Marketization and social division in access to public educational services

• In Event: Roundtable Session (Tuesday VI)
  In Refereed Round-Table Session: Meaning and significance of education reinterpreted in new societal contexts

Proposal

The paper domestic policy tool choices concerning the accomplishment of EU policy objectives, as embedded in the European Social Fund (ESF), which result in the creation of a quasi-market for educational service delivery. The main hypothesis of the research is that the weak regulation via tender documentation generates four adverse effects in our country cases: 1) it leads to low propensities to form inter-institutional and inter-sectoral partnerships for organizing and delivering public services; 2) it leads to a centralization of contractors to a small number of urban clusters, causing massive discrepancies in terms of geographical equity; 3) it leads to a convenience-driven purposeful selection of project beneficiaries that is also afflicted by an upward bias in the vulnerability continuum; and 4) it leads to high propensities to develop convenient, rather than efficient and innovative projects. Evidence suggests that, under the above circumstances, the social-service delivery contracting as an instrument of governance is no longer regulating against risks for beneficiaries, but fuels increased social division in access to public services.

Author

• Daniel Pop, Open Society Foundations