Public doesn’t always mean state owned - just public interest

What you need to know:

  • In reality, ‘public’ is anything that fulfils a public function, whether state or privately owned
  • Strathmore had to be built outside the city; white residents within the city boundaries would not tolerate a mixed college within their neighbourhood
  • A proper understanding of the difference between state owned, public function and privately run enterprises may be the start of proper macro-planning

Chile is an amazing country, a success story in Latin America and the world. I was recently invited to give a seminar at one of its best universities, the Universidad de los Andes.

I also attended a meeting with the authorities of the Universidad Católica de Chile, a 130-year-old university which ranks in the top 50 in the world in several specialisations. 

These two marvellous academic powerhouses are located in Santiago de Chile, the capital of a country that walked out majestically from a past full of misery, poverty and human rights abuses.

Today, Santiago is one of the most beautiful capitals in South America and perhaps among the best in the world. Its unique geography would excite even the least poetic visitor.

It’s trapped between two world marvels; the snow peaks of the imposing Andes mountains to one side, and the Pacific Ocean to the other.

The Andes University Campus, which overlooks the city, is an artistic masterpiece. It was designed by some of the best Chilean architects under the supervision of a Boston firm with wide experience in the design of university campuses worldwide.

Its buildings blend with the snow peaks that tower above it. From its library, the view of Santiago, lower down in the valley, is breathtaking. 

I try to take advantage of these conferences, seminars and meetings to learn from my host’s good and bad experiences, practices, challenges, successes and trials.

With a keen and observant eye, the visitor may gather essential knowledge by asking the right questions, and listening to their answers with care. 

POLITICISING INSTITUTIONS

One of the most enriching lessons I gathered from Chile relates to research and funding. The government makes public funds available for public interest research, whether carried out by public or private institutions.

In today’s approach to government funding, we usually make the terrible mistake of confusing public goods and public interest with state ownership. So, we call ‘public’ that which is owned by the state, regardless of its nature, function or utility.

In reality, ‘public’ is anything that fulfils a public function, whether state or privately owned. Thus, we speak of public transport when our matatus are privately owned, or public utilities no matter if they are in the hands of the State or a private individual.

This confusion, between what is public and what belongs to the State, defeats the principle of subsidiarity, which is a key principle in any modern, developing democracy.

This principle opens a free space for citizens to organise themselves, whether in education, civic life or utilities, and the State comes in to help and assist where the citizens do not reach or cannot manage.

A state that applies this principle in clever and innovative ways opens the economy and triggers innovation well beyond whatever the bureaucratic apparatus of the State would ever have imagined.

For example, universities are public, just like all matatus, mobile telephony companies, utilities, etc.  They fulfil a public function and they are open to the public in general.

This is often misunderstood by the Rousseaunian view that looks at ownership only, in disregard of the function and nature of the institution in question.

From an ownership perspective, Harvard is a private university, and so are Stanford, Yale, Carnegie-Mellon and Notre Dame.

All these top US universities are privately owned, and perhaps not by coincidence, they are also top in the world. In the UK, the top public universities are privately run. Experience says that politicising institutions is the beginning of the end. 

These universities have huge endowment funds and facilities. Harvard’s endowment fund could run Kenya’s budget for almost a whole year. Notre Dame’s stadium can easily accommodate 60,000 people, and it is currently being expanded to fit 100,000.

MIXED COLLEGE

It is beautiful to note that Strathmore was the first multiracial and multi-religious educational institution in English Eastern Africa, when segregation laws were in place and it was forbidden to mix Europeans, Africans and Asians, Catholics, Protestants, Muslims and Hindus under one roof.

Back then, Kenya had three ministries of education, one for Africans, one for Europeans and one for Asians. They did not mix and they had different budgets and standards.

When they allowed Strathmore to start, they would not agree which ministry would grant the subsidy that the colonial government apportioned to all educational institutions.

Strathmore had put together the first multiracial sport teams in Kenya. For the first time, students from different races and religions had lived together, and they ate the same food, together with their teachers.

The founding tenets of Strathmore had dictated that its doors should be open to all races and religions, that it should not belong to a church but to a public charitable trust, and that students should pay something, a fee, that would make their families feel involved, responsible and committed to their children’s educational venture.

All these characteristics were uncommon, and to a certain point, crazy. The mood of the moment was quite different. Those were different days, different times. The world was segregated.

Strathmore had to be built outside the city; white residents within the city boundaries would not tolerate a mixed college within their neighbourhood. They actually opposed it and this was published on the cover of the first trial edition of the Nation newspaper, just before its official launch.

DONE FOR THE PUBLIC

Chile taught me a lesson. The Chilean government supports any worthwhile venture that may help change society for the better, that may trigger development, innovation and employment, no matter who owns it.

The key determining factor is the function or objective of such a venture, and anything done for the public and not for personal gain or profit, gets the government’s financial support in areas of research interest. This is a good lesson to be learn.

Our bureaucratic state apparatus has always looked suspiciously at anything that is not run, owned and controlled by its tentacles. In doing so, it overlooks the fact that sometimes its own officials join the public function for personal gain and, in certain cases, avarice.

It looks to me that precisely some of those public and privately run institutions and ventures, are the ones that, time and again, make the country tick and excel, particularly when they are run as publicly as their function, and managed as privately as responsibility and their sustainability demands. 

A proper understanding of the difference between state owned, public function and privately run enterprises may be the start of proper macro-planning.

We need to foster what makes the country tick, in education, sports, tourism and services in general. Citizens’ initiative is an amazing unifying factor.

Dr Franceschi is the dean of Strathmore Law School. [email protected]; Twitter: @lgfranceschi