KUALA LUMPUR: Around this time last year, I asked several contacts if they would be interested in partnering us on holding a national conference on school choice. All of them responded with a question: “What do you mean by school choice?” Not many people are familiar with the meaning of that phrase.

School choice is a concept that we in Malaysia do not usually talk about. In broad terms, it is about giving parents ownership and responsibility to choose and manage school education for their children.

The philosophy behind this concept is straightforward. We as parents are the ones responsible for the education of our children. Therefore, it is us who must decide which school our child goes to. This is one of the most important decisions we have to make because the school environment will have a big impact on the future of our children.

Not only must we be given the right to decide, we also have the responsibility to decide. How ironic is it that while we would not allow a stranger to hold our children’s hands to cross the road, we are indifferent when surrendering all power to Putrajaya to decide on the 11 years of education that our children will experience.

But assuming that we do want to be responsible parents, we are actually still powerless. It does not matter how much we love our children. If we live in the wrong area, we have no option but to send our children to a “bad” school. Thus, children in affluent areas usually get to go to better schools than those living in the rural areas. The current policy of forcing a postcode lottery is cruel. By denying parents the right to choose schools, we perpetuate education inequity.

Unless we can afford private school fees, our children are completely at the mercy of the education system. Perhaps the existence of private schools does provide a level of choice. But apart from some Islamic schools, almost all private schools in Malaysia use differentiation as their business strategy.

I have not found any private school that takes the cost-leadership path. As a result, school fees are generally beyond the reach of the average Malaysian. Children from poor families who desperately need better quality schools are automatically excluded.

I have visited India twice to look for a potential solution. In February last year, I visited two private schools in the slums of New Delhi. And just last month, I attended the School Choice National Conference in New Delhi, organised by India’s Centre for Civil Society. Both trips reinforced my belief that private education can be made to work for those in the bottom half of the pyramid.

At the school choice conference, I heard case studies on how low-cost private schools have improved access to education for children from poor tribes in northeast India as well as for those in slum areas.

I also spoke to several operators of low-cost private schools, who told me that many of the poor parents they serve do have access to free government schools. But they are willing to spend quite a big portion of their monthly income on private school fees because the government schools are not as good.

Of course it would be wrong to blindly assume that all private schools are better than government schools. The point I am trying to make here is that some parents in the rural and slum areas of India actually have more choice and exercise greater responsibility than the average Malaysian parent.

Most of us simply accept whatever school the government says our children must go to. But many poor Indian parents, out of love for their children, actively take things into their own hands. They refuse to be dependent on the government.

James Tooley, professor of education policy at Newcastle University, was also at the conference. As a world-renowned researcher-practitioner, he combines his work with running a chain of low-cost private schools in India and Ghana. When I asked him if the low-cost model is sustainable, he did not just affirm the sustainability of the model, but also its profitability.

With all the challenges facing our school system and the dire need to improve the quality of schools in the rural areas, I am curious as to what is actually preventing Malaysian private school operators from looking at the low-cost model. Why do we not yet have the private school equivalent of low-cost airline operator AirAsia and mass retailer Mydin?

And why is the government not looking at the private sector as a potential partner to address education inequality in the school system? The Entry Point Projects in the Economic Transformation Programme are focused mainly on creating more premium private schools. What will happen to the poor in the rural areas as well as other financially excluded children, such as those who are stateless or refugees? Is there not a business opportunity to provide them with better quality education?

I firmly believe there is room in the Malaysian market for a low-cost, for-profit private school model. Several colleagues and I are actively looking into this matter and we are learning from the experiences of our friends in India and other countries.

More school choice will be created if we can develop a model that charges just 20% to 30% less than today’s average private school fees. At that level, the fee may not be low enough for the poorest in society. But that is only the very first step. Once market competition kicks in, I suspect the potential market size for the low-cost private school model will be significant.

Wan Saiful Wan Jan is chief executive of the Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs (www.IDEAS.org.my)