Susan L. Robertson, Karen Mundy, Antoni Verger, Francine Menashy, Edward Elger: Public Private Partnerships in Education: New Actors and Modes of Governance in a Globalizing World

Over the past couple of decades, the involvement of non-traditional entities in the provision of education has increased, changing the dynamics of the provision, or governance, of education in developing countries. As part of this evolution of the governance of education, there has also been a rise in the participation of new kinds of private sector actors. These trends are the motivation for this book, which explores public private partnerships (PPPs) in education from an international perspective, focusing on governance issues. The 14 chapters were written by a diverse set of academics and researchers from universities, research centers, and international organizations, and who represent a variety of disciplines and who are located in mostly English-speaking countries (The US, England, and Canada). The book is based on the papers presented at a 2009 symposium titled Public Private Partnerships in Education: New Actors and Modes of Educational Governance in a Globalized World that was held at the University of Amsterdam.

The first chapter discusses the definition of a PPP, summarizes the political/philosophical debate regarding the appropriate roles of the public and private sector in general and in education in particular, and provides a brief summary of the other chapters. After the introductory chapter, the book covers three general topics. The first set of three chapters discusses what is meant by the concept of PPPs in education, and then offers explanations for the rise or evolution of PPPs in education in developing countries, focusing on the role of global political and economic forces.

Each of the next set of 5 chapters considers one of the actors engaged in PPPs, discussing the rise of a new generation of participants in education PPPs, including the World Trade Organization, International Finance Corporation, corporations, philanthropies and NGOs. Each of these chapters discusses the motivations of the various PPPs participant for engaging in PPPs and describes the role that each actor plays in the PPP. The third topic is the subject of the last five chapters. These chapters consider five specific educational PPPs and presents information regarding the role and the effects of the PPPs.

The focus of the book is on educational PPPs in developing countries. The points made in most of the chapters are largely supported by existing research and reports and secondary data, and thus there is not much original empirical research or data presented. Thus, most of the chapters read more like essays than research papers. The authors do not adopt a common definition of PPP. As a whole the chapters present arguments both for and against an expanding reliance on PPPs, and they list both the limitations of and opportunities for PPPs to enhance national education systems in developing countries. While not all of the authors take a position regarding the social value of PPPs, for those that do, the positions differ.

Clearly, a PPP is not a well-defined entity. The authors of the first chapter (Introduction) start with a definition of PPP proposed by another author, i.e. “a cooperative institutional arrangement between public and private sector actors,” but then go on to explore other definitions offered in the literature. The chapter seems to struggle with how one should define a PPP and distinguish between the public and private sectors. There is a host of definitions or meaning of PPPs, and the chapter presents several them but without proposing a particular definition. No definition is offered as the working definition for the book, and in fact authors of other chapters suggest their own definition.

In transportation, a PPP is usually a situation in which the private sector provides funding for the construction a toll road and is responsible for the operation of the road, and whose return is dependent on the toll revenues. That concept of PPP doesn’t seem to translate to education. If a school purchased books from a private firm or a private firm is hired to replace the roof of a school building, one would not normally not consider such a contract between a public school system and a firm as a PPP. But what about contract in which a firm is hired to manage a school and is thus engaged in the governance of the school? Should independent private schools be considered a partner since such schools may educate students who would have otherwise attended a public school? Should a case in which a corporation or foundation that makes an unrestricted donation to the school be considered a PPP? What if performance requirements were attached? Is it a PPP if corporate executives volunteer to assist a school system in developing a financial plan, but not if a consulting firm is hired to do the same thing? Perhaps a PPP should refer to a situation in which the actor is engaged in changing the governance of education delivery.

While some of the chapters discuss the concept of PPP, in general the authors are agnostic and take a very liberal view of want constitutes a PPP. Many of the chapters discuss the growth in PPP, but without a common definition of what is a PPP, the authors report different levels of PPP. This open view of PPP leads to consideration of government funding of private schools as a PPP (Chapter 5), but which I would not think of as being a PPP.

The first set of three chapters focus on questions such as what are PPPs, and why have they become, as Chapter 2 puts it, “a favored management tool of governments, corporations, and international development agencies.” The three chapters essentially explore the same issues. They start with a discussion of what PPPs are, but then go on to provide explanations for the rise, significance, and global expansion of PPPs. The chapters point to a reaction to the rise of economic liberalism and the attempt to reconstruct education so it operates according to free market principles. PPPs are seen as a middle ground between privatization of education and complete public sector provision. The chapters point to the critical role of global organizations in the growth of PPPs. For example, the World Bank adopted the Millennium Development Goals and other objectives, and in order to achieve these goals the World Bank saw the need to increase the quality and quantity of education. The authors also point to the rise of private sector actors engaged in PPP. But while some of these private sector actors pushed PPP, others were reacting in their own self-interested motives that have created a PPP industry. Finally, each of the chapters raise the questions regarding the benefits of PPPs, the authors simply conclude that we don’t know and that more research is required to address this question.

The next five chapters discuss the role of specific organizations in the development of education PPPs. Chapter 5 considers the International Finance Corporation (IFC), which is the private sector financing arm of the World Bank Group. The IFC provides investment capital to private sector education service providers in low- and middle-income countries. The chapter provides an analysis of IFC’s education activities and their implications to the broader development of PPPs. The chapter begins with an overview of the role of the IFC and how it came to be involved in funding investments in private education and goes on to describe the nature of IFC’s activities and how the role has evolved. The magnitude of the IFC’s funding for education is small, and the authors raise concerns about the extent to which the IFC’s activities have reduced poverty, which is an overarching mandate of the World Bank.

Chapter 6 focuses on GATS, the General Agreement on Trade in Services, and it move to liberalize trade in education services. The authors argue that the significance of GATS is its far reaching political ambition to reshape the education sector in order that an education market can flourish. The chapter points out that there has been an increasing amount of trade flows in education, discusses the implications of GATS rules and regulations on education, and explores the implications of GATS in the global governance of education.

Chapter 7 turns to the role of private foundations and philanthropy. The authors conducted a literature review on the role of private foundation in education and development. From the review several analytical themes emerged, including claims of neutrality, efficiency and effectiveness of private philanthropy in advancing education. The authors found significant disagreement in the literature regarding each of these claims.

Corporate philanthropy is the subject of Chapter 8 and is based on a prior study by the author that assesses the magnitude and focus of US corporate investment in education, particularly in developing countries. The chapter also explores the motivations driving corporate philanthropy. The author concludes that corporate philanthropy is not a complete solution for the advancement of education, particularly in the most marginalized situations.

The role of Microsoft is explored in Chapter 9, and in particular, its Partners in Learning (PiL) program. The author argues that Microsoft engagement was motived by self-interest, in particular, the purpose of the PiL program was to stimulate use of the company’s software in schools.

The five chapters that comprise the last section of the book explore the effects of PPPs, with the first two chapters considering PPPs in general and the last three chapters considering specific PPPs. Chapter 10 focuses on the private provision of education, noting its growth around the world. The author goes on to list the arguments for and against private provision of education and provides a very cursory summary of the evidence regarding private provision of education and its effects on education quality. Chapter 11 takes a rather critical look at how private partnerships have advanced the equity, equality, and justice in the provision of education in developing countries. The authors conclude that it is more important to strengthen public education than to substitute private education for public education. The chapter also provides some details of several examples of PPPs.

The final three chapters explore specific PPPs, including low-fee private primary schools in rural India (Chapter 12), the expansion of girl’s education in Pakistan (Chapter 13), and Fe y Alegría schools in Peru (Chapter 14).

This book provides a summary of what is known about PPP in education in developing countries, which is not a lot. We learn the explanations that are thought to give rise to PPP in educations, the motivation for some of the actors and roles they play, and how particular PPPs function and their effects. While the book does summarize what we know about certain aspects of PPP in education, it doesn’t advance our knowledge very much about how well they work and whether they are a desirable way of improving the quantity and quality of education in developing questions.