they would close down in face of financial difficulties.
"Eventually, a small number of reputed schools would monopolize the whole community," he said.
He added that students and parents would end up with a very limited choice.
Besides, a voucher system might hinder the long term development of schools.
Prof. Chong explained that under a voucher system, only schools with more students could exist. Therefore, if there were not enough students in a school, it might have to close down some classes and some teachers might have to be sacked.
However, it would be impossible for a school to close down classes this year and re-open it again the next year if there were enough students.
In addition, the quality of teachers would also be a problem.
If a school expands and employs more teachers, it is also difficult for it to ensure the quality.
He said, "A teacher doing well in a class of 40 students may have problem with of a class of 80.
"Education isn't a consumer good. After all, it is difficult to define what 'good education' is."
However, there are arguments supporting a voucher system: It may increase education freedom by giving school autonomy in their administration.
Prof. Tsang described the whole concept as an "autonomy fallacy".
"Many people criticize the current education system for not providing enough freedom to schools.
"However, according to the education reform proposed by the Education Department, greater funding and administrative flexibility to schools will be granted.
"For instance, schools are now receiving block grants from government. That means they receive a large sum of funding and they can spend the sum based on their own decision.
"Since the Education Department already agreed to devolve more authority to schools, education freedom is, in fact, granted in the current system," said Prof. Tsang.
"Therefore, I don't see any point to the argument that a voucher system can increase education freedom," added he.
There are also criticisms about the decline of local teachers' quality. Some people believe that a voucher system might improve teachers' quality.
This is because schools may try to pay more to reputed teachers in order to attract more students.
Concerning teacher quality, Prof. Chong, though opposed the voucher system, had different opinion.
"The most important issue for schools is to get the vouchers from students. As long as they can attract more students, they don't care whether the students perform well or not.
"So if a school wants to attract students with higher academic results, they will then employ more qualified teachers with higher salaries.
"But some schools may target students with poor academic performance. They will then lower the application or course requirements instead of improving teacher quality.
"Therefore, I don't think the voucher system can improve teacher quality," Prof. Chong said.
Another common criticism of the current education system is that it is too exam-oriented and cannot enhance students' analytical thinking.
Prof. Tsang argued that, even with the voucher system, the situation is not guaranteed to be changed.
"Students still have to take examinations as usual even with the voucher system.
"Students can also develop their own potential in other fields under the existing system.
"I don't see how the voucher system can change the current situation," Prof. Tsang said.
