Framing and selling global education policy: the promotion of public–private partnerships for education in low-income contexts

Abstract

Public-private partnerships in education (ePPP) are acquiring increasing centrality in the agendas of international organizations and development agencies dealing with educational affairs. They are designed as an opportunity to correct inefficiencies in the public delivery of education and to mobilize new resources to increase the access to and cost-effectiveness of education in low-income contexts. This article explores the emergence of ePPP as a 'programmatic idea' and, in particular, the semiotic strategies by means of which this idea has been located in the global education agenda and promoted internationally among practice communities by a network of policy entrepreneurs. The analysis is supported by extensive fieldwork and by a new approach to the analysis of the framing and mobilization of new policy ideas, which incorporates literature on agenda setting, policy entrepreneurs, and policy frame analysis. The approach reveals the complex way in which policy ideas, political actors, institutions, and material factors interact to strategically put forward new policy alternatives in developing contexts.

What Are the Role and Impact of Public-Private Partnerships in Education? A Realist Evaluation of the Chilean Education Quasi-Market

“…In fact, the concept of PPPs in education has many resemblances to the public sector reform programme that public choice theorists have been advocating for decades, as well as to what social scientists have traditionally termed "quasi-markets" in education (see Glennerster 1991;Le Grand 1991) Existing research on quasi-markets, vouchers, and school competition has not reached clear conclusions concerning the costs and benefits of these policies, although it usually raises education equity concerns (Waslander et al 2010;OECD 2012). Despite full awareness of the evidence (or of its absence), influential international organizations and transnational consultancy firms are actively disseminating PPP solutions across a broad range of practice communities (Verger 2012;Lubienski 2014). They see school competition within PPP frameworks as a sort of magic bullet that, once governments have addressed the necessary regulatory issues, has the potential to promote access and improve learning outcomes in very diverse educational settings.…”

Knowledge banking in global education policy: A bibliometric analysis of World Bank publications on public-private partnerships

“…Resting on the superiority of quantitative data, and assumptions of objectivity and replicability, the Knowledge Bank has been arguably populated with economically-driven research (Broad, 2006;Rao & Woolcock, 2007a). That the majority of authors cited are trained economists suggests that the research supporting Bank publications on private education is disciplinarily skewed towards a single field of study, one which has been widely critiqued as having an outsize influence on both international development and educational policy (Klees, 2012;Menashy, 2013;Verger, 2012). We argue that from our bibliometric analysis, a policy network can be identified that is reflective of economic imperialism.…”

“…Arguments made by Bank staff to support policies involving privately-provided education are argued to employ economist language and mental models that assume the value of markets (Klees et al, 2012;Verger, 2012). In fact, it is the "Economics of Education Group" within the Bank's education sector that has been the main producer of knowledge products on private education from within the organization .…”

“…We pay particular attention to the promotion of private sector engagement in education, given that widespread critiques of privatization, both in general and at the World Bank, center on economically-driven assumptions. Several scholars have pointed to the ways in which policy proposals from the Bank that support private participation in education plainly reflect economic rationales, such as the value of reducing the role of the state in education, spurring competition within an educational market in order to increase efficiency and quality, and the value of increasing the choices afforded to individual parents (Klees, 2012;Robertson et al, 2012;Verger, 2012).…”

El impacto de las instituciones internacionales en la formulación de políticas de educación en países pequeños : el caso de El Salvador = The impact of international institutions on education policymaking in small states : the case of El Salvador

“…Generalmente, sin embargo, es de reconocer la influencia que las instituciones internacionales poseen y ejercen en la creación de políticas educativas alrededor del mundo, lo cual no ha pasado desapercibido por muchos. (DALE, 1999;EDWARDS, 2013EDWARDS, , 2014MUNDY, 1998;MUNDY y GHALI, 2009;SAMOFF, 2007;2009;VERGER, 2012;VERGER, NOVELLI y ALTINYELKEN, 2012).…”