Editorial: favour not private schools at taxpayer's expense

Photo: eestikirik.ee

Long has been the debate in society regarding private school financing. It’s not a matter if these are good or bad.

By principle, state should not guarantee to cover costs of every private initiative. Equally so, a local government ought to be able to decide the kind of school network it needs on its territory.

A part of the latter, private schools may naturally also be.

On the large scale of things, numbers tell us we spend too much on buildings in our education – compares, say, to Finland. According to a system applied since 2011, taxpayers are obliged to cover operating costs of private schools while local governments have no leverage to keep these costs under control.

In our schools system, private schools doubtless play a role and even with some official or politicians as «system managers» don’t see some specific school that way, this is still free private initiative whether by founder of the school or parents.  

While not always totally innovative, private schools in principle need to be to provide competition for the municipal ones offered by the powers that be.

This is not to say that powers that be are to cover almost all of private schools costs.

We do consider these as our own and nothing alien. At that, their advantages are not to be provided at the expense of the rest in society.