How can non-state providers of education and public private partnerships work most effectively for poor people in East Asia and the Pacific? This report highlights issues, opportunities and challenges related to non-state providers and their partnerships with the state in fulfilling the right to education for all. It argues that non-state providers present a significant resource for improving access and quality that the state should harness.
Public-private partnerships (PPPs) involve a formal relationship between public and non-state partners, with an element of risk-sharing between partners. The public sector defines the scope of business, targets and outputs, and the non-state sector delivers them, based on built-in incentives.
PPPs can have a number of benefits, by widening access to education, providing additional finance, incorporating skills from the private sector, and enhancing accountability. They are not a panacea, but a range of PPP models offer flexible approaches that can be adapted to differing local circumstances:
- Educational service delivery initiatives: These generally involve the government purchasing places for students in private schools, in situations where there is insufficient space in public schools.
- Non-state management of public schools: Under such schemes the school remains publicly owned and is subject to performance benchmarks. Schools are paid a fixed amount per pupil, or a management fee.
- Voucher and voucher-like initiatives: School vouchers are a certificate that parents can use to pay for education at a public or non-state school of their choice. Vouchers are used by governments to ‘contract out’ enrolment of students or purchase outputs.
- Professional and support services: These can include school evaluation, teacher training and textbook publication. Such PPPs allow governments to use private expertise and economies of scale.
- Infrastructure initiatives: PPPs are an increasingly common form of procurement for large infrastructure projects.
- Philanthropic initiatives: There are many examples of individuals and private sector firms donating goods, services or cash to schools.
Ultimately, education providers can maximise the benefits of PPPs by recognising that partnerships based on comparative advantages, in which skills and resources are shared, can yield mutual benefits. Recommendations for governments and donors include the following:
- Governments should provide legal recognition for both for-profit and non-profit non-state providers, and a legal framework in which they can operate.
- The establishment of new schools can be encouraged through establishment criteria that are appropriate for the local context, objective, measurable, open to all, and focused on outcomes.
- Policymakers can also improve the functioning of the education system by ensuring that families are well informed about schools’ performance.
- PPP design should reflect the desired objectives, the nature of targeting, and market factors such as the extent of the private school network. The government agency responsible for partnerships should have sufficient resources, information and skills.
- International actors can help in supporting the country-level evidence base on non-state sector providers. They can also help to build the capacity of governments and private sector providers, and support coordination among various types of non-state providers.
