Public private partnerships in basic education: an international review

This report examines the international experience with Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) at the Basic Education level. Several forms of PPP are highlighted, including private philanthropic initiatives, private sector management initiatives, private school funding programmes, adopt-a-school programmes and school infrastructure partnerships. It also draws a number of lessons for the design and implementation of PPPs, based on the review of international experience with PPPs.

The paper explains that education in the developing world faces the twin challenges of getting and keeping more children enrolled in school while simultaneously ensuring that learning outcomes improve. A number of governments have responded to these educational challenges by making greater use of the private sector and public-private partnerships (PPPs) in education as a means of improving both the delivery and financing of basic education in developing and developed countries. A clear message from this international review is that, contrary to a widely held view, private participation in basic education does not need to favour those who are well off. Indeed, as the review shows, PPPs are often targeted on populations who are being poorly served by existing education delivery systems. This is the case with, for example, Concession Schools in Bogotá, vouchers programmes and contract schools in the USA and ESC in the Philippines.

Some of the key lessons include:

• ensure the capacity of the contracting agency: a key to successful design and implementation of PPPs is to ensure that the government agency that is responsible for PPPs has both the information and skills required to design, develop and manage the more complex contracting processes that underlie PPP programmes

• employ a transparent, competitive and staged process for the selection of preferred provider: a key element of effective contracting is that the bidding process should be transparent and competitive

• establish quality assurance/ monitoring processes: the success of PPPs is likely to be enhanced if they are accompanied by independent quality assurance/monitoring mechanisms to evaluate the provider performance and programme outcomes

• use ‘operational contracts’ to provide the most scope for successful contracting: a key component of successful contracting is that the government should employ operational contracts under which staff are selected, employed and paid by the private sector managers, rather than by the government.