STRATEGIES FOR IMPROVING EDUCATION:
Why Kham Aid doesn't build schools.

Many donors expect that the best way to solve educational deficiency in Tibet (or anywhere) is to build new schools and operate them privately, outside the government system.  Kham Aid has not pursued this approach because:

• Many areas in Kham are already served by government schools, so a new private school would not offer much more educational opportunity than already exists.
• Building and operating a new school is very expensive compared to improving an existing one.
• Private schools require continuing support to cover operating costs. While many donors are willing to support school construction, few are willing to commit to a yearly donation with no end in sight.

Instead of building schools, Kham Aid Foundation works on increasing the effectiveness of existing government (and non-government) schools. This approach leverages Chinese government (and other existing) money to provide a larger and more sustainable result for the same cost.   Our programs do the following:

• Help poor children pay school fees that they otherwise could not afford
• Train teachers
• Improve school facilities
• Involve parents and the community in the educational process
• Provide books to schools
• Provide small, individualized grants to meet acute local needs

Private schools do offer a number of significant advantages – quality is easier to maintain, specialized curricula can be offered, and risk of losses due to corruption is reduced.  Moreover, Tibetan parents strongly prefer to send their children to private schools when such schools are under the oversight of popular local leaders (usually incarnate lamas). 

For this reason we feel that private schools certainly should not be ruled out altogether. Private schools can be a good idea, provided that fundraising is pursued in the opposite order than it usually is; i.e. it should not start with construction costs but with operating expenses.  Only after a strategy for covering annual operating expense has been identified is it reasonable to go forward with the construction campaign.