NN41, December 2008
The New Politics of Partnership: Peril or Promise?
White Knight or Trojan Horse? The Private Sector and Education for All [1]
By Alexandra Draxler, consultant, Paris, formerly Prospects
Email: a.draxler@gmail.comKeywords
Partnership, Private Sector, EFA
Summary
This article examines the role of public-private partnership in EFA. It examines the private sector?s potential role and the public sector?s responsibility in these types of partnerships where each partner contributes assets and/or resources towards a common goal, and shares both risks and benefits.
The White Knight of educational reform?
Seeking to expand the range of actors involved in contributing to the Education for All (EFA) goals is a logical response when resources are scarce and when classic development mechanisms encounter intractable problems. It is now conventional wisdom that that public-private partnerships for education [2], essentially aimed at increasing the contribution of business and civil society, should be able both to generate new resources and to enrich skills and experience available for educational reform. Indeed there is a degree of ?irrational exuberance?, to borrow a prophetic term applied to the financial sector a few years ago, about the potential of partnerships to solve problems governments cannot solve alone. The UN has embraced public-private partnerships, as has the World Bank (Patrinos & Sosale, 2007, United Nations Global Compact, 2007).
Unfortunately, the dialogue on the question of public-private partnerships is clouded by both meaning and ideology. As this issue of NORRAG NEWS shows, the very concept of partnership means different things to different people and more importantly to different institutions and sectors. The term ?public-private partnership? is used frequently, and according to this writer improperly, to describe the provision of public services by the private sector under contract, whether education, health or utilities. So, ?partnership? is used by many practitioners (and authors) to refer to privatization, which is a highly ideological battle-ground on which evidence is wielded, disemboweled, disregarded or tried in kangaroo courts with extreme conviction and high emotion. The benefits of private schooling, privatization of part or all of educational services, are important but different issues, because scrutiny of privatization can in principle take place through existing legal mechanisms (parliaments, the legal system and so on).
What are ?public-private partnerships??
The main focus in this short review is on the private sector?s potential role and the public sector?s responsibility in partnerships where each partner contributes assets and/or resources towards a common goal, and shares both risks and benefits. These can be complicated to achieve, often have higher transaction costs than single-sector initiatives, and are fairly marginal in terms of overall resources devoted to education. Documentation and research on the real outcomes of partnerships in education is relatively weak. The knotty part about ?partnerships? is that they fall outside most legal and regulatory mechanisms.
Arguments in favor of public-private partnerships
Arguments for public-private partnership follow much the same reasoning as those in favor of more private sector involvement in provision of public services: the public sector cannot do it alone, the private sector is more efficient and effective, the private sector can provide greater choice, and often also that the involvement of the private sector will vastly increase the resource base. These arguments need to be examined carefully, and this is not the place where this can be done. Suffice it to say that there is very little evidence for the last argument, significant expansion of resources due to partnerships [3].
A review of experience to date seems to indicate that there are considerable virtues of PPPs in terms of innovation, experimentation, enhancing quality, learning, diversity of provision and execution, and building alliances. Particularly in the realm of information and communications technologies, the potential to experiment with the introduction of technologies into the teaching and learning process by establishing partnerships can avoid costly system-wide investment mistakes. None of these potential gains are negligible, but they come with costs.
Why a Trojan horse?
The international community has spent a great deal of time and energy in defining and codifying rights to education and in supporting ways in which governments can play their role in supporting these rights. The notion of public-private partnerships has emerged as a new, unregulated, tool that exists almost entirely outside these agreements. Because, in principle, money does not change hands, regulatory mechanisms do not apply. Because, in principle, these are informal arrangements, they fall outside national and international planning mechanisms, indeed outside major recent agreements about donor and recipient country coordination. They can both conflict with and deviate national plans, and incur costs and consequences down the line for which no one is directly responsible but which the national system has to assume. The pitfalls of partnerships are potentially high. Most partnerships operate relatively informally, with a loose verbal or written agreement such as a memorandum of understanding. As a consequence, normal tendering procedures are often not followed. There is a potential (and often real) consequence of giving the private sector partner or partners a competitive advantage for the provision of further lucrative business. In the IT sector, for example, distribution of free equipment or software for a pilot project with a governmental body can informally lock in the recipient for subsequent system-wide use of the same goods, bypassing competition.
Building on experience for positive results
Most observers concur that a number of conditions need to be met in order that public-private partnerships for education respond to clear needs and operate effectively, efficiently and transparently. So far regulatory mechanisms do not exist or are weak, empirical evidence about results is not widespread, and expectations about their potential can be excessive.
Some lessons can be summarized here:
Principles and regulation
Multi-stakeholder partnerships for education bring together stakeholders from vastly different origins and with fundamentally different operating principles. The economic sector partners engaged in these partnerships are, legitimately, concerned with the long-term profitability of their investment. From the point of view of governments and non-governmental organizations, there are fundamental human rights principles that must be upheld, based on intergovernmental conventions and agreements and the notion of education as a public good. Public sector partners also need to take care that basic principles of competition, transparency and accountability as well as adherence to commitments are respected. Needs and outcomes need to take precedence over inputs. This means fitting partnerships into overall development assistance trends as well as developing programmes in concert with those stakeholders closest to the end users.
Costs
Typically, partnerships have high transaction costs, generally underestimated at the outset. Participants assume that volunteerism and good will cover unforeseen costs. Initial agreements about how to cover costs generated by unforeseen events are necessary, as these otherwise will devolve to the public sector or result in poor outcomes. Longer term costs (replacement of equipment, upkeep and so-on) are often forgotten, and these always accrue to the public sector partners.
Objectives
The benefits of partnerships are potentially very high in terms of collective value-added from expanded resources, competencies and approaches. These benefits are factors that can be used for negotiation at the outset between stakeholders, including the end users, and should be articulated as par of the overall objectives. However, when partners come to an undertaking with objectives that are mutually incompatible, have not been scrutinized in relation to needs, or that can have hidden long-term consequences for stakeholders outside the partnership, trouble lies down the road. The preparation stage, involving consultation with those involved in implementation on the ground, with end users, and assessment of relative needs and priorities and how the particular partnership activity fits in, is essential.
Risks
The risks and difficulties of partnerships are often underestimated at the beginning. Because consequences for any one partner are, in general, not devastating, each partner can be tempted to assume that not much will be lost if the experiment does not work. Case studies typically dance around these problems. Commitment at the outset on the part of stakeholders to transparent reporting as part of on-going monitoring may be painful at the beginning but in the end will benefit all those involved.
Conclusions
In conclusion, to innovate is by definition to enter uncertain and sometimes uncharted territory. To innovate with education is to take responsibility for the learning experience and the future of individuals. Failure has direct consequences for people we know or should know. Success will benefit not only learners and those involved in education but all the institutions involved. Investment in planning, regulation, transparency, results and documentation of partnerships is not wasted. It is a duty and an asset.
Footnotes
[1] This note is based on a study carried out for UNESCO and the World Economic Forum called New partnerships for education: building on experience. (Paris, International Institute for Educational Planning). Available online at: http://www.unesco.org/iiep/PDF/pubs/Partnerships_EFA.pdf
[2] Indeed, as a result of some negative connotations surrounding ?public-private? partnerships, the term ?multi-stakeholder partnerships? has come to be preferred by many international organizations and others.
[3] The provision of education by the private sector is another matter, and although private education is often lumped together with public-private partnerships, this is a misleading aggregation.
References
Bertsch, T., Bouchet, R., Godrecka, J., Kärkkäinen, K., Malzy, T. & Zuckerman, L. (2005). Corporate sector involvement in Education for All: partnerships with corporate involvement for the improvement of basic education, gender equality, and adult literacy in developing countries. Contribution of the private sector to education. (Paris, UNESCO). Available online.
Cassidy, T. (2007) Toward the Development of a Global Education Initiative (GEI) Model of Effective Partnership Initiatives for Education. (Geneva, WEF) Available online.
Martens, J. (2007). Multistakeholder partnerships: future models of multilateralism? Potential pitfalls of multi-stakeholder partnerships. (Berlin, Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung e.V.). Available online.
Patrinos, H. A. & Sosale, S. (Eds.) (2007) Mobilizing the Private Sector for Public Education A View from the Trenches. (Washington, The World Bank). Available online (Accessed March 2008).
United Nations Global Compact Web Page.
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