Public-private partnerships boost education
PPPs are changing the way that education is being governed, especially in Latin America which has embraced private sector involvement in financing in education with positive results. The EU-funded EDUPARTNER(opens in new window) (Public-private partnerships in educational governance: An analysis of its dissemination, implementation and impact in a globalizing world) project investigated this phenomenon in Chile and Colombia in order to identify its impact on education. Project work began with a literature review of privatisation processes and looked at the reasons for education privatisation, as well as the different paths towards education privatisation. It then mapped education privatisation in Latin America, including the different PPP approaches and related policy processes. The project then looked at school demand-offer interactions in a local education market in the case of Valparaiso in Chile, documenting family decisions on education and how parents are involved in schooling. In Bogota, the capital of Colombia, the project team looked at charter schools with a focus on implications for quality and equity in education. It highlighted the advantages and shortcomings of the system, noting as well the degree of similarity between charter schools and public schools with respect to academic outcomes. Looking at school responses in the education marketplace for both Santiago and Valparaiso in Chile, EDUPARTNER outlined the different strategies that schools use to position themselves. It also examined the different marketing strategies of schools and their economic viability. All the project’s valuable findings and results were published in key academic journals relevant to education policy, as well as in newspapers, books and a monograph. Several global organisations have shown strong interest in the results, from the Global Campaign for Education to Unesco. The project team also participated in many education conferences worldwide, highlighting the viability of the PPP model and discussing the project’s outcomes. PPPs are becoming much more popular as drivers of education, with recommendations for the adoption of such a formula from the likes of the World Bank. If policymakers and governments adopt this model, they may strengthen education in their countries and ultimately create better societies.
