Critical Approaches to Private Education in the Global South

Abstract

This article highlights the key themes that animate the critical discourse on private education initiatives targeting poor children in the Global South. Scholars in the field uniformly reject the idea that public-private partnerships, independent private schools, and various subsidy and voucher programs are best suited to addressing underlying issues of equity and quality that plague public education systems in developing world contexts. But they tend to adopt one of two markedly different lines of analysis in drawing attention to the issue. Some scholars, for instance, use empirical evidence to show how low-fee private schools fall short of delivering on promises to address the needs of all children and enhancing basic literacy and numeracy scores in comparison to public schools. Other scholars, however, prefer to map elaborate networks of people and money to reveal how private education in the Global South is guided by power and profit. The paper outlines the moral and analytic interests that guide these two approaches to the challenge private education presents, while also making the case for an additional mode of analysis that would test the democratic and social justice claims that feature in mission statements of larger foundations and institutions that operate in vulnerable societies.