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Liberia’s controversial public-private partnership with Bridge International Academies: what do we know after six months?

Mon, March 6, 5:00 to 6:30pm, Sheraton Atlanta, Floor: 1, Georgia 7 (South Tower)

Proposal

In early January 2016, the Liberian Government convened a stakeholders consultative meeting during which it announced plans to introduce a Public Private Partnership (PPP) for the management of Liberian schools. Following the meeting, the Ministry of Education signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Bridge International Academies (BIA) to manage 50 public primary schools in the country.

Despite widespread criticisms and condemnation from stakeholders (e.g. UN Special Rapporteur on the right to education, 2016), Bridge International Academies was eventually contracted by the Ministry of Education under the pilot phase of the PPP to manage at 24 schools across the country. They have been contracted along other providers to participate in the pilot phase of the PPP project, which is anticipated to run for one academic year, starting in September 2016.

This presentation will seek to primarily investigate and report on key issues and processes related the operations of Bridge International Academies under the PPP Scheme. The PPP agreement with BIA, which is supposed be scaled up in the next five years if the pilot is considered to be successful, will probably be the first attempt at outsourcing/privatizing public education on the African continent on such a scale. While the Ministry of Education and Bridge International Academies have consistently defended the pilot as being appropriate and an opportunity to innovate in addressing core problems related to quality of instructions and learning outcomes (Werner, 2016), critics believe that the project undermines government’s commitment and moral obligations to fund public education and ensure equal access to educational opportunity for all. They also contend that the principle of equal access and quality for all will be undermined by the PPP and its associated modalities, especially under the pilot program.

The paper will endeavor to provide data collected between September 2015 and February 2016 about four different, but interrelated sets of questions, to which the response are essential to allow stakeholders to constructively engage with the PPP process:
1, Governance and Management: What does the PPP mean for the roles of the Ministry of Education and other local structures that are supposed to manage or supervised public schools in the country?
2. Accountability and Transparency: How accountable is BIA to citizens compared to government schools?
3. Financing and Sustainability: What does the PPP mean for the Government’s moral and legal obligations to finance public education in the country?
4. Access, Equity and inclusivity: Does the pilot increase access to educational opportunities for all, especially out-of-school children and girls?

The presentation will seek to interrogate and report on different aspects of these questions as they related Bridge’s operation in Liberia, including its implications for the education sector and the country more broadly. Answers to these questions can play key roles in determining Liberia’s next position regarding the PPP, if government is determined to use results of ongoing pilot as basis to expand or scale up the program in the coming years.

References
UN Special Rapporteur on the right to education (Kishore Singh). (22 March 2016). UN rights expert urges Liberia not to hand public education over to a private company. [online] Retrieved from: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=18506#sthash.wdKB7JHU.dpuf [accessed on 1 October 2016].

Werner, G. (2016). Partnership Schools for Liberia: Building a Better Future for our Children. [online] Liberia Ministry of Education. Available at: http://moe.gov.lr/site/pages3.php?pgID=137 [accessed on 1 October 2016].

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