Though everyone recognises the importance of education to the nation's future, many lack confidence in the public education system. Employers complain of graduates without basic skills, controversy surrounds the curriculum, and parents are so dissatisfied that more than a quarter of them spend large sums of money to send their children to private schools - with polls indicating that many more would do the same if they could afford it.

Mark Harrison argues in A Private Education for All that public education suffers from a lack of competition and a political process that favours teachers and bureaucrats over students, parents and employers. The solution is to introduce markets to the education system.