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Blurring boundaries: towards areconceptualisation of the privatesector in educationMartha Caddell & Laura Day AshleyPublished online: 19 Jan 2007.

To cite this article: Martha Caddell & Laura Day Ashley (2006) Blurring boundaries: towards areconceptualisation of the private sector in education, Compare: A Journal of Comparative andInternational Education, 36:4, 411-419, DOI: 10.1080/03057920601024750

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Blurring boundaries: towards a

reconceptualisation of the private

sector in education

This Special Issue of Compare stems from papers presented to the eighth United

Kingdom Forum for International Education and Training (UKFIET) Oxford

International Conference on Education and Development in 2005. It draws, in

particular, on a set of panels focused on moving towards ‘Reconceptualising private

sector contributions to learning and livelihood’ which explored, from diverse

perspectives, how private education provision is understood and how livelihood both

shapes and results from private sector investment in learning. Emerging from the

conference discussions was a series of conceptual, methodological and practical

challenges concerning how the private sector’s changing role in education is

understood. The papers collected here reflect on and extend those debates and

consider the implications for policy, practice and academic research. Offering new

insights into these themes is particularly timely, firstly, given the increasing emphasis

on an enhanced role for the private sector in policy and programme development as

a partner in reaching Education for All; and secondly, given the related growth of

research into this area over recent years.

This collection extends the debate initiated in an earlier edition of Compare

which focused on decentralisation of education and the implications of such policy

and practice on the range of actors involved and provision on offer (Dyer & Rose,

2005). The Decentralisation issue highlighted the marginal position of private

sector debates in contemporary policy, how it is often by ‘default rather than

design’ that it has become an important player at all levels of education provision

(Rose, 2005, see also Bangay, 2005; Little & Evans, 2005). However, while much

can be gained by considering privatisation as a form of decentralisation (e.g.

Patrinos & Ariasingam, 1997; Bray & Mukundan, 2003), there are distinct

practical, political and conceptual concerns related to the private sector that require

exploration. Consequently, this Special Issue, devoted specifically to exploring the

private sector’s contribution to the education sector, has been developed. The

papers presented here extend discussion of the diversity of the ‘private sector’,

those schools and education enterprises that are commercially oriented and subject

to market-forces, and focus attention on the dynamics of the multi-faceted

EDITORIAL

Compare

Vol. 36, No. 4, December 2006, pp. 411–419

ISSN 0305-7925 (print)/ISSN 1469-3623 (online)/06/040411-9

# 2006 British Association for International and Comparative Education

DOI: 10.1080/03057920601024750

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relationship between state and private education providers. Specifically, the

collection develops understanding of this arena by extending debates from

definition of the types of provision to exploring the contribution of the private

sector in the context of the political dynamics of educational decision-making and

schooling choice.

The changing faces of the private sector

The role of the private sector in development processes has come under scrutiny in

recent years. While the market triumphalism and economic liberalisation that

influenced much development thinking and practice in the 1980s has waned,

considerable debate remains over how to strike a balance between the role of

government, other socio-political institutions and the market (Sen, 1999, p. 126ff).

Boundaries between public and private providers are increasingly blurred (Ostrom,

1996) as new modalities for meeting development targets and promoting ‘good

governance’ are sought. Yet concern remains over the extent to which ‘public

goods’, investments that benefit society at large as well as proffering individual

opportunities, can or should be the focus of private enterprise (Colclough, 1996,

1997; Mehrotra & Delamonica, 2005).

In the education field there has been significant policy oscillation in how these

questions have been engaged with. The rhetorical focus of the 1990s and early 2000s

emphasised the importance of ‘new and revitalised partnerships’ between state and

non-state actors to contribute to the pursuit of EFA (EFA, 1990, 2000). Yet

practical and policy level engagement with private providers has largely been limited

to higher levels of education where private returns are considered of greater

significance (Psacharopolous & Patrinos, 2002; Lewin & Sayed, 2005). Despite

consideration in the 1980s (notably by the World Bank) of the possibility of charging

fees and adopting a market approach to primary education, such approaches have

largely been sidelined in favour of promoting fee-free access (Rose, 2003; Daniel,

2004).

However, recent trends suggest the need for re-engagement with this area of

debate, particularly in relation to schooling. Firstly, the focus on promoting EFA

and meeting primary schooling targets under the Millennium Development Goals

has placed considerable pressure on state finances available for the education sector

(International Finance Corporation, 2002; World Bank, 2002). Questions have been

asked about whether targets can be met through state-led provision alone.

Consequently, interest in decentralisation, community participation and the role

of non-state actors (including private providers) has emerged as a key point of policy

and academic investigation (see, for example, Dyer & Rose, 2005; Rose, 2005).

Secondly, and linked to this, a mushrooming of the private school sector in many

developing countries is evident, as is the considerable heterogeneity of the provision

on offer. There is a need, then, to consider the changing faces of the private sector.

With the freedom to deviate from nationally prescribed curricula, private

providers are able to impart the skills and offer the qualifications required for

seeking, and perhaps creating, new livelihoods in global, national and local

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economies. Private institutions may also offer diversity in educational provision

in terms of religious, spiritual and cultural orientations that are associated with

the promotion of certain values, which may have implications for future

livelihood choices. The diversity of the sector is also highlighted in the groups

targeted by private education providers. For example, in addition to the traditional

elite institutions, there has been a rise in low fee private schooling (including at

primary and pre-primary levels) (see Srivastava, Mehrotra & Panchamukhi and

Tooley & Dixon, this volume). This has had a significant impact on the educational

choices open to learners and their families. Other modalities include private sector

operation of public schools under contract to states; private institutions serving

public purposes, such as providing free educational services or financing scholar-

ships and vouchers (King et al., 1997; Sandstrom & Bergstrom, 2005; Day Ashley,

this volume).

Much work on the private sector focuses on concerns about equity of access to

education and the quality of provision offered by different providers (e.g. Salmi,

2000). Developing mechanisms for ensuring private schooling is open to all those

who desire it has been a key strand of debate, with the potential of voucher schemes

and other incentive mechanisms a key area of consideration (Lassibille & Tan,

2001). Quality debates have tended to focus on the effectiveness and efficiency of

private/government schools on the basis of indicators such as physical facilities,

teacher training, student completion rates and examination results (Kingdon, 1996).

Yet, as the collection of papers presented here highlight, such a focus only partially

addresses issues of equality of educational opportunity. More amorphous,

contextually specific considerations associated with student and parental aspirations,

educational decision making strategies and perceptions of livelihood opportunities in

specific contexts need to be engaged with.

Cross-cutting many of these themes is the need for explicit engagement with the

relationships between the state and non-state actors in the education arena (Rose,

2006). This requires recognition of the specificities of the development of education

systems in particular state and intra-state contexts and the politically-charged nature

of popular and policy debates around education provision and providers.

Discussions about quality and access, for instance, involve exploration of relative

standards of state and non-state provision, the form and effectiveness of regulatory

mechanisms and understanding of the multiple levels of interaction and engagement

between students, teachers and education officials across public-private divisions.

This involves both the formally recognised interaction (through policy, formal

registration processes, training and so on) and more clandestine encounters such as

those associated with bribery and registration, party political involvement in schools

or parents’ dual enrolment of children to secure benefits from different institutions

(e.g. receiving free meals from government schools, whilst also enrolled at private

school, see Tooley & Dixon, this volume).

Finally, recognising the often opaque and politically-charged dynamics of private

education provision poses a number of methodological challenges for researchers

exploring this field. Access to and reliability of data must be given consideration,

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whether that be enrolment and fee figures or information about registration

processes and relations with state officials and education inspectors. Further, there is

the need to address head-on the ideologically charged nature of much of the

investigative and interpretive work in this field. As Bangay notes, ‘In few other areas

of debate are pre-conceptions more likely to be found than in that regarding private

education’ (2005, p. 168). It is critical, then, that there is explicit recognition of this

and that such reflection is used to open space for constructive dialogue and

evidence-based debate in academic and policy arenas. The collection gathered here

is offered in this spirit.

Towards a reconceptualisation of private sector schooling provision

The papers presented in this Special Issue encompass many of the themes emerging

from the discussions at the UKFIET Oxford conference and address the core issues

highlighted above. Individually they offer insights into specific cases and pose

particular questions about how we conceptualise private sector engagement in

education, and schooling in particular. Collectively, they point to the need for

critical consideration of the relationship between state and private provision of

education and the importance of developing specific case studies and comparative

analysis of this arena. They also highlight a range of methodological approaches that

can be taken to explore this field, striking a balance between cross context

comparison and detailed, context-specific case studies.

The first two papers (by Mehrotra & Panchamukhi and Tooley & Dixon)

introduce key themes and concerns that lie at the heart of current policy debate

about the potential of private providers to contribute to the extension of elementary

education and the meeting of Millennium Development Goal (MDG) and

Education for All (EFA) targets. Both papers explore issues of the relative quality

of provision in private and government schools, gender and social equity, school

efficiency and the role of state regulation. And they both take as their central focus

the questions ‘are private sector options superior to government schools?’ and

‘should policy makers be doing more to promote the role of the private sector?’ Yet,

the papers reach markedly different conclusions concerning the merits of private

provision of primary schooling and the policy implications this has for national

governments and international donors.

In the first paper in the collection, Santosh Mehrotra and Parthasarthi R.

Panchamukhi question the extent of the ‘private school advantage’. The paper

introduces material from eight states in India to provide a comparison of the

characteristics of state and private schools. They argue that, while some indicators

suggest that private provision is better than that offered in government schools, the

private sector does not contribute to promotion of gender and social equity and its

quality remains poor. Consequently, despite the rise in significance of the private

sector in the field of elementary schooling, it does not in and of itself present a

panacea for problems of quality and access facing Indian education. Mehrotra and

Panchamukhi conclude by arguing that, while it is important to improve the quality

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of private schooling, comparative evidence demonstrates the dominant role of the

public system in promoting universal schooling.

In contrast, James Tooley and Pauline Dixon present findings from Ghana,

Nigeria and India to explore the potential that the rapid growth in private schools

holds out for inclusion of poor children in education. The paper questions why,

despite the widespread recognition by researchers and policy makers of parental

dissatisfaction with the education provided by the state, much current literature in

the field considers the trend towards privatisation to be ‘undesirable’ and a cause for

regret. Instead, they argue that private schools can provide better schooling more

efficiently than the state and, as such, are important partners in the pursuit of EFA.

In the interests of promoting UPE, they argue, modalities for working across state—

private boundaries are required to ensure equity of access and to further increase the

quality of provision in private schools. Such rethinking of relations between sectors,

the authors argue, needs to filter through to how international donor community

engages with the private sector.

Significantly, the papers converge around recognition that government school

systems are unlikely to be able to meet UPE targets and the potential role of private

providers in supporting these efforts. Both also highlight the need for a changed role

of the state vis-a-vis the private providers, including a revision of regulatory

mechanisms and the consideration of alternative ways of framing state-private

relations and modalities of operation. Private providers are significant players and

need to be engaged with and addressed in constructive and innovative ways.

Achieving improved access to schooling and increased quality of provision requires

engagement with the education sector as a whole. The evidence presented here

suggests that reducing the debate to a choice between either private or state

provision is of limited conceptual or practical significance in the education field.

Reconceptualising this interface emerges as a key area for further consideration at

multiple levels—from relations between school staff and local education officials to

cross-national comparisons and international policy development.

The second set of papers included here extends our understanding of the state-

private interface through exploration of specific cases and themes. In doing so, both

papers highlight the contested nature of education provision and tensions over what

and how learning should be promoted. The fraught nature of relations between the

state and private education providers touched upon in the first two papers is further

developed in Martha Caddell’s paper on schooling in Nepal in the context of violent

political conflict. The paper makes an explicit link between popular perceptions of

the relative quality of state and private education and the use being made of

schooling to advance the interests of particular political groups. It explores how

private schools have become metaphorical and actual ‘battlefields’—the focus of

local level struggles over recruitment, party political debates, and, in the context of a

de facto civil war, a site of military activities. Following the forced closure of many

private schools by Maoist insurgents, private school organisations emerged as

significant political actors and were drawn into a series of negotiations with

representatives of the Nepali state and the insurgents. While in many respects an

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‘extreme’ case, the arguments that Caddell presents help extend understanding of

the private sector’s political role more broadly, including the practical and political

challenge of regulation, the need to build trust and effective communication between

state and private providers and the ideological nature of debate around ‘appropriate’

education provision.

An important theme played on by private school organisations in Nepal is their

philanthropic orientation, the ‘social service’ that they are providing, which, they

argued, should exempt them from paying commercial rate taxes and afford them

further support from the state. This juxtaposition of social and market orientation of

private providers is also a central motif of Laura Day Ashley’s contribution. She

explores the phenomenon of ‘private school outreach’ in India, whereby private, fee-

charging institutions develop outreach programmes providing education to out-of-

school children. Through an exploration of two distinct cases, she highlights

different modalities for building partnerships between state and private education

providers at the local level. This in turn poses a challenge to how the state—private

divide is conceptualised; in these cases the boundaries are blurred. Indeed, the same

institution can be seen to be providing ‘elite’ education to those who can afford it

whilst also advancing a pro-poor agenda and extending educational opportunities to

disadvantaged groups. In the two cases these institutions also engage in developing

linkages with government schools. Significantly, it is the long-term commitment to

these activities that contributes to the building of trust and responsive inter-school

working in these contexts. Linked to this, she speaks to a further silence in much of

the literature—the cultural motivations and perceptions of appropriate development

and change that underpin education-oriented action. The challenge Day Ashley’s

work posits is thus not simply to disaggregate the ‘private sector’, but to consider

alternative ways of conceptualising and working across boundaries.

The final two papers in this collection explore how learners and their families

strategically engage with the private sector. In doing so, they reflect themes of equity,

inclusion and educational quality that cross-cut many of the contributions in this

volume while focusing in more explicitly on parental and learner perceptions of the

educational environment and the options open to them. Prachi Srivastava explores

the emergence of low fee private provision and considers how the expansion of this

sector has influenced household decision-making around girls’ schooling. Her paper

focuses on the ‘mental models’ through which individuals interpret the world, make

sense of changing contexts and make decisions. Drawing on case study material from

Uttar Pradesh, India, the paper explores how parents perceived the role of schooling

for their daughters’ future and why low fee private schools emerged as the

educational pathway of choice. Notably, particularly in light of the debates of the

first two articles in the volume, Srivastava’s findings suggest that households were

just as likely to choose low fee private schools for daughters and sons. This, she

argues, reflects household beliefs and expectations about the value of education in

relation to the marriage market and employment opportunities for their daughters.

Understanding the significance of the diversification of the private sector, and the

rise of low fee private provision in particular, requires looking at the meanings

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attached to education and school attendance and the strategic context of household

decision-making.

In the last paper in the collection, Mark Bray looks beyond formal schooling to the

‘shadow’ education system of private supplementary tutoring. He explores the

growth of tutoring in specific contexts and as an increasingly global industry,

highlighting the emergence of trans-national tuition. Drawing on examples from a

range of country contexts, he highlights how private tuition is perceived and engaged

with by families from different income groups and by learners of diverse abilities.

The paper highlights the complexity of decision making in this field—while tutoring

does exacerbate social stratification, it would be an oversimplification to simply link

financial position, engagement in tutoring activities and educational advantage.

Wealthier parents may value their children having ‘free time’ rather than tutoring;

poorer parents may consider it to be cheaper to pay for tuition than having to pay for

their child to repeat a year. Further consideration needs to be given to the broader

context of educational decision making within the family and to the content and

quality of tutoring in the context of other schooling that the learner engages in. Bray

also explores a further dimension of the private/state education interface—the role of

individual tutors as both employees of the state (as school teachers, for example) and

as private tutors. This, he argues, can have a considerable impact on the income of

individual teachers, but may also have implications for what is taught (and not

taught) in mainstream school contexts. Much remains to be explored in this field;

while, as this Special Issue demonstrates, the private sector is gradually emerging

from the shadows of schooling policy, private supplementary tutoring remains an

under-explored phenomenon.

The papers presented here highlight a diversity of approaches to understanding

private schooling and the privatisation of education provision in developing

countries. While they do not offer in themselves a definitive new framework for

conceptualising the private sector and the complexity of relations with state and civil

society actors, they do signpost possible routes to take us in that direction. Such

pathways towards reconceptualising the sector require engagement with the

strategies and decision-making processes adopted by multiple actors—learners,

parents, private school providers, state officials and policy makers. They encourage

recognition of the ‘blurred boundaries’ that characterise interactions and the

politically and ideologically charged nature of the discussions and decisions that are

made. The collection also points to the need for further comparative work to

facilitate conceptual advances. Much research work, in this volume and beyond,

focuses on the Indian experience as an exemplar of the tensions between state policy

and the de facto emergence of private education enterprises. Comparison across

political regimes and between policy frameworks can, as this collection highlights,

open space for further theoretical reframing. It is through exploring these paths—the

routes they take in specific contexts and the international trends that can be

mapped—that alternative ways of understanding the private sector’s contribution to

education can be developed.

Martha Caddell and Laura Day Ashley

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