Private education, private problems

From the economic viewpoint, education is an unprofitable business, which is why private schools are supported by the government in the developed democracies. This has an automatic effect on their quality and quantity. Government support gives them what is most important: stability. By way of comparison, 10-13 percent of all US schools are private, 95 percent in New Zealand, and 1 percent in Ukraine. Whereas 48 percent of French children study in private elementary schools, Ukrainian statistics indicate a mere 1.2 percent. The reason is that private tuition is a matter of “private” concern for those who want to receive this kind of education.

WE PAY FOR EVERYTHING

Private educational establishments appeared in Ukraine in the early 1990s. Today private education is marking its 17th anniversary, burdened with worries and problems. Despite the fact that private schools have repeatedly proved their right to exist and made a tangible contribution to the rejuvenation and development of the contemporary Ukrainian educational system, they still have few rights.

Under the laws of Ukraine “On Education” and “On General Secondary Education,” as well as the Convention on the Rights of the Child, signed by Ukraine in 1991, every little citizen has the right to a free secondary education. The Law of Ukraine “On Education” reads that “the state guarantees young people the right to receive a complete secondary education and shall pay for it. A full secondary education in Ukraine...can be obtained at various kinds of educational establishments.”

In other words, the state allocates funds for the education of every child upon reaching a certain age. Yet pupils enrolled in private schools have never received any such funds. This is an obvious breach of the principles of social justice. Even though everyone pays the education tax, not everyone receives this education from the state. Moreover, most executive authorities in Ukraine continue to regard private schools as purely profit-making organizations and deny them the rights vested in them by law as educational establishments.

Children who study in private schools receive no government compensations for obtaining a compulsory secondary education and health care. All kinds of assistance and social protections (scholarships, bonuses, diplomas, board, and vacation accommodations) granted to children in Kyiv do not extend to pupils of private schools. Even textbooks are sold to private schools at commercial prices.

Medical clinics in certain districts of Kyiv force private schools to buy vaccines that, under the law, are supposed to be given to all Ukrainian children free of charge. Private school students are denied annual school-based medical checkups available in all government-run schools. Daily afternoon juice-and-bun snacks provided to all schoolchildren in the capital were distributed in private schools for only half a year. Then this practice was stopped on the same grounds - that a private school is a profit-making organization - but explaining this to the children proved very difficult.

NOT JUST FOR THE RICH

Fifteen percent of Kyiv private school students are physically handicapped (but are not eligible for government-run schools); five percent are orphans or children with only one parent; 52 percent are talented children from low-income families, as well as children who are under constant medical supervision. For most of them their tuition is free or reduced. The state does not give these children a single penny, whereas parents have to pay double for tuition: first in the form of compulsory taxes from which deductions are made to the educational fund, and the second time in the form of private school tuition. The schools also make deductions from their revenues as tax payments.

Today the attitude to private schools as an alien entity in the national educational system has resulted in commercial utility costs that are enforced in all regions of Ukraine, including the most expensive utility, heating. In 2006-07 alone, heating costs for private schools increased by 114.5 percent (from 96 to 205.94 hryvnias per g-cal); electricity, by 75.8 percent (from 0.2224 to 0.39108 hryvnias per kW/h); and running cold water, by 450 percent (from 0.816 hryvnias to 4.5 hryvnias per m?).

At the start of this school year, the price of textbooks, teaching aids, and periodicals were up 30 percent; stationery, 8-10 percent; domestic items, 5-10 percent; furniture (desks, chairs, blackboards, etc.) - by 50 percent.

To top it all off, private schools are unlawfully charged the land tax, or its equivalent, in the form of compensations for the land on which the schools stand. Item 5, Section 4, Article 12 of the Law of Ukraine “On Payments for Land” reads that “domestic...educational establishments are exempted from the land tax provided they use their premises for designated purposes.”

Salaries are also one of the most expensive budget items for private schools. It is generally believed that private school teachers are rolling in money. In reality, private schools are finding it increasingly difficult to compete with government-run institutions. They have to endure this competition not only in terms of wages but also a package of social guarantees and advantages (quarterly bonuses, bonuses commemorating Teacher’s Day and March 8, holiday pay worth twice the monthly one, 10 percent for resort accommodations, free refresher courses, medical checkups, salary raises for long service, to mention a few). The whole situation is more than disheartening, and the prosperity of the teaching staff turns out to be a very heavy burden.

UNEXPECTED RENT

In fact, the meteorite whose crater has practically swallowed up the 17-year-long work of private schooling and the right of Ukrainian citizens to choose educational establishments is the unusual interpretation by local councils of the law “On the State Budget for the Year 2007.” This document states that all rental agreements concluded before Jan. 1, 2007, must be revised in accordance with the assessed value of the leased premises, following procedures laid down by the Methods of Ukraine’s Cabinet of Ministers.

It should be noted that the rental charges set forth in the Methods relate exclusively to state property, whereas most premises leased by private schools constitute municipal property. The budget law does not intervene in the setting of such rental fees. The right to decide these matters remains within the jurisdiction of local self-government bodies, as set forth in the Laws of Ukraine “On Local Self- Government,” “On the Leasing of State and Municipal Property,” and “On the State Budget of Ukraine for the Year 2007.”

It is precisely this odd interpretation by local councils of the Law “On the State Budget of Ukraine for the Year 2007” that resulted in the increase of rental fees for private schools by 5-14 times. The impression is that no one understands that a school is not a distillery. Thus, rental fees ranging between 6 and 16 percent of the assessed value are none other than a sure way of destroying private education in the race for illusory “lost revenues.”

This attitude to leasing is exacerbated by the fact that private schools are allowed to rent premises that are in disastrous condition, in need of major repairs to their roofs, complete replacement of their plumbing systems, repairs to the facade, fence, water pipes, major repairs to the interiors (floors, walls, ceilings), playgrounds, landscape upgrading, you name it. Naturally, all these repairs are done at the expense of the pupils’ parents. By paying for them, they annually add to the assessed value of the premises. This is probably why such lease agreements are concluded for a term of 364 days in some Kyiv city districts, like Obolon, and are renewed on the 365th day, but with higher rental charges (owing to a new assessed value that has increased as a result of repairs made during the year and higher housing market prices).

District (raion) self-government authorities, according to Article 19 of the Law of Ukraine “On Leasing,” have every right to accrue rental charges for private schools in keeping with cut-rate tariffs as “buildings of important social importance,” especially when a raion council meeting considers the fact that a given private school with a student body of 200 children annually saves an average of 1,200,000 hryvnias while providing some 90 jobs, paying taxes to the raion budget, and keeping the leased municipal property in exemplary condition from the parents’ tuition fees.

“Under these circumstances, schools not only cannot update and develop their material and technical basis or renovate, they are also doomed to bankruptcy,” Hrynevych said at an extended meeting of the board of the Kyiv City State Administration (KDMA). She sees one way to solve this problem: the city district administrations must allow private schools to rent premises on a long-term and cut-rate basis for a term that at least matches their licenses. To date, her appeal seems to have been heeded only in Kyiv’s Desniansky district, where rental fees have been set at 0.5 percent of assessed value. All the other raions are convinced that the parents of private school pupils can afford the exorbitant bills they keep issuing - and more.

DO YOU HAVE A PLAN, MR. X?

There are several ways out of this situation. One way is to initiate lawsuits to protect the interests of private school students. After all, there is an adequate legal framework to back such claims. It is also likely that while parents, teachers, and their lawyers are fighting legal battles to argue the private school’s right to exist, the school will simply have to close because of the unbearable conditions, in which case 4,000 young Ukrainian citizens and some 3,500 teachers in Ukraine’s capital alone will find themselves on the street.

There is another option, a more harmonious and effective one from the standpoint of national interests and those of its citizens. It is high time for the government on all levels (primarily local councils) to start paying attention to children enrolled in private schools. The state must finally grasp that the problems facing private schools are another top priority, so that these problems are no longer regarded as “private” but national ones.