Privatization of Education in Developing countries: An Overview

• In Event: Economics and Finance of Education in Developing and Emerging Market Economies: Current Developments and Challenges

Proposal

Private schools are the most common form of educational privatization. These include schools that are founded and sponsored by private entities, including religious groups, independent organizations, and for-profit organizations. Such schools may be independent or operated by organizations with an educational or spiritual mission, or operated as a business. In the western countries, such as the United States, private schools are mostly religiously affiliated and not for profit. In other parts of the world, particularly in Asia and Latin American, private schools are started by missionaries, but recently they have been established as for-profit businesses.

Privatization of education is supported by many different financial approaches. The most general of these is that of educational vouchers. One of the major claims for vouchers is that by introducing competition into the schooling system in place of a government monopoly, schools will become more productive and efficient in order to attract enrolments (Friedman, 1962). Studies from many countries, mostly Latin American, the US, European and Asian countries indicate mixed evidence on the effectiveness of vouchers.

There is also a growing body of research on the performance of public and private schools around the world, especially centred on the issue of students’ academic achievement. The topic is arousing even more interest among researchers in developing countries, where the performance of public schools is consistently below that of private schools. Due to the poor performance of public schools, demand for private schools in developing countries is rising rapidly, and private schools are assuming an increasingly large role in catering to the educational needs of the poor (Tooley & Dixon, 2005). But private schooling as a solution to failing public schools in developing countries is not as straightforward as outlined by Tooley and Dixon (2005). There are a lot of complex issues involved (Colclough, 1996) and more empirical studies are needed to gain a deeper understanding of the topic.
The use of low cost private schools as an alternative to public schools in the absence of an adequate number of public schools within close proximity, or poor quality education of existing public schools has been a topic of debate for policy makers. Likewise, government subsidies to enhance access to private schools by children belonging to low income strata or some unexplored reasons, has also raised many issues requiring immediate attention at policy level.

The growing demand for technology and skills in a market oriented knowledge economy has posed challenges for the developing economies to restructure the education system at the policy level. The world rankings of higher education institutions have created huge competition among the developing countries to emerge at a higher level in higher education rankings. It has become a policy interest of any country categorized as a” developing country” to show their competitive position in within the education sector in the global knowledge economy.

This study provides a snapshot on privatization of education in developing countries, with examples drawn from various countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

Author

• Amrit Thapa, University of Pennsylvania