the shifting politics of the private in education: debates and developments in researching private...
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The shifting politics of the private ineducation: debates and developmentsin researching private school outreachin IndiaLaura Day Ashley aa School of Education , University of Birmingham , Birmingham ,UKPublished online: 11 Jun 2012.
To cite this article: Laura Day Ashley (2013) The shifting politics of the private in education:debates and developments in researching private school outreach in India, Comparative Education,49:2, 206-225, DOI: 10.1080/03050068.2012.686258
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The shifting politics of the private in education: debates anddevelopments in researching private school outreach in India
Laura Day Ashley*
School of Education, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK
This paper addresses the politics of researching private education with specialreference to the Indian context. Due to a recent increase in privatised forms ofeducation globally and recognition of the private sector by governments,international agencies and researchers as a policy and academic interest, this isshifting ground. The evolving nature of the politics of researching the private inthe recent past is discussed with reference to research on private school outreachfor out-of-school children in India. First the author critically examines thereception of this research when it was conducted in 2000–2003 in relation to thediscourse and policy in Indian education at the time. The research is thenrevisited in the contemporary context in the light of considerable changes inIndian education policy, involving increased public–private partnership. In thisnew climate private school outreach is reconceptualised – previously consideredan educational anomaly, it now has renewed relevance. Finally, findings fromthe research are drawn on to shed light on emerging concerns about the Right ofChildren to Free and Compulsory Education Act’s (2009) requirement forprivate schools to reserve at least 25% of school places for economicallydisadvantaged children in their neighbourhoods.
Introduction
Education is an area of public life that has become politicised to the extent that, asHalpin (2003, 6) suggests ‘people who are highly politically motivated often self-con-sciously use education as a key site for their personal ideological struggles and justifytheir partisan attitudes about it by reference to its inevitably political character’. Withinthe educational arena, private education is recognised as being particularly contentiousand it has been suggested that ‘in few other areas of debate are preconceptions morelikely to be found than in that regarding private education’ (Bangay 2005, 168,citing Tooley 1998). The implications of this for educational research on the privatesector have led to a call by Caddell and Day Ashley (2006, 414) for the ‘need toaddress head-on the ideologically charged nature of much of the investigative and inter-pretive work’ in this field.
This paper addresses the conceptual issue of the politics of researching private edu-cation, with special reference to the Indian context. While this subject has receivedsome attention in the contexts of the US (e.g. Cooper and Randall 2008) and Britain(e.g. Ball 2007), less attention has been given to the politics of researching private edu-cation in developing country contexts. India might be considered a particularly signifi-cant context for discussion about this issue since the country has witnessed rapid policychanges in education over the past few years involving an increased role for the private
© 2013 Taylor & Francis
*Email: [email protected]
Comparative Education, 2013Vol. 49, No. 2, 206–225, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03050068.2012.686258
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sector. In the light of such changes, this paper attempts to give an account of the shiftingground of the politics of private education research by (i) drawing on the author’sreflections on researching a type of private schooling innovation in India – privateschool outreach for economically disadvantaged children within the discourse andpolicy context at the time the research was conducted: 2000–2003, and (ii) revisitingthat research and re-viewing private school outreach a decade or so later in the contem-porary Indian education policy context relating to private schools and the inclusion ofeconomically disadvantaged children. The paper seeks to compare how the research onprivate school outreach was/is perceived and how it related/relates to Indian educationpolicies and discourses in these two temporal contexts. As such it may be described ascomparative historical in nature (Sweeting 1999; Kazamias 2001; Siegrist 2006). Thiscomparison over time brings into sharp focus the recent changes in the Indian educationpolicy context in relation to the private sector, which in turn illustrates the evolvingnature of the politics of researching private education.
Through these reflections on the research experience in India, the paper aims todraw attention to the environments within which researchers on private educationwork, bring new insights to the politics of researching private education and, in sodoing, open up debate around this topic within the Indian context and beyond. Thus,the Indian example discussed in this paper may prove illuminating for comparisonwith other national contexts, given the increase in privatised forms of education emer-ging on a global scale.
Exploring the politics of private education research
Before I introduce my research on the Indian context, I first give consideration as towhy researching private education has been so politically contentious in the recentpast in various national contexts and why so many preconceptions surround privateeducation. In relation to this I have identified three key themes from the literature: (i)the lack of interest in researching private education in the recent past; (ii) the perceivedthreat that private education poses to the traditional role of the state in education; and(iii) the under-recognised heterogeneity of the private education sector. I will addresseach of these in turn.
Lack of interest in researching the private in the recent past
Despite the growing international interest in researching private education over the pastfew years, it has not traditionally been a widely popular sub-field of educationalresearch. This may be due in part to a particular focus arising from the critical traditionin education to address issues of social oppression (Gibson 1986) often to the detrimentof other foci, such as ‘researching up’ (Walford 1994) to those in more powerful socialpositions. Even teachers’ world-views have been absent in many school ethnographies,which Forsey (2000) suggests is due to critical ethnographers holding ‘particular biasesagainst so-called middle-class, bourgeois lifestyles’ to which teachers are seen tobelong and which ethnographers do not want ‘to be seen to legitimise’ becausesocial justice ‘is not thought to lie with that particular group’ (Forsey 2000, 208) –the focus instead has tended to be students as the resistors of oppression.
Extending this argument, it might be suggested that the critical tradition in edu-cation research may not have only entailed neglecting certain social actors in researchor dichotomising them as ‘goodies’ and ‘baddies’ (Mac an Ghaill 1992, cited in Forsey
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2000, 202) but may have also impacted on which topics have been considered ‘appro-priate’ to research. For example, Halpin argues that the ‘intrusion of the overtly politicalin debates about education’ can mean that ‘brand-names are ideologically ruled out bydefinition’ (2003, 7) and gives, as an example (citing Brighouse 2003): ‘[t]he Left’sknee-jerk rejection’ (Halpin 2003, 7) of a specific role of the private sector in education,even when it may be harmonious with social justice.
However, in recent years there has undoubtedly been an opening up of academicresearch and debate on private education in many national contexts. For example,with reference to developing countries, recent scholarship in the field has included anedited volume on private education in less economically developed countries (Srivastavaand Walford 2007), and special issues of Compare on the private education sector(Caddell and Day Ashley 2006), public–private strategies in education (Evans andRobinson-Pant 2009) and non-state provision (Rose 2009). This rising academic interestmight be explained by recent policy in developing countries emphasising the role of theprivate education sector as a partner in meeting Education For All and the MillenniumDevelopment Goals. Despite this growing interest, strong attitudes against private invol-vement in education prevail in many education circles. For example, with reference todeveloping countries, Bangay (2007) points out that private fee-dependent schools –even when they are significant education providers for the poor – have been ‘offradar’ to donors. Where innovative initiatives by NGOs targeting the disadvantagedhave been praised by donors, private fee-dependent schools ‘have too often beenregarded as the “ugly” sisters at Cinderella’s ball’ (Bangay 2007, 126), althoughdonor-funded sector reviews are now starting to recognise private education. It mightbe suggested then that, despite the growing interest in the private education sector inpolicy and academic research, there is an entrenched suspicion of the private in edu-cation; one reason for this may be the threat that it poses to the traditional role of the state.
Threatening the traditional role of the state in education
At a fundamental level, debate around the appropriateness of private sector involve-ment in education calls into question the role and responsibility of governments inthe provision of education. Cooper and Randall (2008) refer to the ‘fear’ of privatisationin the US context which is perceived as a threat to the hegemony of public educationover the past 150 years, a ‘fear’ that may be defined as ‘the movement from certainty touncertainty’ (Ginsberg and Lyche 2008, citing Krishnamurti 1995). This shift towardsthe private sector raises key ideological questions about the purpose of government andhow to preserve the long-held values of public education: universality, equity, oppor-tunities for all and democratic control.
It is worth noting, however, that in most industrialised countries state provision hasevolved from, and drawn on the approaches of, private precedents (Bangay 2007).Similarly, in many developing countries the first schools were private institutions;these were often founded by religious missionary groups which, after independence,were put under state control – and, in some cases, private education was madeillegal (Kitaev 2007). Such strong anti-private education sentiments have continuedin certain national contexts. For example, Kitaev (2007) has discussed how in SriLanka although private schools exist, the establishment of new private schools was for-bidden, and Caddell’s work has shown that in Nepal ‘private schools have becomemetaphorical and actual “battlefields”’ (Caddell and Day Ashley 2006, 415) ‘in the con-flict between Maoist insurgents and the state’ (Caddell 2006, 463). Attitudes towards,
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and policies concerning, private sector contributions to education are therefore deeplyrooted in specific social, political and historical contexts.
Despite variation among developing countries in terms of their openness to privateeducation, over recent years a trend can be identified in terms of a growing interest bygovernments in forms of privatised schooling. This interest may be stimulated for arange of reasons in different national contexts, a key reason being economic, such asa response to financially constrained state budgets or an attempt to introduce cost-effi-ciency measures. Although there is no uniformity in private education policies, Ball(2008) has suggested that there is ‘a global convergence in reform strategies’ (42) to‘modernise’ the public sector as a whole which he describes as ‘the increasing coloni-sation of education policy by economic policy imperatives’ (39). The global economicdownturn of the mid-1970s, leading to increased confidence in market forces over stateregulation, may have paved the way for this increased tolerance and support of privateschooling with economic liberalisation and market reforms of the late 1980s and 1990s.More recently, questions have been raised as to whether the Education For All and Mil-lennium Development Goal targets can be met exclusively by state-led provision(Caddell and Day Ashley 2006). Lewin (2011, 11), however, points out that privateproviders tend to require public subsidy since ‘[u]nsubsidised providers cannotservice the poor and the poorest en masse and remain solvent’ and creates instead astrong argument for the extension of state education systems in the achievement ofthe Education For All targets and the Millennium Development Goals.
Some see the emergence of the private education sector as a response to the failureof the state sector [e.g. Mehrotra and Panchamukhi (2007) with reference to the Indiancontext] and an over-reliance on the private sector may be perceived as a failure by gov-ernments to fulfil their responsibility to provide education as a basic human right.Härmä’s (2009, 2011) research in rural Uttar Pradesh, India suggests that poorparents only tend to prefer low-fee private schools ‘while government schools arefailing’ (2011, 356). This indicates that if government schools were more effectivethey would be the school of choice for the poor and has led Härmä to argue for invest-ment in raising standards in government schools. Härmä’s research also found that thepoorest families are unable to afford to access low-fee private schools. This points to thereproductive effects of the private education sector in maintaining social and economicinequalities which has been reported by many, including Jeffery, Jeffery and Jeffrey(2005) with reference to the privatisation of secondary schooling in India; Mehrotraand Panchamukhi (2006) in relation to elementary private schooling in India; andBray (2006) with regard to private supplementary tutoring in multiple settings.
It should be emphasised that the concept of the private sector as a potential contri-butor to the provision of quality education for all is a relatively recent one. It should alsobe recognised that in the light of the trend towards greater privatisation of education inmany locations worldwide, what was once regarded as the traditional predominant roleof the state in education is beginning to be called into question. Thus, traditional powerstructures and beliefs about the purpose and values of state education that were oncetaken for granted are now being challenged. Apple (2001, 409) describes these ‘increas-ingly powerful discourses and policies of neo-liberalism concerning privatisation, mar-ketisation, performativity and the “enterprising individual”’ as ‘some of the mostimportant dynamics surrounding globalisation in education’. Within such discourseseducation becomes a ‘commodity’, schools are rendered like ‘businesses’ competingwith one another, knowledge is ‘exploited’, and students become ‘clients’ on the onehand and ‘sales products’ on the other (Ball 2007; Cooper and Randall 2008). Roles,
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identities and relationships are required to change, with, for example, emphasis beingplaced on the accountability of teachers to students – the clients – and parents becomingconsumers preoccupied with school choice in the educational market. Such discoursemay be perceived as a device for changing the experiences, meanings and purposesof education – changing what is valued and considered important (Ball 2008). Thus tra-ditional values surrounding public education are potentially displaced by the apparentlyvalue-neutral rhetoric of the market in the delivery of a supposedly more efficient,effective and responsive education and increasing freedom of choice for parents.However, more sinister values are also associated with this type of privatisation of edu-cation: e.g. competition for scarce resources, elitism, profit-making, greed. In thiscontext maintaining a focus on ‘protecting the entitlement of all children to an edu-cation of a defined minimum quality’ (Bangay 2007, 122) poses a challenge.
Under-recognised heterogeneity of the private education sector
Despite the seemly monolithic momentum towards privatisation with its powerful dis-courses on a global scale, the private education sector is vastly heterogeneous. Asalready mentioned, the nature of private education varies between countries. Withinspecific national contexts, the private education sector is also extremely diverse.Inadequate recognition of this diversity in the existing literature may lead to preconcep-tions and often misconceptions about different forms of private education.
There have been some attempts to categorise private schools in the context of devel-oping countries. For example, Kitaev (2007, 91) provides a set of ‘pure types’ of school –to which, he points out, that few schools would correspond exactly but most wouldpossess one ormore overlapping characteristics. Bangay (2007, 113) also provides a con-ceptual framework to categorise non-state provision by locating schools within a matrixrelating to two key characteristics: managerial control and finance. While this model,unlike Kitaev’s, allows for the representation of characteristics as a matter of degree –in this case ranging from high to low levels of state managerial control and finance –the range of characteristics it includes is limited.
In contribution to these attempts to categorise private schools in developingcountries, in Table 1 I have identified six interrelated dimensions of diversity relatingto the different ways in which we often define private schools – e.g. as schools thattend to charge fees and target particular groups of parents/children, that are motivatedin specificways and have specific types ofmanagement, and that have particular relation-ships with the state in terms of finance and regulation. I also attempt to show – whereappropriate – that these dimensionsmight be experienced as amatter of degree, e.g. char-ging fees on a spectrum of high to low. Certain dimensions might be classified as binaryopposites, for example whether schools are recognised or not recognised by the govern-ment. However, other dimensions might include several forms of variation, for examplethe motivations of school providers might be singular or involve multiple motivations.This dimension also indicates that motivations underlying private schools may not berelated exclusively to profit-making or prestige (and we should remember here how,in different national contexts, certain schools within the private sector have providedthe space to experiment with progressive pedagogies which may not have been possiblein the state sector, e.g. Summerhill school in England).
For the purpose of this exercise private schools are broadly defined followingUNESCO as ‘schools that are managed by independent (non-public) bodies … evenif they receive funding support from public authorities’ (Kitaev 2007, 91). Following
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this definition the activity of NGOs may be broadly included under this umbrella; andoccasionally private schools may engage in activity not dissimilar to that of NGOs, as inthe case of private school outreach in India.
So far the paper has explored reasons for political contention surrounding privateeducation and its implications for research. This sets the background for the followingsection of the paper in which I reflect on my own experience of researching privateeducation – it is to this research on ‘private school outreach’ in India that I shallnow turn.
Outline of the research on private school outreach in India: 2000–2003
The phenomenon that I have termed ‘private school outreach’ in the Indian contextrefers to private schools that go beyond their usual remit of providing fee-paying edu-cation to the middle classes, and reach out to provide free or affordable education tosocio-economically disadvantaged children living locally who would otherwise beout-of-school. My research on private school outreach (Day Ashley 2005, 2006) in asense contributes to an understanding of the heterogeneity of private schools by
Table 1. Dimensions of diversity of private schools in developing countries.
Dimension of diversity Examples of range of variation within dimension
Fee structure • Fee dependent school – on a spectrum from high to low fee.• Variable fee charged (e.g. according to income).• Free or nominal fee charged (usually charity/NGO provision).
Children/parents targeted • Target specific socio-economic groups according to feescharged by developing a reputation in particular aspects ofeducation demanded by parents, e.g. academic achievement,good facilities, discipline, English language, specific subjectsor types of examinations.
• For socially/economically disadvantaged children or childrenwith disabilities (as a proportion of intake or entire schoolintake).
• Open to children locally.Motivations of school
providers• Prestige (e.g. membership to exclusive societies/bodies).• Profit-making.• Philanthropy.• To engage with certain cultural, social, spiritual or religiousvalues/philosophies.
• To practise a specific/alternative educational approach/pedagogy.
Types of management • Individuals.• Businesses.• Religious organisations.• Societies/trusts.• NGOs/charities.
Financial support • Government support (e.g. ‘aided’ or ‘unaided’).• Donor/sponsor support.
- Support received on a spectrum from high to low.Government recognition/
regulation• Recognised by government to meet minimum standards, e.g.teacher qualifications, facilities, curriculum.• Not recognised by government.
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focusing on a phenomenon that was barely mentioned in the literature on privateschooling in India at the time, despite anecdotal evidence to indicate that it wasgrowing. With the exception of a small-scale case study (Jessop 1998) and a shortdescription of individual institutions engaged in this type of activity (Tooley 2001),private school outreach had not previously been recognised for research, and certainlynot for an in-depth comparative study of more than one case. Therefore a multiple casestudy was designed to address the key research question: ‘Does private school outreachcontribute to bridging educational and social divides in the Indian context, or does itserve to maintain and reinforce them?’
In each of the three cases data collection involved a progressive structuring processwhereby less structured methods such as ethnographic observations and conversationsand documentary analysis preceded and informed more structured methods of data col-lection such as semi-structured interviews with key informants, focus group discussionswith outreach programme and private school students, and focused observations ofinteractions between the two groups of students. This generated rich and less structureddata about each case in context enabling within-case analysis, as well as more struc-tured data in a format that enabled comparison for cross-case analysis.
Since the study of private school outreach was new research terrain, the three cases ofprivate school outreach were selected according to the strategy of ‘maximum variation’(Patton 1990) to allow for the identification of common patterns across the different casesand to detect the variable conditions which may account for variation between the cases(Becker 1990). This involved identifying key criteria and selecting a set of three cases thatdisplayed appropriate diversity across these criteria. Table 2 outlines these key selectioncriteria and details how these were met in the three cases to illustrate the variationbetween them. Table 3 provides further descriptions of the cases in terms of the ‘dimen-sions of diversity of private schooling’ identified earlier in the paper in Table 1.
Reflecting on the politics of researching private school outreach: 2000–2003
As I planned, designed, carried out and disseminated my research on private school out-reach between 2000 and 2003, I experienced strong reactions from fellow academicsfrom both Indian and British institutions. At the very outset of my doctorate I foundthese somewhat off-putting and even considered changing the focus of my researchaway from the private. However, on reflection I found that these reactions offered alterna-tive perspectives to my own, enabling me to interrogate my own assumptions and explorelines of inquiry that would challenge or confirm them. I also found that these strong reac-tions reinforced the significance of the research – the very contention of private schooloutreach was a good reason to study it and, of equal importance, was to reflect onwhy the research generated such a response. In this section I critically examine three fre-quently voiced concerns that were raised by academics of Indian education about privateschool outreach during the conduct and dissemination of the research. I examine theseconcerns in the context of (a) my research findings, and (b) the educational scene inIndia at the time of the research in terms of policy, discourse and developments.
Concern 1: private schools must be doing outreach work for their ownself-promotion
A key concern that has been expressed about private school outreach relates to themotives of private school leaders for starting outreach work. The concern suggests
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that the rationale for outreach work must be to promote the interests of the privateschool in some way – perhaps to attract more students or parents of a certain type orto attract some financial benefit. This concern also provides a useful angle fromwhich to interrogate the research data.
The notion that private school outreach leaders were motivated by personal or classinterests to promote their private schools contrasts strongly with reasons articulated byprivate school outreach leaders for starting outreach work (see Day Ashley 2006,2010). Reasons expressed include the importance of private school students becomingaware of, and starting to take responsibility for, poverty in their local environment fromwhich they tend to be removed in their everyday lives. In terms of the motives drivingtheir action, private school outreach leaders described personal experiences of encoun-ters with individuals in extreme poverty that they associated with a spiritual or religious‘calling’ to work with the disadvantaged.
Private schools also did not appear to benefit financially from outreach work (seeDay Ashley 2006). Rather, conversely, being attached to a private school was
Table 2. Descriptions of the three cases of private school outreach at the time of the research interms of case selection criteria.
Case selectioncriteria Catholic case Vivekananda case Krishnamurti case
Religious/philosophicalfoundation
Founded by a Catholicteaching order
Founded on idealsof SwamiVivekananda(spiritualreformer)
Founded by JidduKrishnamurti(spiritual leader)
Date private schoolwas founded
1840s 1979 1931
Urban/rurallocation
Urban: Kolkata, WestBengal
Urban: Kolkata,West Bengal
Rural: Andhra Pradesh
Location ofoutreachprogramme inrelation toprivate school
Situated within the multi-storey private schoolbuilding – on the topfloor
10 schools situatedin slum areaslocal to theprivate school
16 schools in villagesnear the privateschool and twoschools within theprivate schoolgrounds
Types of students inprivate school
Day school for 1400girls, 50% frommiddle-classbackgrounds and 50%from socio-economicallydisadvantagedbackgrounds
Day school for3300 boys andgirls frommiddle-classbackgrounds
Boarding school for330 boys and girlsfrom upper andmiddle-classbackgrounds
Types of students inoutreachprogramme
200 boys and girls – 90%living on the streetsand 10% resident inthe school
550 boys and girlsliving in slumareas
500 boys and girlsliving in villages
Note: This table is an adapted version of a table that appears in an earlier paper by the author: The use ofstructuration theory to conceptualize alternative practice in education: the case of private school outreach inIndia. L. Day Ashley. British Journal of Sociology of Education. 2010. 31:3 p. 340. It has been printed bypermission of the publisher, Taylor and Francis Ltd, http://www.informaworld.com
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sometimes detrimental to the receipt of funding for outreach programme activity asfunders perceived the private schools to be wealthy institutions that should coverthese costs. Outreach work was also subject to criticism at times by private schoolparents concerned about the impact on their children; thus, there was the ever-present undertone that ultimately outreach work had the potential to threaten the stab-ility of their private schools. It is also clear from the interviews with key informantsamong the staff in the three cases that starting outreach work required great effortnot only in terms of administration, finance and encouraging out-of-school childrento attend, but also because in doing this work they were working against the grain –
going beyond what is considered the normal remit of a private school.However, through their outreach work the private schools did acquire some
benefits, for example, they became well known within their states and nationally and
Table 3. Descriptions of the private schools at the time of the research in terms of dimensionsof diversity of private schools.
Dimensions ofdiversity ofprivate school Catholic case Vivekananda case Krishnamurti case
Fee structure Variable fee accordingto income – from‘medium’ level (i.e.tuition fee = Rs400*per month) to variousconcessional rates
Fee dependentcharging ‘medium’level fees (i.e. tuitionfee = Rs400* permonth)
Fee dependent charging‘higher’ fees (i.e. fullboarding fee =Rs55,000* per year)
Children/parentstargeted
50% places reserved forsocio-economicallydisadvantagedchildren with theremaining 50% ofplaces for full fee-paying local middle-class children
Local middle-classchildren/parents.School developed areputation for highlevels ofachievement andpupil discipline
Pan-Indian upper andmiddle-classchildren. Schooldeveloped areputation for a‘liberal’ educationalapproach andextensive facilities
Motivations ofschoolproviders
Catholic and broadlyChristian religiousvalues; inclusiveeducation approach**
Spiritual, social andeducationalphilosophies ofSwamiVivekananda**
Spiritual, social andeducationalphilosophies of JidduKrishnamurti**
Types ofmanagement
Religious organisation Registered society/trust Registered trust
Financialsupport
Semi-aided – receivingapprox. 50% of staffsalaries from stategovernment
Unaided by thegovernment
Unaided by thegovernment
Governmentrecognition/regulation
Recognised*** Recognised*** Recognised***
Notes: *Exchange rate at the time of research: UK£1 = Rs. 75, approximately.
**The schools did not cater exclusively to children of a single faith but children from various religiousbackgrounds.
***As recognised schools they were officially not-for-profit.
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attracted visitors from overseas to volunteer or learn more about their educationalmodels for possible implementation or dissemination in other countries. Althoughthis notoriety may have had some effect on promoting the name of the privateschool and perhaps increasing its popularity among its fee-paying clientele, the mainfocus appeared to be for the promotion and benefit of the outreach programme.
Although the concern expressed does not appear to fit neatly with the research find-ings, suspicion of the motives, values and interests of private schools is understandablein the context of the dominant areas of research on private schools in India at the time.One main line of research has focused on the financing of education, highlighting howprivate aided schools have placed a drain on the government’s education budget –finances that could be spent instead on improving government schooling for the lesswealthy majority (see Tilak 2000). Another popular area of research focused onrecently emerging private schools in India, particularly low-fee schools targeting disad-vantaged sections of society (see Kingdon 1996; De et al. 2000; Tooley and Dixon2003), the prolific growth of which has been described as tantamount to ‘de-facto’ pri-vatisation of education (Tooley and Dixon 2006). These key areas of research onprivate education in India may have contributed to the dominant perception of the‘generic private school’ as above all self-interested and competitive – a perceptionthat underplays the heterogeneity of the private school sector.
Concern 2: private school outreach perpetuates a dual track in education
This concern relates to the issue of educational equity and suggests that the non-formalvernacular-medium education received by outreach programme children was not onlydifferent in nature but also in quality to the formal English-medium education receivedby private school students. This may, in part, be explained by the education discourse inIndia at the time where it had been argued that non-formal education ‘got into seriousdisrepute’ (Jain et al. 2000, 29) due to an unsuccessful attempt to implement successfulsmall-scale NGO non-formal education practices on a large scale via the centrally spon-sored scheme of Non Formal Education (piloted in 1979 and scaled up in 1987).
However, the rationale given by private school outreach leaders was simply that itwas important to adapt the learning environment through a non-formal approach to suitout-of-school children’s circumstances. Formal schooling tends to make assumptionsabout the circumstances of children – e.g. that they are able to attend school regularlyand on time, that their parents are able to support them with their learning, and that theconditions at home are favourable for study. Such circumstances cannot be assumed forout-of-school children who are often first generation learners required to contributethrough work to the family income and who may live in cramped conditions inslums or remote villages often without electricity or even on the streets.
Although they provided non-formal education, all three outreach programmesworked on mainstreaming a proportion (between 40% and 100%) of children intolocal vernacular-medium government schools providing a more formal education.However, only one case – the Catholic case – attempted to regularly include approxi-mately 10% of its outreach programme children into its English-medium private school.These children were former street children who, due to their particular vulnerability,had become resident in the private school; they joined a private school where 50%of the students were already from disadvantaged backgrounds and received full ornear-full fee concessions [for more details see Day Ashley (2005)]. This case ofprivate school outreach tended to be received favourably by Indian education
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academics with whom I discussed and disseminated the research. It was seen as beingthe most inclusive and equitable model of private school outreach since it attempted togive disadvantaged children the same educational opportunities as private schoolstudents.
In both the Vivekananda and Krishnamurti cases, outreach programme childrenwere not regularly included into the private schools; the key barriers to their inclusion,as articulated by private school outreach leaders, were their first generation learnerstatus and their potential to struggle with the English medium of instruction. This indi-cates the expectations these private schools had of potential students in terms of theirprior knowledge and skills on entry. The leaders of the other two cases also expressedconcern that outreach programme children would suffer from a ‘sense of inferiority’and a ‘sense of cultural conflict’ if they were to learn alongside the middle-class stu-dents in the private schools.
The Catholic private school outreach leader had also been concerned that the disad-vantaged children included into the private school (both slum dwelling children andformer street children from the outreach programme) might feel alienated in theprivate school, however this was not a barrier to their inclusion. Instead the Catholicprivate school outreach leader worked on transforming the school by introducing aninclusion policy which placed the needs of the most disadvantaged children in theschool first. Consequently, the private school structures and ethos were reoriented inline with the principles of ‘simplicity’, ‘flexibility’, ‘community’ and ‘local culturaland linguistic identity’ [for more detail see Day Ashley (2005)].
In sum, the concern expressed by Indian education academics that private schooloutreach perpetuates a parallel track in education is understandable given that in allthree cases the majority of outreach programme children were not provided with thesame educational opportunities as private school students. Rather, they receivedeither a vernacular-medium non-formal education or were mainstreamed into vernacu-lar-medium government schools. However, the Catholic case demonstrates that theinvolvement of private schools in the education of disadvantaged children does not pre-clude the possibility of attempting to achieve a degree of equity. It also shows thatinclusion is not only about opening school doors and financing the education of disad-vantaged children, but it is about transforming and in fact deformalising the ethos andstructures of private schools to meet the needs of disadvantaged children.
Concern 3: education is a right not a charity
This concern implies acceptance of private school outreach as an altruistic activity(rather than, for example, self-promotion) but suggests that this is the wrong approachto education provision. Rather than being dependent on the charitable efforts of moreprivileged members of society, education for disadvantaged members of society (andindeed everyone) should be a right. This concern can be understood by looking atthe prevalent education policy and related discourse for educational expansion at thetime of research.
In the 1990s, following the National Policy on Education (Ministry of HumanResource Development 1986, amended 1992), decentralisation was adopted as a keycentral government strategy to achieve the elusive goal of Universal Elementary Edu-cation in India (Dyer 2005). This move to decentralisation has been described as a ‘con-ceptual shift’ away from the earlier focus on increasing the supply of schools, teachers,and teaching and learning materials (Singh 2000) to a recognition of the importance of
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school quality in universalising elementary education. Thus school quality issues suchas unmotivated and absent teachers, large class sizes and a lack of responsiveness tochildren’s social, cultural and linguistic diversity (PROBE 1999) were seen as contri-buting to reasons for children not attending school. By devolving control and decision-making to local communities, decentralisation would have the potential to increase theaccountability of schools to parents; it was also seen as a cost-effective way of mobilis-ing local resources, capacity and professional skills and knowledge (Dyer and Rose2005).
This move to decentralisation was compatible with the ‘new trend’ for voluntarismin the 1990s (Nawani 2000). Where ‘conventional voluntarism’ had been charity-oriented derived from ‘religiosity, generosity and altruism’, the new voluntarismaimed ‘to change the social, economic and political position’ of the socially and econ-omically disadvantaged through people’s participation and empowerment and partici-patory development (4). In this context it is understandable that private schooloutreach might be perceived as an outdated charity response by middle-class insti-tutions resembling the conventional forms of voluntarism rather than in the spirit ofthe new voluntarism – by the people for the people.
The new voluntarism was also compatible with asserting political pressure, and thekey concern at the time was for the need for education to be recognised as a fundamen-tal human right, described by Jain et al. as ‘possibly the strongest statement definingState responsibility’ (2000, 25). In this context, research on alternatives to state pro-vision for the disadvantaged, such as on private school outreach, may have beenseen as detracting from this important mission.
A summary of private school outreach in context: late 1990s/early 2000s
It might be argued that private school outreach was perceived by Indian education aca-demics as an anomaly at the time of the research. Despite anecdotal evidence that thephenomenon was increasing, its approach did not fit wider discourses. It did not fit withthe generally accepted view of the self-interested, self-promoting, elitist and exclusiveprivate school and was seen as an old-fashioned charity response to educating the dis-advantaged at a time when it was widely felt that the state should be taking a strongerrole, particularly in the recognition of education as a human right. This was also a timewhen discourses of marketisation and privatisation were beginning to penetrate the edu-cational arena – which may have been viewed as further threatening the hopes forgreater involvement by the state. Traces of these discourses may be apparent in the pol-icies of decentralisation, the trend of voluntarism and the proliferation of the privateschool sector, indicating a ‘withdrawal of the state’ which may be linked to economicliberalisation (Nawani 2000).
However, a significant move was made in 2002 with the 86th Amendment of theIndian Constitution to make free and compulsory education a right for all childrenaged 6–14 years. This appeared to be the first step towards affirming the govern-ment’s responsibility to provide education for all. Since then the Right of Childrento Free and Compulsory Education Act (Ministry of Law and Justice 2009) – here-after referred to as the Right to Education Act – was passed in 2009. In 2010model rules were drawn up by central government as a framework to enable statesto draft their own rules for the implementation of the Act (The Times of India2010). However, in the new Indian education policy climate, rather than framingthe right to education as the sole responsibility of the state, the Act also implicates
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the private education sector in this responsibility. It is to the contemporary Indianpolicy context that we now turn.
Re-viewing private school outreach in the current policy context
Since this research on private school outreach was carried out, considerable changeshave occurred in Indian education policy. The public–private partnership (PPP) hasemerged as the ‘favoured model of project execution in India’ (Datta 2009, 73) withan increasing reliance on the private sector to fund education (Tilak 2010a). Somesee this type of privatisation of Indian education as relating to an increasing ‘mistrustof the public education system’ (Narayan 2010, 23) in the face of the persistent problemof millions remaining out-of-school, despite the large state input of human and financialresources. However, some critics see PPP as an ideological discourse adopted bygovernment officials to reduce ‘the government’s responsibility to increase thenumber of schools’ (Kumar 2008, 8).
A recent form of PPP has emerged in one of the main provisions of the Right toEducation Act which involves private schools admitting at least 25% of studentsfrom socially and economically disadvantaged backgrounds into Class I and providingthem with free elementary education. This provision of the Right to Education Act(referred to from here on as the RTE private school scheme) indicates a shift in edu-cation policy discourse: where providing the right to education had previously beenassociated with the responsibility of the state, now private schools are also beingasked to take a role in this provision. Within the broader policy climate of increasedactivity from the private sector in education, the RTE private school scheme makesthe involvement of the private in the education of the disadvantaged a more acceptableconcept; it is now less of an anathema compared with when the private school outreachresearch was carried out in 2000–2003. In fact, in this new policy context the researchon private school outreach gains renewed relevance.
As Kingdon (2008, 131) points out, the RTE private school scheme has attractedsome unlikely supporters:
Interestingly, the scheme is championed not by the right wing, the usual advocates ofprivate education, but rather by those concerned with equity in education.
In a similar way that the inclusive model of private school outreach in the Catholiccase was favoured by Indian education academics for including disadvantaged childreninto the private school, this scheme may be seen as equitable on the grounds that it pro-vides disadvantaged children with the same type and quality of education as fee-payingprivate school students. The rules of the Right to Education Act (Ministry of HumanResource Development 2010) clearly state that disadvantaged children included intoprivate schools should be taught within the same classrooms as fee-paying studentswithout being segregated. Some also see this inclusion as contributing to social cohe-sion enabling interaction between children from different caste, religious and socio-economic backgrounds (The Times of India 2011).
Despite its potential for enabling disadvantaged students to receive equitable edu-cation vis-à-vis fee-paying private school students, the RTE private school schemehas also been heavily criticised. Some see it as ‘signifying the death-knell of the ideaof a “common school system”, as opposed to a segmented one’ (Mehrotra 2012, 67);such supporters of a common school system would ideally like private schools to be
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phased out as they are seen to represent and perpetuate inequalities in education (see,for example, Tilak 2010b).
Another key group of critics of the scheme are the private schools themselves:
Far from being the result of lobbying by the private school sector for government funds,the scheme is rather generally opposed by private schools … (Kingdon 2008, 131)
Given similarities in terms of inclusion between the Catholic private school and theRTE private school scheme, findings from the research on private school outreachmight be usefully drawn on to shed light on emerging concerns expressed by privateschools (and others) about the scheme. In the next section two key areas of concernabout this scheme are addressed.
Exploring concerns about the RTE private school scheme in the light of privateschool outreach research findings
Although the Right to Education Act officially took effect from April 2010, as Lewin(2011, xxi) rightly points out ‘there is a long road to travel to make this obligation areality’. Recently, newspaper articles have reported cases of private schools ignoringthe scheme or refusing to admit disadvantaged children and private schools haveeven taken their challenges to the Act to court (see for example, Tilak 2010b; TheTimes of India 2011; The Times of India, Kochi 2011; Hindustan Times 2011).
The RTE private school scheme is seen by many private schools as interference bygovernment and a violation of their autonomy. They are also being expected toimplement it without adequate financial or pedagogical support. Related to this, thefinancial implications on private schools and the effective inclusion of disadvantagedchildren are the two key areas of concern about the scheme which are discussedbelow. It is important to note that inclusion in the Catholic private school (from theresearch on private school outreach) differed from the RTE private school scheme inthat it was started at the initiative of, and carried out autonomously by, the privateschool, rather than imposed by the government. However, findings might be usefullydrawn on to provide an example of how this case has worked as certain aspects havea resonance with the RTE private school scheme.
Financial implications
Key concerns about the RTE private school scheme relate to the extent to which privateschools will be reimbursed and whether this will be enough to cover the actual expen-diture. The Act states (and the rules clarify) that private unaided schools will be reim-bursed by the equivalent of the average per-child recurring expenditure by governmentschools in the state [Ministry of Law and Justice (Legislative Department) 2009;Ministry of Human Resource Development 2010]. Private schools that are aided bythe government however, according to the Act should provide free education to apercentage of children that is equivalent to the percentage of aid received in relationto its annual recurring expenditure (and in any case a minimum of 25%) for whichthey will not be reimbursed.
The Catholic private school might be defined as a semi-aided private school in that50% of its staff salaries were paid for by the state government. Despite this the privateschool did not draw on the aid that it receives from the government alone to fund
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inclusion but additionally sought sponsorships to cover the fees, uniforms and text-books of each disadvantaged child included into the private school. This indicatesthe reality of the expenses of inclusion and the financial problems the RTE privateschool scheme poses to private schools.
Additionally, it is important to recognise that private schools charge different levelsof fees so the actual per-child expenditure will vary between schools. Private schoolsfeel that the inadequate (or in the case of private aided schools – lack of) reimbursementmay mean that they will be forced to increase the school fees for the fee-paying stu-dents; how this will be received by parents remains a concern (The Times of India, Ban-galore 2010).
The rules also state that disadvantaged students should not be discriminated againstin terms of uniforms, textbooks and the range of activities the private school offers(Ministry of Human Resource Development 2010). Again in the context of concernsabout inadequate reimbursement for including disadvantaged children into privateschools it is unclear how this will be fulfilled. It is illuminating that in the Catholiccase the costs of uniforms and textbooks were included in the overseas sponsorshipsobtained per disadvantaged child included into the private school. Additionally, recog-nising that disadvantaged families may experience a loss of income when childrenattend school rather than work, the Catholic private school provided students withthree free meals a day, costs for which were covered by a combination of schoolincome and donations. On this point Sabharwal (2011) considers how disadvantagedchildren included into private schools under the RTE scheme will be provided withmidday meals. Again it is not clear how this would be funded under the scheme.
Finally, it is important to note that in the Catholic case the parents of disadvantagedstudents included into the private school were encouraged to make a small financialcontribution to tuition fees in accordance with their income, even if it was just atoken payment. This was to encourage the commitment of parents and to give themand their children a sense of self-respect that they were contributing to the school insome way and not simply accepting charity.
The effective inclusion of disadvantaged children
Kingdon (2008, 131) points out that a key concern of private schools is that
mixing disadvantaged children with those from well-off homes will be psychologicallydamaging for disadvantaged children.
This resonates with anxieties expressed by private school outreach leaders that includ-ing outreach programme children into private schools might give them a sense of infer-iority, cultural conflict or alienation from their home backgrounds. The Catholic privateschool addressed this by transforming and deformalising its structures and ethos torecognise the circumstances and meet the needs of the disadvantaged children. Thissuggests that in order to effectively include disadvantaged children into privateschools the whole culture of the private school needs to change.
Related to this, it is interesting to note that the RTE private school scheme stipulatesthat 25% minimum seats should be reserved in private schools for the disadvantaged.Given the general reception of the scheme by private schools it is unlikely that manywould willingly increase this percentage, unless they are required to do so – forexample, private aided schools are required to give free education to a percentage of
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students in line with the proportion of aid received from the government. Therefore, inmany private schools the proportion of included disadvantaged children will remain aminority at 25%. By contrast, in the Catholic private school 50% of students were fromdisadvantaged backgrounds and as a result they were not in a minority. It might besuggested that being a minority in middle-class and elite schools may further exacerbatethe detrimental effects on disadvantaged children in terms of their identity, status andsense of belonging in the face of the tension between their own backgrounds and thedominant middle-class/elite culture and values of the schools.
Another key concern of private schools is how to deal with failing disadvantagedchildren (The Times of India, Bangalore 2010). This concern also indicates the assump-tions and expectations that private schools might have made in the past about their stu-dents, e.g. that they are unlikely to fail perhaps because of former academic selectionprocesses or because they felt confident in the extra support students may have hadat home from parents or private tutoring. Again the Catholic case is illuminating interms of how it dealt with this issue. It might be suggested that the Catholic privateschool did not give the included disadvantaged students equal treatment as themiddle-class students but preferential treatment due to their first generation learnerstatus. For example, the best teachers of the school were concentrated at the primarystages and on the academically weaker students. Support systems were implementedto give students study, revision and homework support so that all learning took placewithin the school and did not depend upon any outside inputs (from parents orprivate tuition to which the first generation learners did not have access and wouldtherefore be at a disadvantage). There were class promotion procedures which tookinto account the living conditions of the students, and academically weaker studentswere encouraged to repeat classes or opt for National Open School exams (an alterna-tive exam board that offered more flexibility than the conventional school exams withno upper age limit) to which the Catholic private school was also affiliated – with theintention that students did not leave the private school without an examination certifi-cate pass. All of this was not easily achieved; it involved great investment of hard workfrom the teachers as well as the students in the school and thus exerted demands uponits members and upon the school to cope with uncertainties. The Catholic private schoolwas highly experimental in its approach, but this experimentation was oriented towardsnot educational ideals, but practical goals of getting the socio-economically disadvan-taged through the same schooling as the middle classes.
Concluding discussion
A significant shift has occurred in Indian education policy since the research on privateschool outreach was conducted in 2000–2003; where private schools taking a role ineducating the disadvantaged may have previously been an anomaly, it is now appearingas part of regular policy, for example, with the RTE private schools scheme. While thisshift may be particularly dramatic in the Indian context, it is echoed by a generalmovement in the direction of educational privatisation worldwide.
This shift might be described as a move away from the politics of ‘Either–Or’(Beck 1997, cited in Halpin 2003) where proposed solutions to educational problemshave been previously driven by polarised ideological positions, e.g. ‘either state mon-opoly or privatization’ (Halpin 2003, 6) and in which ‘people with different viewsbecome effectively deaf to each other’ (Halpin 2003, 6). And a movement towardsthe politics of ‘And–Also’ (Follett 1926; Kadinsky 1982, both cited in Halpin
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2003) which involves what Halpin (2003) refers to as finding ‘integrated solutions’ toeducational problems that ‘derive less from the extremes of political analysis andmore from a strategic mix of genuinely experimental ideas whose ideological deri-vation is neither here nor there, but which connect meaningfully with what isjudged to be actually happening in society’ (Halpin 2003, 7, original italics). Theinclusive policy and practices of the Catholic private school might be a particularlypertinent example of this.
In line with a shift in education policy and discourse in recent years, it might alsobe suggested that the involvement of the private sector in education has becomeincreasingly accepted. There are some positive implications of this shift, withresearch on private education undoubtedly opening up – partly because it hasbecome less stigmatised but also because there is more private education activity toresearch. Despite this, it should be remembered that private education continues tobe a highly political issue. Related to this two key concerns may be identified: thatmuch of this new research on private education may (i) focus on new forms of gov-ernment-led private initiatives and may not give adequate attention to the heterogen-eity of private schooling; and (ii) take place uncritically within the safe context of newpolicy rhetoric surrounding privatisation and PPPs. For example, in an analysis ofeducational partnerships in Britain, Cardini (2006) reveals a disjunction betweenthe ‘elegant and seductive’ policy rhetoric and the more complex and contradictorypractice. Under the guise of this policy rhetoric she suggests that ‘controversial con-tracts with the private sector’ have been transformed into the more positive term,‘partnerships’ and thus, ‘the private sector involvement in education found a muchfirmer basis of legitimacy’ (411). Related to this Ball has drawn attention to therecent emergence of a new for-profit private education sector with its ‘complex over-lapping of philanthropy, influence and business interests’ (Ball 2007, 122–123). Anexample of this in the Indian context is documented in Srivastava’s (2007) researchon low-fee private schools in Uttar Pradesh that might be characterised as engaging inboth profit-making and philanthropy. As Cooper and Randall (2008, 204) point out,such blurred distinctions have the potential to render ‘the politics of education …
somewhat more confused and unnerving’.This new climate of a more acceptable but complex relationship between the
private sector and the state in education poses a challenge to education researchers.It may be important to move beyond traditional ideological positions to explorehow experimental practices involving the private sector can be used to address edu-cational problems on the ground. However, it is also important to retain a critical lensto guard against being lulled into an unquestioning acceptance of the new policyrhetoric surrounding the private in education as apolitical, ‘neutral and consensual’(Radcliffe and Mills 2008, 10).
Notes on contributorLaura Day Ashley is a Lecturer at the University of Birmingham’s School of Education. She hasa background in social anthropology and a particular interest in anthropological, sociologicaland historical approaches to the study of education. Research projects include a study ofprivate school outreach initiatives in India for out-of-school children (ESRC funded) and a his-torical study of Indian influences on progressive education in Britain in the early twentiethcentury (British Academy funded). These projects relate to broader research interests in the edu-cation of marginalised groups; the role of the private/non-state sector in education; and alterna-tive, progressive and non-formal education.
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