Partnerships in Education

Do Public-Private Partnerships promote or hinder the right to education?

2011-12-19T20:49:00.019+05:30

Maria Ron Balsera

Marie Curie ESR, Bielefeld University

4A Approach to Education, Right to Education Project

Although education has traditionally been funded and provided by private actors, during the second half of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century, the State became the main provider and more and more people were entitled to free education. Nowadays, education is widely seen as a public responsibility, education is a right whose main duty bearer is the State.

According to international human rights frameworks , particularly the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), with its General Comment 13 (GC13) and the widely ratified Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), States have the obligation to respect, protect and fulfil the right to education, including the obligation to facilitate the direct provision of education (§46 and §48 ICESCR GC 13). Primary Education must be compulsory and available free of cost (ICESCR Art. 13 (2)(a), CRC Art. 28 (1)(a))., accessible to all without discrimination , acceptable, relevant and adaptable to all contexts. The right to non-discrimination means that all education must be accessible and of good quality to all, “irrespective of the child's or his or her parent's or legal guardian's race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national, ethnic or social origin, property, disability, birth or other status” (Art. 2 of CRC).

States also have the obligation to promote accountability in education though monitoring “education - including all relevant policies, institutions, programmes, spending patterns and other practices - so as to identify and take measures to redress any de facto discrimination” (§37 ICESCR GC 13). The State must also ensure that curricula and teaching methods are directed to meeting the key objectives of the right to education (dignity, effective participation, tolerance and respect for human rights).

Regarding the private provision of education, article 13 (4) of the ICESCR allows for private entities to establish and direct centres for education. However, states’ obligations also apply to ensuring that other providers, such as the private sector, adhere to these human rights principles of non-discrimination, equal opportunity and effective participation in society for all children. In relation to Public-Private Partnership, GC13 affirms that states have “no obligation to fund institutions established in accordance with article 13 (3) and (4); however, if a State elects to make a financial contribution to private educational institutions, it must do so without discrimination on any of the prohibited grounds” (§54 ICESCR GC 13).

However, Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) have transformed the provision of education landscape in recent years, to the point that UNESCO states in its website: “Public-Private Partnerships are expected to play an increasingly important role in the Education for All drive, creating an alternative source of funding for the Education for All goals and making more technical assistance available. UNESCO’s relations with the private sector encompass cooperation with business corporations, small and medium enterprises, philanthropic foundations, professional and economic associations as well as other organizations of the business community, individuals, communities, parents and families”.

The defenders of the cooperation with the private sector in education argue that PPP are more cost-effective than public provision of education. According to them, public provision of education acts like a monopoly and is subject to the same market failures. Without competition there is little incentive for public education systems to improve the services they provide. PPP are one way to inject competition into a public education system and improve spending efficiency.

However, if PPP are to be implemented well and regulated effectively, they become very expensive. For instance the costs of setting up a monitoring system for a voucher scheme may outweigh the benefits derived from the scheme itself. Means-testing to target the most marginalised children requires government investment. Likewise, voucher systems to function effectively rely on there being high quality public and private schools already available. In many developing countries, these education providers simply do not exist, particularly in rural areas. Private providers are not interested in investing in rural or remote areas where costs are high and profits low. Moreover, governments may have to provide major financial incentives to attract private education providers. Governments may also try to attract private companies to the sector through tax incentives. Policy-makers need to ask whether the revenue foregone is worth the investment it will attract.

Another argument in favour of Public-Private Partnerships is related to quality and accountability. Thus, defenders of PPP claim that education services can be monitored by those who receive the service directly. “Parents will hold schools accountable by their choice of school. If a school offers poor quality education, parents will not choose it, enrolments will decline”. (Belfield and Levin, 2002). PPP can be based in accountability for performance, where failed schools would not receive funding from the government. They argue that competition would foster quality increase. Vouchers and direct government funding would act as incentives for private schools to raise the quality of education in order to be eligible for government funding or chosen by parents using vouchers.

However, the type of accountability resulting from parents’ leaving low quality schools is not as easy as defenders of free education market portray. Children cannot change school so easily; these disruptions have an impact on children’s wellbeing and performance (Felner et al, 1981). They argue that the government, “may adopt a supervisory rather than a direct managerial role” (Belfield and Levin, 2002: 43). However, if the State is not the first providers of structures (teaching qualifications, school infrastructure, teaching methodology, etc) then State supervision could only offer remedial measures, taken after PPP have not complied with standards. Children would be the ones at risks, the victims, and remedial measures would come too late. There needs to be a strong State to hold PPPs accountable. State needs to hold PPP schools accountable for quality education and national and international human rights law standards. Accountability issues are costly and time consuming; there would be a greater need for watchdog organization to ensure the PPP schools’ compliance with the standards.

Supporters of PPP in education often claim that PPP would bring new investment which will result in a greater number and more diverse schools. PPP will compete for parents by offering a wider range of schools to choose from. Different schools will reflect better the diversity of religions, ideology, languages and traditions that exist in society. Thus, PPP would open the market and provide wider choice. Parents would be responsible to choose the type of education they desire for their children. Parents would be more concerned with the education offered.

However, in reality choice is constraint by many factors: Physical accessibility: distance to school, transport infrastructure, etc.; School’s selection criteria: entry exams, religious denomination, boys/girls, hidden criteria (such as not accepting children from lower socioeconomic backgrounds nor racial, caste, linguistic minorities or children with special needs); Economic obstacles: user fees, transport costs, uniforms, school material, hidden costs (parents’ contributions, extra costs, etc); Information gap: better educated and wealthier parents have better information and can make the most of PPP and voucher system;

Some schools would seek to attract families by de facto discriminating against children from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, minorities or children with special needs. Research shows that “where given more choices over their schools – families prefer to opt for enrolment in schools that are of the same racial group as their own”.( Belfield and Levin, 2002: 47). This would lead to segregation, stratification, lack of social cohesion and ultimately discrimination.

Evidence suggests that schools, particularly when competition is fostered, discriminate against children with special education need, which can only be avoided through public intervention. (Belfield and Levin, 2002). PPP would foster inequality, by gathering only those students whose rate of return will be high, in order to assure the funding. In many countries girls, children with disabilities, poor and marginalised groups would be discriminated against violating the most important principle of international human rights law.

Voucher systems would increase inequality. Wealthier parents benefit more from PPP since they receive government subsidy for education they were willing pay privately. Vouchers do not often cover costs such as transport and successful PPP schools are often located in rich urban areas. Poor families and those living in rural areas would suffer most since they would not be able to profit from the theoretical choice that vouchers offer.

In conclusion, Public-Private Partnerships offer an attractive alternative to public provision of education at a time when government budgets shrink due to the global recession. The lure of higher quality, accountability, choice and cost-effectiveness claims is difficult to argue with. However, there is lack of evidence that PPP actually improve the situation of people with lower socioeconomic backgrounds. In some cases PPP can exacerbate socio-economic disparities and violate the principle of non-discrimination.

PPP cannot be seen as a waiver of the state’s main obligation to respect, protect and provide the right to education. The utilitarian economic perspective that advocates of PPP have used cannot in anyway trump the right of non-discrimination, the right to quality education which is available, accessible, acceptable and adaptable for all. States have the obligation to distribute resources equitably in order to assure free quality public schooling for all. In order to foster quality, school culture, organisation and practice need to be inclusive, taking diversity into account in the design of general policies. Quality education relies on having teachers with appropriate professional competencies and high ethical standards. The main stake holders have the right to participate in decision making processes to ensure democratic representation, quality and accountability.

Bibliography

Belfield, C. and Levin, H.M. (2002). Education Privatization: causes, consequences and planning implications.

UNESCO: International Institute for Educational Planning. http://unesdoc.unesco.org/Ulis/cgi-bin/ulis.pl?catno=133075&set=4BB3645B_0_367&gp=0&lin=1&ll=1 (accessed on 19/ 12/ 2011).

Carnoy, M. and McEwan, P. (2003) Does privatization improve education? The case of Chile’s national plan. In DN Plank and G Sykes (Eds). Choosing Choice: School Choice in International Perspective. Teachers College Press: New York.

Felner, R. D. , Primavera, J. and Cauce, A. M. “The impact of school transitions: A focus for preventive efforts. American Journal of Community Psychology. Volume 9, Number 4 / August, 1981. http://www.springerlink.com/content/j15025434p447r64 (accessed on 19/ 12/ 2011).

Marphatia, Akanksha. and Ron Balsera, María (2011): "Public-private partnerships: promoting quality or entrenching inequality?" Education Action n. 25 August 2011.p 9 http://www.actionaid.org/sites/files/actionaid/education_action_25_-_english_0.pdf

Ron-Balsera, M. (2011). “Does the human capital discourse promote or hinder the right to education? The case of girls, orphans and vulnerable children in Rwanda”. Journal of International Development Volume 23, Issue 2, March 2011, pages 274–287 http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jid.1769/abstract (accessed on 19/ 12/ 2011).

Ron-Balsera, M. and Marphatia, A. (2012): “Do Public Private Partnerships fulfil the Right to Education?” In:

Robertson, S., A. Verger, K. Mundy and F. Menashy (eds.). Public Private Partnerships in Education: New Actors and Modes of Governance in a Globalizing World. Edward Elgar, London.

Tomaševski, K. (2001) RIGHT TO EDUCATION PRIMERS NO. 3 Human rights obligations: making education available, accessible, acceptable and adaptable. http://www.right-to-education.org/sites/r2e.gn.apc.org/files/B6g%20Primer.pdf (accessed on 19/ 12/ 2011).

UN. (1966) International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/cescr.htm (accessed on 19/ 12/ 2011).

UN. (1989) United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/crc.htm (accessed on 19/ 12/ 2011).

UN (1999) Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights - General Comment No. 13: The right to education (article 13 of the Covenant). http://daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/G99/462/16/PDF/G9946216.pdf?OpenElement (accessed on 19/ 12/ 2011).

Whitty, G., and Power, S., (2000) Marketization and privatization in mass education systems. International Journal of Education Development, Vol. 20, pp.93-107.

Public Financing in Education in Bangladesh

2011-09-25T17:42:00.004+05:30

Khandaker Lutful Khaled

Introduction

Education is a human right and a powerful vehicle for securing social justice and envisions Education to be a fundamental human right, the responsibility of the state and a core element of national development policy. Securing the right to education is key to enabling people to secure other basic rights. However, education as a fundamental human right has not yet been recognized by the national constitution of

Bangladesh

. The budget formulation process in Bangladesh is highly centralized therefore; Bangladesh does not have a transparent, democratic, sovereign and decentralised process in decision making in place over education budgets. Political commitment on the part of government does not seem very much in line with the pro-poor public education system which is promised in recent education policy (2010). Achieving quality education for all will require massive new investment i.e. new teachers, new classrooms and more textbooks, mid day meal, stipend etc. Increased investments from domestic budgets are crucial in this regard. It is crucial to for the government to get prepared to refute any unnecessary macroeconomic constraints imposed by the International Financial Institutions. Examining of national education budget reveals that allocation in education and the budgetary linkages/share with education with other departments (defence education, technology education, religion etc) still need to demystify. The people need to know not only about the commitments but also about the spending in education budget. This is because a large amount of allocated budget remains unspent at the end of each fiscal year. There should be balanced investment in accordance with different levels i.e. pre-primary education, primary education, secondary education and tertiary education within development budget and revenue budget provisions.

The people of Bangladesh need to know not only about the commitments but also about the spending in education budget. This is because a large amount of allocated budget remains unspent at the end of each fiscal year.

Public financing for education in Bangladesh

The issue of education financing is perhaps the most crucial of all. The Education For All (EFA) and Millennium Development goals (MDGs) set in 2000 are the latest targets keeping the world’s states on track to fulfilling this responsibility. Although it was promised in the Dakar conference that ‘No country with a serious plan for achieving Education for All will be thwarted in this ambition for lack of resources’. According to international benchmark every government must allocate 20% of national budget for education or spend 6% of GDP in education. If the government spends less or reduces its percentage allocation to education it is violating the commitment for achieving education for all by 2015. In spite of the promises many governments spend less than they should on education and

Bangladesh

is one of them. Statistics show that

Bangladesh

spends a proportion of its budget on education comparable to other countries in the region (for example 12.6% in 2009), but well below the EFA target of 20%, and the percentage varies a lot from year to year.

Increase domestic resources for financing education

Bangladesh

has made significant progress in education since 1990, particularly in closing the gender gap and expanding access to secondary education. However things seem to be stalling since 2000. In order to invest in education and ensure sustainable, long-term funding, the government must improve domestic revenue collection and particularly raise its tax-to-Gross Domestic product GDP ratio.

Percentage of Education spending in Bangladesh 1999-2008

The more Bangladesh can increase its own resources, the less it will have to rely on donors. The less Bangladesh has to rely on donors, the more control Bangladeshis can have over their education system, their own development, and future.

Bangladesh can’t be treated as aid dependent (as only 8.4% of national budget in 2008-09 comes from aid), but Annual Development Programme (ADP) is highly aid dependent (57%). So Official Development Assistance (ODA) is important for Bangladesh. However, Aid-Debt Servicing system within the framework of ODA and precisely the aid architect is the factor affecting quality of ODA. Whatever amount is received in the form of ODA, a significant amount goes against debt servicing which also applies to education. The problem here is the non-availability of sector-specific allocation of ODA. Therefore, this part should be paraphrased with the realities. It requires more ODA financing as undertaken projects are not sufficient for timely achievement of MDGs. There is need to mobilize the donor funds within the purview of Education Sector Wide Approach since this expenditure framework guides and prioritises education strategies and expenditures according to an overall coherent sectoral development plan instead of multiple divergent projects.

Lutful Khaled is a Manager & Theme Leader- Education with ActionAid Bangladesh. He can be contacted at (lutful.khaled@actionaid.org).

Problem of Asymmetric Information in Private Technical Education System in India

2011-09-02T00:08:00.004+05:30

by Subir Maitra

A distinguishing characteristic of many markets is that the parties involved in the market are not equally informed about the product features, product quality etc., which is known as ‘asymmetric information’. In such bilateral relationship, one party say, the seller, may be more informed than the other, i.e. the buyer, about the properties of the goods or services being traded. Due to this information asymmetry, the famous ‘lemon’s problem’ (Akerlof,1970) may arise, when low quality institutions predominate, as has happened in India. This problem has made India’s technical education market ‘inefficient’, churning out weak technical graduates who are ‘unemployable’ (NASSCOM, 2008).

Technical (engineering) education in India has expanded at a phenomenal rate during the last two decades. The number of engineering colleges at the time of independence was merely 44 with an intake capacity of 3000 approximately. This has increased to 2972 in 2009 with intake capacity rising up to 1071896. This phenomenal growth has taken place because of the private sector’s increasing involvement in education.

As the number of private engineering colleges proliferates, it becomes difficult for the ‘buyer’ to collect ‘information’ about the true quality of the ‘service’ offered by these institutions. Of late, institutional website has become an important source of information. As per the norms prescribed by the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) which acts as a regulatory body of the engineering colleges in India, website of a college is supposed to have a detailed account of the college, its affiliation, facilities it offers, faculty, past results, placements, co-curricular activities etc. A survey of the websites of 57 private engineering colleges in West Bengal, affiliated to the West Bengal University of Technology (WBUT), reveals that the information provided by the private colleges is sometimes sketchy and inadequate (Maitra, 2011). As per AICTE norms, the ‘mandatory disclosure of information’ is to be displayed on the website of each college. But, links to this mandatory information are not properly displayed by some private colleges on the home page and a user or a prospective student has to spend some time to find out that link. This disclosure has to be provided in a prescribed format but some of the private colleges ignore the format. Information relating to faculty is sometimes sketchy and partial. A list of faculty along with their degrees is not enough, since AICTE norms demand detailed information regarding details of academic credentials like number of books written, academic papers published in refereed journals, awards received, research grants procured etc. Many of the engineering colleges have preferred not to disclose detailed information on the performance of their student-graduates and campus recruitment offered to them.

In India multiplicity of regulators with overlapping authority and responsibility has resulted in ineffectiveness and inefficiency. The regulators have failed in creating even a ‘good quality assurance system’. The Yashpal Committee recommended abolition of multiple regulatory system and creation of a single regulator namely, National Commission for Higher Education and Research (NCHER) at the national level. Although a single regulator is expected to bring about better coordination in the regulatory system, but whether this will be more efficient than the earlier system in handling accreditation and re-accreditation of large number (over 20000) institutions is yet to be seen.

In order to solve asymmetric information problem in the technical education system, new regulations must have a provision for disclosure of authentic information regarding accreditation status, ranking, qualification and experience of faculty members, placement records etc. by the technical institutions. At the same time, new regulations must have appropriate deterrents and penal measures against any misrepresentation or fraud by the institutions.

References:
1. Agarwal P. 2009. Indian Higher Education: Envisioning the Future, Sage.
2. Akerlof G.A.1970. The Market for ‘Lemons’: Quality Uncertainty and the Market Mechanism, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 84, no. 3, pp. 488-500, Aug. 1970.
3. Maitra S. 2011. Adverse Selection and Signaling in Higher Education with special focus on Private Technical Education System in India, Paper presented at Global Conclave on Education, NUEPA, New Delhi, 2011.
4. NASSCOM (2008): http://blog.nasscom.in/nasscomnewsline/2008/10/the-importance-of-talent-and-skill-building-in-the-indian-it-bpo/ , October 2008.

Subir Maitra is Assistant Professor of Economics at the H.C. College, University of Calcutta, Kolkata, India. E-mail: subirmaitra@gmail.com.

Why are some rural poor families in Ghana choosing low-fee private schooling for their children?

2011-08-26T21:08:00.035+05:30

by Luke Akaguri

The claim that education is a public good has made many developing countries to embark on free compulsory universal basic education policies. Despite these policies, there is evidence of growing private schooling in the context of fee free public education provision. The Ghana living standards survey (GLSS) in 1991 reported that only 0.5% of rural poor households enrolled their children in private schools. By 2005 the proportion of the rural poor enrolling in private school has increased to about 10%. Given that the Ghana government’s fee-free educational policies were aimed at ensuring that poor and other vulnerable groups in the society were not denied access to education, the growing interest in private schooling by the poor in rural areas raises an important concern about why some poor households are opting for fee paying private education.

What explains poor families’ school choice?

One main reason is that there is a general perception that quality of private schools is better than public schools. In Ghana, the perception of the quality of private schools in urban and peri urban are well aligned with the reality. However, this might not necessarily be the case in poor rural environments due to the poor quality teachers and lack of basic infrastructure and teaching and learning materials.

A private school in a rural area in Ghana

A case study of households’ choice of schools in three poor rural communities in southern Ghana revealed that there is a strong perception that the private schools in the locality provided better quality education – in terms of, better exam results, than their public school counterparts. However, this perception was not borne out of the evidence. But the perception of quality in addition to households’ higher aspiration for their children’s schooling fuelled interest in private education.

Further, private schools engaged in practices that some poor households found attractive. For example, when a child does not report to school for a day or two, the head teachers went to the homes of these pupils to find out why they are not in school and ensured that the pupils reported to school next day. Moreover, teacher and pupil discipline and more effective use of teacher contact time by private schools compared to public schools made some poor parents to respond by enrolling their children in fee paying private school.

It must be emphasised that, rural communities that are generally described as poor do have households that are relatively better off and it is this category of households that are more likely to enrol their children in fee paying private school. Analysis of household income in relation to educational cost per child in the case study communities revealed that, the poorest household could not possibly sustainably finance the costs of private schooling of their child throughout the basic cycle.

Yet, the fact that some poor families enrolled in fee paying private school, is a clear indication that fee-free basic education might be necessary but is not a sufficient condition to induce all poor families to demand for public education. If the policy of fee-free schooling is aimed at creating opportunities for families who due to poverty may not be able to access education, then public schools must operate in ways that make them more accountable to the communities they serve by improving the quality of provision and teacher professional discipline and creating better social interaction with parents in the communities they serve.

Luke Akaguri is a Research Fellow at the National Centre for Research into Basic Education, University of Education Winneba in Ghana. Luke has recently completed a DPhil Programme at the Centre for International Education, University of Sussex. His research interests include private schooling in poor areas, educational financing and school management. His current research monograph explores the quality of low fee private schools and public schools in poor rural areas (forth coming –see www.create-rpc.org). The author is also currently involved in PERI project in Ghana and Nigeria researching into defacto privatisation of basic education in poor peri-urban and rural areas.

Leaving the Poor Behind: The Hidden Privatization of Public Education in Cambodia

2011-08-17T11:00:00.010+05:30

by William C. Brehm

Cambodian public school is technically out for summer break. However, children wearing school uniforms continue to flood the streets before and after school and public school teachers continue to prepare lessons each day just like they did during the school year. So what’s going on in this small South East Asian country?

The answer is that the children are going to school to attend private tutoring lessons like they do during the school year because both teacher and student alike agree extra classes are necessary to complete the national curriculum. These lessons are taught by their former or future public school teachers to either review the past year’s curriculum content or get a head start on the next grade. There’s one hitch, however: Only students who pay the US$0.25 daily fee can attend. With the vast majority of Cambodians living on less than US$2 per day, this fee prevents many poor students from attending private tutoring, and thus the ability to receive a full education.

Such an intensive reliance of Cambodian families on private tutoring during the school year and the summer months has led some observers to conclude that Cambodian youth exhibit an extraordinary willingness to learn. What this observation misses is that some teachers force their students to attend private tutoring lessons by holding students’ grades hostage. Private tutoring thus points to the corrupt behavior by many teachers who use extra classes for a monetary gain. However, this line of reasoning downplays the realities of the unlivable wage paid to teachers, and underestimates the willingness of some students to actually attend these lessons. Still others would point to Cambodia as an exemplar of efficient market forces in the education sector. Although that accurately portrays the government’s laissez-faire approach to education, it neglects the inequality and injustice that result from a hidden system of private tutoring that is necessary to obtain a full education.

How do we understand the phenomenon of private tutoring in Cambodia?

A more historically and politically accurate way to understand what’s going on with summer private tutoring (and private tutoring during the school year more broadly) is through an examination of the social contract between the government and citizen. This contract, engineered in its current form in the 1990s by the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC), rests on a major contradiction between rhetoric and reality that has made possible the hidden privatization of public education through private tutoring.

The Cambodian government constitutionally guarantees “primary and secondary education to all citizens in public schools” that is “comprehensive and standardized” for the “welfare of all Khmer citizens,” suggesting education is a social good. This constitutional provision was an important step for a post-conflict country that lost nearly a quarter of its population between 1975-1979 under the Khmer Rouge. But the challenges were formidable: in 1993 the United Nations reported the country needed to double the number of teachers and school buildings by the year 2000 simply to provide three hours of schooling per day to all children. An impossible feat by most accounts, the country did not achieve this goal. Let me explain why.

The neoliberal structural policies put in place in the 1990s by the international financial institutions forced the government to cut social spending despite the rhetoric of education as a social good. Although Cambodia was spending nearly 25 percent of its yearly budget on education before UNTAC, the new target for education recurrent expenditures was 18 percent. That’s how “proper” countries organized their economies. That’s what was considered “efficient” by global standards. This new macro-economic arrangement left Cambodia unable to meet the financial and institutional needs of a struggling public school system that aimed, rhetorically at least, to improve the social welfare of the country by providing not only access to school but also deliver a high quality education. Instead, austerity measures resulted in poorly paid teachers, insufficient classrooms, and limited learning resources.

The failure of the public sector forced parents, who began to internalize the “Education For All” and “MDG” rhetoric of the 2000s, to seek alternative paths to a “quality” education in hopes of providing better opportunities for their children’s future. Private tutoring became the path of least resistance—a reluctant private sector of sorts. As the state did not (or would not) meet the public’s demand for public education as a social good, a completely unregulated market of educational services has cropped up in its place, hence the phenomenon of summer private tutoring.

Implications for the social contract

This has resulted in a deterioration of the social contract between the government and citizen envisioned in the constitution. No longer is the system of education meant to build community, create a national identity, or improve the social well-being for “all Khmer citizens” through a non-discriminatory social good; instead, education has become an individualized, market-delivered private good for students to consume in hopes of improving their chances at living a successful life (i.e., get a scarce job). Using private tutoring to unpack the current social contract between the state and citizen, it is clear that the education system is behaving exactly as it was supposed to after two decades of neoliberal reforms. We should, therefore, expect to see similar outcomes related to the hidden privatization of/in public education in other countries that underfund public education, de-unionize labor, de-skill teachers, and promote market solutions for the distribution of public goods and services.

The Cambodian student attending private tutoring during summer break symbolizes an important lesson for the rest of the world: Social contracts constructed by neoliberal policies result in profoundly unequal societies. The poor children who cannot afford the costs of private tutoring are being left behind by the public education system that falsely promises equality

William C. Brehm is the Research, Monitoring, and Evaluation Officer at This Life Cambodia, an Australian non-governmental organization working with rural public schools. His current research, together with Dr. Iveta Silova (Lehigh University), focuses on the inequality resulting from private tutoring in Cambodian public education. This research is funded by the Open Society Institute—with contribution by the Education Support Program of OSI Budapest.

Market Movements: African American Involvement in School Voucher Reform (Routledge Critical Social Thought Series)

2011-08-06T19:47:00.005+05:30

by Thomas C. Pedroni

In Market Movements my interest in researching African American support for market-based educational reform including vouchers grew in part out of my sense, rooted in my own teaching experiences in a run-down public school in New Orleans, that the white educational left was missing something essential in its inattention to considerable minority participation in the creation of publicly funded private school voucher programs in places like Milwaukee. While critical educational researchers had engaged in important empirical and theoretical research demonstrating the particularly negative impact of educational marketization on marginalized communities, not enough attention was being paid to the substantial support market-based educational reforms including vouchers were receiving from such communities, both in the United States and elsewhere. This support, my observations and experiences as a public school teacher told me, derived from the continuing legacy of race- and class-based marginalization and denigration in urban public schools. In increasingly neoliberal times, many urban communities viewed the market road to educational reform as a way to respond to the ongoing failure of urban public schools to offer relevant quality education to marginalized urban youth.

But I sensed an important disconnect between minority poor and working-class voucher supporters and the neoliberal actors and discourses that purported to make sense of them. While much was heard from wealthy backers of market-based educational reform and their critics, the voices of marginalized voucher supporters were not part of the larger dialogue. I wanted to hear first-hand what they had to say about the state of urban public schools that served their children, and how they saw voucher programs as a plausible alternative.

Thus, my book Market Movements analyzes two years of ethnographic work I conducted with urban low-income African American families participating in an otherwise conservative coalition for school vouchers in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Utilizing various strands of critical theory and critical discourse analysis, the volume sketches the overlaps and tensions between the educational visions of marginalized students and families and those of powerful market-oriented educational forces in U.S. society that purport to be allied with them. I show in the book that low-income families of color became allied with the educational movement for vouchers as a result of the legitimate grievances they possessed concerning the poor quality of education available to African American children through state-controlled urban public schools. This movement to vouchers, like other historical struggles for quality education in which communities of color have engaged, was a product of parents’ agency on a social and educational terrain over which they had little control. I argue that African American investment in vouchers and other market-based educational reforms is a momentary strategy chosen in the context of a largely correct reading of the powerful political and educational dynamics currently driving educational reform in the United States and beyond. Such support is therefore not indicative of a primary commitment to educational free markets as a solution to social ills, nor is it, for the most part, a rejection of a critical and progressive vision of educational reform.

With the analysis couched in a sober recognition of the dangers that the present attacks on the public sector represent, I hope the book accomplishes some of the critical empirical and conceptual groundwork that is necessary in order to renew the increasingly fractious relations between those social actors—teachers, communities of color, critical researchers, and labor unions—most likely to defend and expand previous social democratic victories enshrined in the public sector.

Please consider reading it. The book grapples with questions such as the following:

What should we make of the pivotal role that urban families and community leaders of color have played in movements for market-based educational reforms including vouchers in Milwaukee, Cleveland, Washington, DC, and elsewhere? Are African American voucher supporters the newest devotees of educational privatization and free market fundamentalism? Are they simply being fooled into supporting the agenda of some of the least progressive forces in society? And how do they believe vouchers might help them to bring their educational vision into fruition, and what exactly constitutes that vision? What dangers and exclusions might such advocacy ultimately promote? Finally, what if anything might those of us who defend public schools and the public sector as vital components of social democracy learn from listening to urban voucher parents?

Thomas Pedroni is an Associate Professor of Urban Education Studies and Critical Youth Studies and Director of the Detroit Data and Democracy Project at Oakland University. His current research examines educational and social inequality in relation to the post-welfarist educational policy complex of metropolitan Detroit. Tom’s recent book Market Movements: African American Involvement in School Voucher Reform received the 2009 Critics’ Choice Book Award from the American Educational Studies Association.

Problematising problematisation in education

2009-04-14T23:54:00.004+05:30

Debates surrounding issues related to reforms in education, the need and strategy for reforms, seem to build up in a certain kind of environment. There is discussion about the problems, limitations of ways adopted so far in addressing the problems. There are also arguments that the problems have increased and their nature has changed. That current ways are not sufficient to address those problems. There is call for alternative ways of problem solving and labeling of certain approaches as out dated. Discussions similar to these keep on adding new dimensions to the issues, calling and claiming for reforms. A methodology focusing on innovations and alternatives in education is often a rider to reforms.

Discussions on bringing in or thrusting reforms, to my mind, are aspects of an attempt to create an environment for problematising education and educational practice. This problematisation of education is related to particular perspectives, ideologies and inclinations and is thus a political act. Thus, the first issue is to find out what is the problem and locating it in the array of discourses. The perspectives, ideologies and inclinations affect locating the problem. These problematisations - what is happening in education? Is it enough? Is this intended to bring desired results? Is anything wrong with it? Does it need to be challenged and changed according to the demands of the times or in the light of new perspectives? What are the limitations and what is the scope? - are political.

In the larger discourse of globalisation and neoliberalism this problematisation takes a certain route. With focus on- a perspective, which takes into account culture, class differences and inequalities, the constitutional mandate of what kind of society we strive for, problematisation takes an entirely different route and thus locating problem is also different. Not only locating problem but the road to look for solutions, plan for solutions and working for the solutions is also different in the two perspectives and as political as the act of problematisation.

There is an epistemological issue also. Considering the expanse of knowledge and the role of education in the rhizomic universes of knowledge, one tends to ask if education is only an issue of problematisation or if education has an essence in itself, that is, if it has its own inherent values and meaning? And what is then, the role of the people in the construction of these universes and making and arriving at meaning for themselves. I am sure there are voices around which could argue that this epistemological issue is actually an issue under the realm of problematisation, as we discussed above.

Another view would say, there is no need of problematisation in education. Education is a field of practice and when people practice, they face challenges and work out solutions thus further enriching the practice or arriving at standard solutions. This viewpoint does not envisage the need for any problematisation in the discourse of education and plays around with different permutations and combinations with an aim to standardise. The values to strive for or the inherent meaning of education in such a viewpoint, are derived from a consensus building approach. However, that this consensus building itself is inherently political needs to be highlighted here. Here, the problem is actually located somewhere outside the realm of knowledge and education-for example in `the market’ and education is seen as a subservient tool to address the needs of the market. Also the social vision as I was pointing towards earlier is claimed to be addressed by the market itself.

The act of problematising education using the argument of the market points to the inherent dominance of a certain kind of view point, which hijacks the whole inquiry. It not only problematises education in a limited sense but also suggests what needs to be done and how it should be done. This is certainly problematic in itself. Because the solutions thus suggested, limit the exchange of ideas, debates and growth of discourse while projecting a unilateral dimension of education. This renders other dimensions weak, and inessential to be considered. In this situation, the question, `what is the purpose of education?’ receives answers of a certain kind. Education is for the development of human capital, for making the nation strong, for economic growth etc. Here the purpose of education derives itself from a restricted dominion.

McDonald and Development

2009-04-06T00:33:00.005+05:30

I am travelling from Delhi to Jaipur for a research meeting. There is a young girl sitting next to me. She has a high end mobile gadget in her hand which has facility for storing and viewing movies besides serving the purpose of a routine communicator. She asks me if I can help her in using her SD card in the mobile. The card seemed to have got locked and she is not able to access it. I put the card in the slot and try some of the available functions in the communicator but couldn’t succeed either.

This small interaction sets us talking and exchanging notes about each other. She tells me that she is studying in a private medical college located on the outskirts of Jaipur. This is her second year and the college session has been late by almost an year due the issue of affiliation. However she seems quite assured that the owner of the college will get something done as he has high connections. I am curious to know about how much she has paid for the college fee. She tells me that the tuition fee is around 11,00,000 INR per annum. This is besides the hostel fee.

Then, it is my turn. I share that I am a DPhil student at a University in England and travelling to Jaipur for the field work. I exclaim that Jaipur is changing fast, at least in terms of infrastructural development. So many new private colleges and housing societies have sprung up since last three years. To which she adds, “Yes, the development has been a little late. Jaipur didn’t even have a McDonald till very recently.” Her brother is studying as a self-financed student for an undergraduate course somewhere in England. Her father is supporting their education. He is a building contractor in a satellite city of Delhi.

I think of newspaper reports when I was in England about the growing pressure of loans on students and parents which many of them have to take for a good university education. The education is subsidised for the home students and the non-EU students have to pay almost 2.5-3 times the home students. Also, the Sussex ‘Education not for Sale’ campaign is on my mind. The girl then receives a call and I try to refocus my mind on the Wind-up Bird Chronicle, I am reading.