Education as a Merit of Good - Essay Example

Education as a merit of good Education as a merit of good 0 Introduction Merit good is a product or service, which thegovernment aims to provide to all individuals in the society (Ver Eecke, 2003, p. 701). The term consists of all economic activities by authorities, and they are not mainly developed for economic reasons, but to support the societal incomes, which are not performed for economic reasons or profits (Ver Eecke, 2003, p. 701). They are goods deemed desirable for the community. For instance, education is a merit good. It presents private advantage to a person because there is individual satisfaction in acquiring skills or awareness. Moreover, education makes one be in a position to acquire employment, obtain income and consequently have an improved way of life (Ver Eecke, 2003, p. 701). Other merit goods include goods and services like health services that the government provides for its citizens for the benefit of the community. This is usually conducted because it would lead to under-provision within the community. It also generates difference between the social and private expenses in addition to the advantages of creation and exploitation leading to the risk of not selling the goods and services (Besley and Ghatak, 2003, p. 235-249). Merit goods are also those goods and services that the government thinks consumers will under utilize, and they ought to be provided free for the entire society. This paper, therefore, discusses education as a merit good provided by the UK government to promote education equality within the society. 1.1 Education as a merit of good provided by the UK government Both private institutions and the government offer education, but in case education was left to be an expense, where parents are expected to pay for education then education would be under-consumed by the members of the society. Poor parents might not understand the importance of education. Similarly, their children might not see the benefits of education (Besley and Ghatak, 2003, p. 235-249). In reality, education should provide peripheral benefits that could not be considered by the open market. The benefits include increasing profits and production for present and future productions and expansion in the work-related movement of the work force, which must assist in the reduction of unemployment and consequently lower welfare expenditure (Dixit, 2002, p. 38). 1.2. The function of the UK administration in providing education The administration provides this merit good to urge its utilization so those particular optimistic externalities related with merit commodities can be realized (Dixit, 2002, p. 38). They also aim at overcoming the failures of information connected to education, not when the private longer-term benefit of utilization is better than the shorter-term advantage of utilization. The government also believes that consumption is not only based on the ability to pay for a commodity or service (Dixit, 2002, p. 38). The UK government implement projects in schools and offer public schools with different teaching and learning resources (Machin and Vignoles, 2004, p 107). The government influences school budget and allocates teachers in government schools. The government also establishes the instructive budget and rules the typical syllabus for each school (Muller and Tietzel, 2002, p. 400). The state offers laws that affect everybody in the UK state. All individuals in this state should follow all laws prepaid by the European commission in education (Hoxby 2000, p. 38). For instance, the rights of employment, the rights to obtain an outcome, and the right to security of products. The UK government attempts to entice educationist to remain in the UK to increase the rates of employment by providing training services (Muller and Tietzel, 2002, p. 400). The government aims at creating a stable economic situation that will continue developing in the future, and assist companies to develop in the future. They also aim at encouraging modern development in businesses within the government. It attempts to provide employment and provide free education to all the citizens (Muller and Tietzel, 2002, p. 400). 1.3 The role private sector in providing education In the United Kingdom education, both public and private sectors provide services whereby public schools are free and private ones the parents pay for education (Machin and Vignoles, 2004, p 107). Obtaining education has a positive effect, whereby an individual obtains education that will benefit him in the future. Apart from this, education also benefits the entire society because educated people contribute to societal development (Machin and Vignoles, 2004, p 107). Just like other countries, education in the United Kingdom is compulsory for all children (Muller and Tietzel, 2002, p. 400). Poor families with low income cannot take their children to school in case education was to be entirely private, and therefore, education in the United Kingdom forms the biggest part of government spending (Muller and Tietzel, 2002, p. 400). However, education provided by the government has been criticized for providing low quality education, and the public schools always find ways to seek their challenges from the state (Muller and Tietzel, 2002, p. 400). It has been argued that privates sectors are better in the provision of quality education within the government in that, they have revenue spur to reduce prices and acquire products required by clients. In the public sector, this turnover is frequently missing. Therefore, state institutions have a better bias to be overstaffed and incompetent. Private sector can provide education though at a given prescribed cost because they believe that after acquiring education one would benefit in the future. 1.4 Positive externalities of education Positive externalities of education are also known as the external benefits of education that one enjoys after acquiring knowledge skills and attitudes (Muller and Tietzel, 2002, p. 400). The benefits occur when a student gains from getting education (Muller and Tietzel, 2002, p. 400). Education as a merit good provides positive externalities, which recipients account for in the future. In that, the skills acquired through training and acquiring of information from educational institutions benefit the entire community in different ways (Muller and Tietzel, 2002, p. 400). The state encourages positive externalities through provision of government policies that encourage certain externalities in education. This can be promoted by increasing the supply education facilities, and provide for the demand of education, provided for goods and services as well as resources in education that create external advantages to the individual and the state (Muller and Tietzel, 2002, p. 400). In the United Kingdom, when an individual acquires education, the person obtains a confidential benefit. However, the society also benefits for instance, the educated person can train and educate other members of the society using his or her knowledge. These also benefit the society through social interaction and social mobility due to education. A person gets inspired through educations which reduce political conflicts and creates an individual who can manage a high level of community cohesion (Muller and Tietzel, 2002, p. 400). 1.5 Challenges of providing education using a free market A free market is managed by individual companies on the conception that hard work and ingenuity will be rewarded by success (Muller and Tietzel, 2002, p. 400). All organizations exist to make profits from the society. Thus, in a free market successful private schools make many profits from the society (Muller and Tietzel, 2002, p. 400). In a free market, schools compete to make profits from parents. Therefore, poor parents get affected and to some extend fail to take children to school because of expensive education offered by the private schools (Muller and Tietzel, 2002, p. 400). Social attainment in the United Kingdom is the main predictor of educational achievement for the United Kingdom government (Muller and Tietzel, 2002, p. 400). By the use of a free market to provided education, the government will fail to provide fairness between individuals from diverse social categories, and in turn fail to attain their objective (Muller and Tietzel, 2002, p. 400). Individuals from poor backgrounds will not be in a position to obtain education. Children from rich families get access to good schools and obtain proper education (Muller and Tietzel, 2002, p. 400). Growing competition in a free market worsens the provision of education in the United Kingdom. Through free market, the society experiences social disparities among the citizens (Muller and Tietzel, 2002, p. 400). Merit goods and services have significant external advantages to a community if they are manufactured and utilized (Muller and Tietzel, 2002, p. 400). However, several people in the community will not use these goods because the individual owned companies offering them are very expensive that poor members of the community cannot afford (Muller and Tietzel, 2002, p. 400). Due to this situation, incase education is left for private sectors then it would be very difficult for everyone to get education (Muller and Tietzel, 2002, p. 400). In conclusion, the ideas of merit goods within the government help the United Kingdom government to decide which services and goods to be provided. Education merit good is free and inexpensively because the state wishes to ensure equal consumption of education. Education facilities offered by the government enables the poor members of the community to acquire education. References Besley, T., and Ghatak, M., 2003. Incentives, Choice, and Accountability in the Provision of Public Services, Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 19(2): 235-249. Dixit, A., 2002. Incentives and Organizations in the Public Sector. Journal of Human Resources, 37(2): 696-727. Hoxby, C., 2000. Does Competition among Public Schools Benefit Students and Tax payers? American Economic Review, 90(4): 1209-38. Machin, S., and Vignoles, A., 2004. Educational Inequality: The Widening Socio-Economic Gap, Fiscal Studies, 25(4):107-28. Muller, C., and Tietzel, M., 2002. “Merit goods from a constitutional perspective”, in Brennan, G. et al. (eds), Method and morals in constitutional economics. Essays in honor of James M. Buchanan. Berlin & New York: Springer. Ver Eecke, W., 2003. “Adam Smith and Musgrave’s concept of merit good”, Journal of Socio- Economics, 31(7): 701–720. Read More