Prachi Srivastava, a professor in the School of International Development and Global Studies at the University of Ottawa, is an expert on the subject of low-fee private schooling. She writes here on the Oxfam blog in response to The Economist’s paean of praise to for-profit private schooling in poor countries. She reviews the research and says that The Economist oversimplified the subject. The research does not support the simplistic view that the private sector is invariably better than the public sector as a provider of education in poor countries. The findings are in fact nuanced.
And this problem remains, after all the research is reviewed:
The growth of the low-fee private sector has been widely attributed to dysfunctional state schools. But state failure should not be tacitly accepted, certainly in light of the evidence. The fact remains that the majority of the poorest, most disadvantaged children in poor countries continue to access dysfunctional state schools. And all of us, including the private sector, have a role to play in making sure they get better.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The main thing we know about low-fee private schooling is that the fees will steadily rise and rise and rise like other balloons and bubbles in the past, like low-tuition state universities and sub-prime mortgages.
As I mentioned before, micro-lending in India has resulted in the creation of opportunistic organ donor brokers that prey on the vulnerable. Schooling was mentioned as one the reasons people were selling organs.
Poor families with several children struggle the most. I saw this as an ESL teacher. When the stores had the back to school sales, I bought a bulk amount of classroom supplies for students at the beginning of the year. Many ESL students would ask me for supplies because the family had three or four children in the schools and could not afford the expense. Many parents didn’t have cars so they couldn’t get to the better sales. The kids could also “save face” in the regular class because they didn’t have to be singled out for being poor. During the year if they needed something for the mainstream class, they could always come and get a new notebook, a glue stick or folder, and they didn’t have to be embarrassed. The kids appreciated the help and never tried to abuse it. Few of us know how difficult it can be if a parent has to decide between school supplies or putting food on the table.
UK’s Pearson owns 50% of the Economist (recently Pearson announced they are going to sell their share of the Economist) > Pearson is heavily invested in the growth of low-fee schools in poor countries > The Economist supports these low-fee schools in poor country with claims that can’t be proven = FRAUD and LIES at every step.
See my lengthy reply to Josh Weinsein’s praise of the Bridge International Academy several days ago on this blog. It includes a copy of a letter sent to the president of the World Bank by labor leaders and social service agencies in Uganda, Kenya, other countries in and beyond Africa. It condemns the World Bank funding of this particular franchise and the misrepresentation of its actual costs to families.
The moral question is how long you think it will take to persuade the governments of these countries to care that “the majority of the poorest, most disadvantaged children in poor countries continue to access dysfunctional state schools” so that they get around to fixing them by making sure that private schools don’t exist? (Although, to be honest, I don’t see how you possibly could do that. At best you would create another thing that state officials could use to elicit a bribe, sending money from the poor directly into the government officials hands).
Are you willing to give up a year of other people’s children’s education? Are you willing to give up two years? Is another generation of other people’s children having to attend dysfunctional state schools too much for we in the rich world to ask?