Jump to content

Education

New partnerships for education: learning from experience

Partnerships in the provision of education: what have we learned so far?

Authors: A. Draxler; Global Education Initiative, World Economic Forum
Publisher: International Institute for Educational Planning, UNESCO, 2008

Full text of document

This study reviews the literature on education partnerships in which the private sector is involved, as they apply to progress towards the Education for All (EFA) goals, and highlights the policy lessons one can draw from it.

Partnerships bringing together the public sector, business and civil society are unique endeavours, different from public sector provision, from classic contractual arrangements or from philanthropy. Although the literature on education partnerships is growing, the empirical evidence about their functioning and results is still in need of enrichment. The study concludes that greater care needs to be given to establishment and managing of partnerships, highlighting six areas:

  • definition of needs
  • ownership by stakeholders
  • a conscious focus on impact
  • strong regulation and accountability
  • sustainability
  • monitoring and evaluation
It points to the need to clarify what partnerships can and cannot do, as well as to some excessive optimism about the volume of resources that can be generated by them and cautions that the appropriate conditions for success are not always present. It emphasises the need to ground education partnerships in the international community’s ongoing efforts, such as the EFA-Fast Track Initiative (FTI), donor harmonisation processes, and sector-wide approaches, to ensure synergies and avoid fragmentation and duplication of efforts.

The report suggests some comparative advantages of partnerships and concludes with recommendations and a framework for analysing and establishing multi-stakeholder partnerships. Recommendations include:
  • establishment of principles at the outset, notably respect for international agreements and adhesion to EFA goals
  • stronger regulation by means of governmental and intergovernmental guidelines and legal frameworks
  • prior needs assessment, and establishment of the relevance of the partnership to the core mandate of partners, their employees and shareholders
  • clear agreements about cost distribution, including costs of managing partnerships
  • description at the outset of expected benefits for end users
  • commitment to and respect for transparency throughout
  • development of planning and analytical tools for management of partnerships, capacity building for stakeholders, and programme of implementation of pilots.