Trends in private sector development in World Bank education projects
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Abstract
Emerging trends in education show the \n private sector to be playing an increasingly important role \n in financing and providing educational services in many \n countries. Private sector development has not arisen \n primarily through public policy design, but has of course \n been affected by the design, and limitations of public \n policy. The author traces trends in private sector \n development in eleven of seventy World Bank education \n projects in 1995-97, asking two questions: What has been the \n rationale for Bank lending in education? And, in countries \n where there is both privately financed, and publicly \n financed, and provided education, how has the Bank \n encouraged the private sector to thrive? The eleven country \n samples reveal that the Bank's interest in private \n sector development is basically in capacity-oriented \n privatization, to absorb excess demand for education. This \n is crucial to the Bank's general strategy for education \n lending: promoting access with equity, focusing on \n efficiency in resource allocation, promoting quality, and \n supporting capacity building. Absorbing excess demand tends \n to involve poorer families, usually much poorer than those \n that take advantage of other forms of privatized education. \n The Bank emphasizes capacity-oriented privatization, \n especially of teacher training for primary, and secondary \n schools, as well as institutional capacity building for \n tertiary, and vocational education. The underlying principle \n is that strengthening the private sector's role in \n non-compulsory education over time, will release public \n resources for the compulsory (primary) level. The private \n sector is emerging as a force governments, donors, and other \n technical assistance agencies cannot ignore. Often the term \n private sector encompasses households' out-of-pocket \n expenses, rather than describing for-profit, or \n not-for-profit (religious or otherwise) sectors. And lumpy \n investments, supporting both private, and public education, \n are the norm.