Growth of private school sector in Lithuania points at increasing inequality

The increase of private schools in Lithuania is pointing toward growing inequality, experts warn.

In the past decade, 377 state and municipal schools have closed in Lithuania, mainly for demographic reasons, while the number of private schools is approaching 100.

Some 15 years ago, less than 1 percent of the country’s pupils were privately educated, and now the number stands at over 8 percent.

“The last four or five years have been a huge turning point,” Eglė Sidorova, headmistress of Northern Lyceum in Vilnius, told LRT TV.

Private schools typically cost between 700 and 800 euros a month and have advantages like smaller class sizes. However, they do not usually make pupils more gifted. Instead, they can be selective about who gets to attend the school.

“In one family, the father is only pounding his fist on the table, while in another, the child is travelling all over the world and the father is playing chess with them,” said Jogaila Vaitekaitis, a researcher at the Institute of Educational Sciences at Vilnius University.

According to him, children from wealthier families receive more attention from their parents, resulting in better education performance.

A school in Lithuania (associative image) | E. Blažio / LRT nuotr.

“Private schools select children from a high socio-economic, cultural context, and that is largely how their achievements come about,” he said.

Thirteen non-public schools are currently in the top 50 in Lithuania, according to Gintaras Sarafinas, editor of Reitingai magazine.

However, the education quality is more difficult to judge in primary and high schools, because there is a lack of transparency from the school administrators, he stressed.

“In this case, families are buying a cat in a bag,” Sarafinas said, adding that parents falsely imagine that paying money is equal to better education.

Meanwhile, the growing public schooling sector is a sign that inequality is also increasing.

“Education should compensate for these family differences,” said Vaitekaitis, a researcher at Vilnius University. “So far, we see that the trend is going in the opposite direction – education does not compensate for differences and it does not act as a social elevator.”