38 Free education???

About a month ago the mayor of Bogotá announced that starting already in 2010 education will be completely free in all State schools, from preschool to grade 11. This is supposed to benefit more than a million students who won't have to pay a peso for their education in a few months. Today 650 thousand students until grade six are covered by this free system. A goal is also to fight against the dropout rate of 5%.

An article in the weekly magazine "Semana" discusses the quality implications of this decision.

The big question is, why can't they just give vouchers to the poor parents so they can decide in which school to put their children