GI advisor aids African school expansion

Written by Alex Singleton
Thursday, 15 February 2007
Prof. James Tooley, a member of the Globalisation Institute's academic advisory council, is to help invest $100m in developing country schools, the Financial Times reports today. His work on low-cost private schools for the world's poorest has attracted the attention of the charitable arm of the Singapore-based investment firm Orient Global. As the FT says:
His research projects in China, Ghana and Kenya have shown how private schools in the developing world can provide a better education than inefficient state-run schools, despite often charging just a couple of dollars in monthly fees....Prof Tooley said: "Our research already demonstrates that some of the poorest people in the global village are enlisting the support not of their governments or international agencies but of entrepreneurs, to help educate their children and improve their lives."In some of the most disadvantaged places on earth . . there is an extraordinary blossoming of private education."For further information on James Tooley's work, visit the website of the E G West Centre at Newcastle University which he directs.