Public-private partnerships in education: An analysis with special reference to Indian school education system

Government of India is willing to achieve universality of education but the limiting factor is the financial resources at the disposal of the government. Indian Ministry of Human Resource Development has proposed “Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) as an alternative to improve access to quality school education while ensuring equity and social justice (Ministry of Human Resource Development (2009), Public Private Partnership in School Education (Draft Note), http://mhrd.gov.in/model_school). The mushrooming of effective private schools in Indian education sector and increased parental preferences for private schools indicate the poor performance of government schools (Muralidharan and Kremer, 2008; Tooley and Dixon, 2007:16; Fennell, 2007:194). The assessment of Indian school education raises several crucial issues like rising tuition fees, vulnerability of teachers due to short-lived jobs with lower salaries, poor infrastructure facilities; underutilisation of public resources and also the need for parental and community involvement in schools. Partnership contracts are an innovative idea to tap private resources, increase competition and efficiency. Many governments around the world have been exploring different ways to involve the private sector in providing education, including vouchers, subsidies, capitation grants, stipends, and contracts (LaRocque, 2008. Public-Private Partnerships in Basic Education: An International Review, CfBT Education Trust, May 2008; Patrinos et al., 2009). For education services to be provided successfully, all participants citizens, service providers, and governments should be held accountable. This paper seeks to investigate the global experience with partnership contracts in education, discusses on the status of Indian school education, and tries to see its feasibility in Indian education sector with the help of recently proposed DBFO (Design Build Finance and Operate) model.