203and free text books. Non salary expenditure is however only about 20 % of total
expenditure per student so the other inequalities remain more significant (Research
Centre for Inspection and Evaluation 2010 : 85/86).
9.3.2 Disparities Between Regions
Secondly, there are growing disparities between urban and rural areas. County
towns and local economic and cultural centres have concentrations of better qual-
ity educational resources. Elitist educational practices encourage schools and par-
ents to compete for entry to the better schools in the belief that better students
should go to better schools. The education resources of schools in cities and towns
benefit from being on a larger scale and having more specialised facilities and thus
can offer higher quality. Rural schools have fewer facilities from the outset and
have difficulty offering quality at higher levels. They are often relatively short of
public and private investment and have difficulty in attracting and retaining better
quality teachers and students. They can therefore suffer from a spiral of declining
quality. Paradoxically the policy to increase the number of rural children who are
boarding may further reduce quality in the remaining rural schools.
The Task Force in 2005 (ibid) identified cost ratios in urban and rural areas
of 1.9 at primary and at junior secondary, and for non salary recurrent funding
3.3:1. It also noted that only 5 % of dangerous classrooms and school buildings
were thought to be in urban areas. Rural areas also had much lower proportions of
qualified teachers, and more than 10 % substitute teachers remained, almost all of
whom were in rural schools. Pupil teacher ratios were consistently lower in urban
areas by an average of 20 %.
Disparities remain in the promotion rates into junior and senior secondary
schools. In urban areas, more than 98 % of the primary school graduates can enter
junior secondary schools. But in many rural areas the proportion who are will-
ing and able to enrol is below 90 %. From junior secondary to senior secondary
(excluding vocational senior secondary schools), the promotion rate is over 60 %
for urban areas, but not much more than 20 % in rural areas (ibid: 12).
9.3.3 Disparities Between Schools
Thirdly disparities between schools may be growing. Key schools remain a fea-
ture of many local school systems. This minority of specially favoured schools
benefit from preferential allocation of various resources from government as
well non-government channels and they have superior infrastructure, equipment
and learning materials. Their high prestige allows them to the privilege of charg-
ing high prices from students from outside the catchment area of the school. By
contrast many rural schools face problems of having too few students, not least