MAKING PUBLIC MONEY FOLLOW THE CHILD: PORTABLE EDUCATION VOUCHERS FOR UZBEKISTAN IN THE LIGHT OF FRENCH AND SWISS FINANCING MODELS

Uzbekistan’s education system faces the combined pressure of a large birth cohort, a preschool coverage target, and general secondary schools in which about two million pupils still study in a second shift. Policy debate increasingly proposes vouchers that would let public funding follow the child to state or accredited non-state providers. This paper compares the French model of per-capita contracting with private schools (contrat d’association) and the income-graduated childcare vouchers of the Canton of Bern (Betreuungsgutscheine), and derives an analytical break-even condition for the fiscal effect of a portable voucher. The condition shows that savings arise only when the number of children induced to leave the state sector is large relative to the number of families who already use non-state provision and would receive the voucher as a pure transfer. Calibrating the model to official Uzbek data and running 10,000 Monte Carlo draws, we find that a universal flat voucher worth 80 per cent of the state cost per child raises net public spending in both segments. A means-tested, provider-paid preschool voucher that replaces existing supply-side subsidies saves money in 88 per cent of draws (96 per cent with attendance-linked disbursement), because it reaches the coverage target at a lower cost than building state places. For general secondary schools, vouchers worth half the state cost or more generate savings only with low-fee private supply or with eligibility restricted to pupils who leave state schools. We set out a phased design and an evaluation strategy.