World Bank study: Public-private partnerships making quality education accessible for all

MANILA, Philippines - The responsibility of educating people has always fallen on the shoulders of governments across the globe because of the complexity of the task, but a new World Bank study shows that deepening partnerships with the private sector in the Philippines is becoming a reliable way of financing quality education and making it accessible especially to the poor.

Entitled “The Role and Impact of Public-Private Partnerships in Education”, he study found that making high-quality education accessible for all in developing countries requires innovative programs and initiatives in addition to public resources and leadership.

There are ways in which the public and private sectors can join together to complement each other’s strengths in providing education services and helping developing countries to meet the Millennium Development Goals for education and to improve learning outcomes,” Harry Anthony Patrinos, one of the authors of the study, said. Patrinos, lead education economist at the WB, specializes in all areas of education, especially school-based management, demand-side financing and public-private partnerships.

He added that public-private partnerships (PPPs) can even be tailored and targeted specifically to meet the needs of low-income communities.

Aside from philanthropic activities and high-engagement ventures, private organizations can support the public sector by constructing, managing, or maintaining infrastructure.

They can provide education services and operations, as in voucher schemes or charter schools (a private organization manages and operates a public school). Private organizations can give teacher trainings, help in management or curriculum design, among others.

But one of the conditions for PPPs is an enabling environment where the private sector can participate in providing education. The study cited the Philippines as one of the developing countries that have encouraged the expansion of the private school sector by recognizing it explicitly in legislation.

“This recognition can be the foundation for building political and public support for the private sector’s involvement in education and for minimizing investor uncertainty. This is particularly important given that education is often seen as a social rather than commercial endeavor,” he said.

The study also said the Philippines has been successful in using a voluntary accreditation system for private schools and higher education institutions to assure quality in both the private and public sectors. The Center for Educational Measurement also provides testing and assessment services that track the education performance of schools and governments.

Emmanuel Jimenez, sector director for the World Bank’s human development sector department, said the Philippine business sector’s active involvement in solving problems in education confirms the findings of the study.

“In the Philippines, you will truly sense that people understand the saying ‘It takes a village to raise a child’,” Jimenez said. “Improved access to quality education is an important government objective that the World Bank supports in its country assistance strategy and if the policies for private sector participation are further enhanced, I believe that goal will be reached sooner.”

Patrinos presented on Friday his study to representatives from the Philippine Business for Education, an organization composed of leaders from the business sector, and other private groups advocating for better quality and access to basic education. Findings and outcomes of the study sparked ideas among those present on deepening the partnership between the business community and the government.

Among the recommendations to improve PPPs are:

• Include output specifications that define performance standards and facilitate the measurement and tracking of quality and school efficiency;

• Define operating requirements and performance standards that private schools and operators should follow;

• Reward innovation and quality improvements. One way to reward schools is to provide monetary awards for good performance;

• Help private schools to deliver high-quality education and accompany voucher programs with capacity-building interventions; and

• Establish a specialized group of authorities to manage PPP programs and the flow of funds from the government to private schools, and to enforce qualifying criteria and regulations.