How Much Alternative Education Is There?

Abstract

Alternative schools can be understood as ‘schools designed to provide special pedagogy, programs, activities, and settings for children and families seeking experiences other than the ‘traditional’ ones offered by the standard ‘public’ or ‘state-controlled’ schools (Husén and Postlethwaite (eds. in chief) 1994, p. 260).‘ In this case the number of private schools as a percentage of the total number of schools (those at the basic levels of education) in a country could be used as one measure or index of alternative education in that country. This percentage of private schools has, in fact, been used as an index for quantification of alternative education taken as the diversity of demand for education, given the understanding that privatization of education is the phenomenon of a search for alternatives not provided by public education (ibid., p. 261). However, private schools as a percentage in education statistics ordinarily encompass accredited and registered schools, whereas alternative schools include many unaccredited schools that exist outside the education system. In Japan, for one example, unaccredited free schools and free spaces exist throughout the country. They also function as receptacles for children and students with special needs who refuse to go to school, in other words as an alternative education (Nagata and Kikuchi 2002). In New Zealand, alternative schools were designated integrated schools and positioned as a part of the public school system from around 1990.¹