Partnering with non-governmental organizations in public education: contributions to an ongoing debate
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JEA-07-2019-224 |
| Date | 08 July 2019 |
| Published date | 08 July 2019 |
| Pages | 426-430 |
| Author | Antoni Verger |
| Subject Matter | Education,Administration & policy in education,School administration/policy,Educational administration,Leadership in education |
Commentary
Partnering with non-governmental organizations in public education:
contributions to an ongoing debate
In the governance era,a broad range of non-governmental actorsare interacting with schools
and public authorities in the deliveryof formal education and, asa result, educational systems
are becoming more diverse, complex and segmented. Nonetheless, in an attempt to align
non-governmental initiatives with public sector objectives in education, many governments
are establishing partnerships with the private sector. These partnerships, which usually
adopt the form of legal contracts that are in force for a certain period of time, are known as
public-private partnerships (PPPs) (Robertson et al., 2012) or as cross-sectoral partnerships
(Eyal and Berkovich, 2019).
Advocates of non-governmental involvement in education consider that PPPs are an
efficient way of both organizing and taking advantage of a blooming private sector
participation in public education. From this perspective, partnering with non-governmental
organizations (NGOs) is a way of bringing new ideas, actors and resources into public
education systems (Patrinos et al., 2009). Nonetheless, there are also more critical and
skeptical voices with PPPs. To them, non-governmental participation in education means
transferring public assets and responsibilities to the private sector, tends to generate public
accountability issues and contributes to deepening (or to triggering new forms of ) social
inequalities within educational systems (Ball and Youdell, 2007).
Private sector participation in education has generated a passionate debate in both the
Global South and theGlobal North (Ginsburg, 2012; Srivastava, 2010; Waslander et al., 2010).
The publication of the special issue “Understanding third sector participation in public
schooling through partnerships, collaborations, alliances and entrepreneurialism,”edited by
Nina Kolleck and Miri Yemini, introduces complexity and new sources of evidence into this
fascinating debate. The articles included in the special issue address the PPPs debate from
well-informed theoretical perspectives and solid empirical strategies. The case-studies that
conform the issue have been developed by a set of very well-established and upcoming
educational scholars in several countries, including the USA, Germany, Israel and England,
and have been approachedthrough various methodologies,such as comparative case studies,
literature reviews, school ethnographies, social network analysis and media analysis.
As I argue in the following pages, this special issue achieves two main general objectives.
First, it contributes to reflect on the complexity and diversity of manifestations of non-
governmental participation in education; and, second, it provides the academic and policy
communities with new sources of evidence on the pros and cons of this emerging, evolving
and challenging phenomenon. I structure my commentary according to these two objectives.
The multiple faces of non-governmental participation in education: from policy influence to
educational delivery
The case studies included in the special issue show that the modalities of participation of
NGOs in educational systems are wide and multi-level. Broadly speaking, these modalities
go from the private sector attempting to influence the production of policies (mainly by
lobbying decision makers to introduce new regulations, or advocating educational reform
ideas) to the private sector delivering specific services (such as managing public schools, or
supporting schools with new educational materials, teaching training resources and so on).
Non-governmental actors are not only increasingly present in public education, but are
also becoming increasingly influential. Some contributions to this special issue reflect on the
changing sources of power and legitimacy of NGOs in the educational domain. Especially in
Journal of Educational
Administration
Vol. 57 No. 4, 2019
pp. 426-430
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0957-8234
DOI 10.1108/JEA-07-2019-224
426
JEA
57,4
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