Conceptualizing non-state engagement in education: applications to South Asia

• In Event: Highlighted Session: The Role of Non-State Actors in Education in South Asia: A panel discussion on the GEM South Asia Regional Report

Proposal

There has been growing interest in non-state engagement in education, globally and in South Asia over the last two decades. This may be attributed to increased activity of non-state actors and increased formal education provision by private actors in the region on the one hand, alongside intensified global and domestic commitments to education access, quality, and equity in a number South Asian countries, on the other.

Despite growing academic and policy interest, conceptual framing on non-state engagement in education is muddled. The range of non-state engagement is broad, and the actors, diverse. Many typological issues are unresolved in the broader literature. Earlier research is mainly descriptive and exploratory. To a fair extent it still is, given the uneven geographic and sectoral concentrations of the body of evidence.

Based on the 2021/22 GEM Report on Non-state Actors in Education commissioned Think Piece (Srivastava, 2020), this presentation puts forward a conceptual framing on non-state engagement. It is intended to provide clarity for ongoing research and policy analyses. The presentation will further highlight research questions and gaps in the literature base with emphasis on South Asia.

The conceptual framing was developed to address the following analytic exigencies. Firstly, there are concerns regarding non-state engagement at compulsory or basic levels of education. This is because there are recognized international and domestic obligations on the State in view of education as a human right. Secondly, most existing research shows there are equity implications for persistently marginalized groups, most often girls and women and economically disadvantaged groups, regarding sustained access and learning outcomes in privatized contexts. Finally, there are concerns regarding the engagement of non-state actors with commercial or profit-oriented statuses or motives.

The thinkpiece framework highlighted the following general features:

1. Non-state engagement is identified with reference to four domains of operation: provision, financing, regulation, and management, highlighting the different roles that state and non-state actors may have in education. Actors may simultaneously engage within and across multiple domains, and in formal and non-formal education.

2. Non-state actors may engage in core education and/or ancillary education services relatively independently or in various formal or informal arrangements with state/public, other non-state, and international actors within and across these domains. Arrangements can span from loose interactions to formalized agreements.

3. Non-state engagement within and across domains is likely structured by and may occur simultaneously across different levels of governance, i.e., global, regional, domestic, local, and in micro-education ecosystems. Formal education systems are internally structured according to different, usually interconnected, sub-sectors. The different levels of governance and education sub-sectors will have specific implications.

On balance, the research evidence on non-state engagement continues to focus primarily on provision. Generally, in the South Asian context, the known equity effects of exclusion, both regarding differential access and educational experience and hyper-segmentation of the education schooling market require advanced research using multidimensional constructs of deprivation to understand relative access, experience, and outcomes.

Author

• Prachi Srivastava, University of Western Ontario