“The accepted wisdom is wrong,” says James Tooley, winner of the FT’s recent essay contest, as he rips into the prevailing notion that developing country education problems can be solved with more aid. He continues his tirade, attacking development experts that on Private schoolthe one hand prioritize financial assistance for state education but on the other hand, acknowledge that benefits from this aid will have to wait until state education can be reformed and rid of corruption:

“It ignores the reality that poor parents are abandoning public schools en masse, to send their children to “budget” private schools that charge low fees – perhaps one or two dollars per month, affordable even to parents on poverty-line wages.” Tooley hits upon a central element of the BOP hypothesis- that in cases where the government is unable to provide needed services to the poor, the private sector can and should step in.

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