ACCORDING to DISE data for 2009-10, of the total 1.3 million recognized schools in India, 1.04 million (80.37 per cent) were under government management. Private recognized schools accounted for just over 250,000 schools (around 20 per cent), a proportion that appears to have remained constant over the last few years.¹ In other words, nearly one in every five recognized schools at the elementary level is under private management.²

The presence of the private sector in school education is one that has also been implicitly recognized by The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, which mandates that unaided recognized schools must admit not less than 25 per cent of their intake at the Grade I level (KG if there is a preschool attached) from amongst children belonging to disadvantaged backgrounds. The act views schools as institutions of social integration and thus attempts to bring all schools within a common umbrella; yet, in doing so, it acknowledges that there has been significant private participation in this sector in the last few years.

Following the first round of economic reforms in the early 1990s, and possibly as an unintended result of the consequent growth of the middle class in India, the demand for private schooling has increased in recent years. Some part of this has been aspirational, while in other cases it has arisen due to a search for an alternative to what are perceived to be less than satisfactory government institutions. Several organizations, both for-profit and not-for-profit, have established, or are in the process of establishing, K-12 schools in not just the major metros, but also in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities, where the demand for quality education is greater than ever before. While it is nobody’s case that private or non-state institutions can automatically be equated with quality, the truth is that, as Justice Jeevan Reddy observed in the historic case of J.P. Unnikrishnan vs the State of Andhra Pradesh, ‘Private educational institutions are a necessity in the present day context. It is not possible to do without them because the governments are in no position to meet the demand...’³

It may be argued that with the passage of The Right of Children To Free And Compulsory Education Act, 2009, the role of the private sector in elementary school education has ceased to have much relevance. However, inasmuch as the act does not do away with clauses (c) and (g) of Article 19(1) of the Constitution, which provide that all citizens shall have the right ‘to form associations’ and to ‘practice any profession, or to carry on any occupation, trade or business’, a position upheld (with some caveats) by the Supreme Court in T.M.A. Pai Foundation and Ors. vs State of Karnataka and Ors., Supreme Court, 2002,⁴ it would appear that as long as the private party concerned complies with the norms and standards laid down by the act, there still remains a role for such players, even though any such role would not dilute the state’s obligation to fulfil its mandate under the Constitution.

 

There can be no two opinions about the obligation of the state to ensure free and compulsory education for all children between the ages of six and fourteen years. In the implementation of the RTE Act, therefore, it is quite evident that the government will have to take the lead in ensuring the right systems and processes are put into place.

That said, however, there would seem to be a not unreasonable case for the involvement of non-state actors in several aspects related to delivery of the right, not least due to the quantum of financial and human resources required. Although the private sector has made substantial contributions to education in India, a significant number of their initiatives have tended to be philanthropic in nature. However, in considering a strategy for the long term, it must be accepted that philanthropic or Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives in the establishment and running of schools are not likely to be sustainable strategies in the long run. Fluctuations in the economy will always be reflected in budgets that companies set aside for CSR, and thus the provision of any service, be it school-related or otherwise, which is based on such motives, will always be at risk. Similarly, activities undertaken by not-for-profit organizations like NGOs are also not continuously sustainable. Even established non-profits who are acknowledged as doing good work for the last 15-20 years, often find that they remain at the mercy of their donors.

 

This leads to the need to consider other alternatives such as Public Private Partnerships (PPP). The concept of PPP originally came about in the West due to concerns about the level of public debt, which grew rapidly during the macroeconomic crises of the 1970s and 1980s. The model was initially viewed as one in which the private partner would provide services or infrastructure for a fee, as well as investment that would replace government resources. While there is no single accepted international definition of PPPs, in practice such projects have evolved depending upon the needs of each country, the nature of the sector in which they are deployed and the resources available.

In many countries, the core of PPP programmes are projects that are for services traditionally provided by the public sector, combine investment and service provision, see significant risks being borne by the private sector, and also see a major role for the public sector in either purchasing services or bearing substantial risks under the project.⁵ In the entire process, there is an implicit understanding that the private party underwriting the investment will receive a return on capital employed on account of the reallocation of risk and in return for services rendered.

 

The concept of PPP in education in India acquires added complexity in the background of legal statutes prohibiting profit making in education. In the T.M.A. Pai Foundation case referred to earlier, the Supreme Court clearly held that commercialization of education was not a viable alternative, and went on to state ‘...in the establishment of an educational institution, the object should not be to make a profit, inasmuch as education is essentially charitable in nature. There can, however, be a reasonable revenue surplus, which may be generated by the educational institution for the purpose of development of education and expansion of the institution.’⁶ If this is taken as a starting point, it should be possible to create models of public-private collaboration that meet the objectives of the state, while simultaneously allowing for the creation of surplus as mentioned by the court without being exploitative.

In this context, the experience of other countries serves as a useful precedent. The example of the so-called ‘charter schools’ in the US demonstrates one model of PPP in school education. Charter schools are part of a sweeping educational reform that offers alternatives for parents and students and places the highest priority on providing better education. Charter schools are funded much like a public school, but each charter school is governed privately. Unlike traditional public schools, every charter school must demonstrate success, or else it loses its charter. Municipalities, private companies or individuals can manage charter schools. District authorities usually sign a charter with the school board for operation which is renewed every five years depending on performance. Construction of the building is privately funded, and the local government provides student fees; however, the model varies from state to state in USA’s federal system. About one million students, who represent nearly two per cent of the overall student population in USA, go to such schools.

 

Similarly, Sweden has liberal laws which allow nearly anyone who satisfies basic standards to open a new school and take in children at the state’s expense. The local municipality pays the school what it would have spent educating each child itself. Children must be admitted on a first-come first-served basis, and there are no entrance examinations, etc. This arrangement has been in existence since the year 1994, and the proportion of children being privately educated has now increased to more than 10 per cent. There is now even a chain of such private, profit-making schools, run by a company called Kunskapsskolan.⁷

Even in India, states like Punjab and Andhra Pradesh have experimented with PPP in school education. The Punjab government has established the Adarsh Schools in an attempt to ensure that children in rural areas have access to good quality education. These schools have been set up in partnership with the private sector, which has been invited by offering a package of incentives, including land at cheaper rates and other facilities. The schools have spacious buildings and modern facilities to provide a conducive environment for learning. The schools are allowed to lease out land to private contractors for cultivation, and income received has to be spent on development of the schools.

Similarly, Andhra Pradesh has attempted to set up residential schools in rural and semi-urban areas through public-private partnerships. In its model, private partners bear the non-recurring costs, while the state government shares 50 per cent of the recurring costs. The remaining 50 per cent costs are raised through fees of management quota seats, which are 25 per cent of the total seats available. The government also provides land on a long-term lease of 33 years.

 

Although PPPs are sometimes mistaken for privatization, which would involve withdrawal of the government in favour of market-based operations, in actual fact a sound PPP contract enables the government to retain oversight and control over all critical elements of performance and outcome, while payments are typically made against services delivered. Through this mode of procurement, the government can hope to achieve a comparatively better outcome by combining the respective strengths of the public and the private sector in the form of a true partnership.⁸

Private players can help to bring a new approach to tackling a large, challenging, and amorphous problem like the provision of quality education. Apart from peripheral areas like construction and supply of educational material and timetabling software, the private sector can have a role in curriculum construction, development of teaching material, software, videos, etc. Part of the reason is simply that they may be structurally better equipped to develop deep expertise in chosen areas. The argument that the private sector has no role in primary education is often based on the flawed premise that education – unlike areas like technology or medicine, for example – does not need deep, specialized expertise, making only government agencies suited to the task.

 

If private agencies are viewed as a key part of fulfilling a larger vision for the nation, government could actually fund and support building of expertise in the private sector where it is clear that such private expertise (e.g., in research) will help the nation overall. Innovation is much more likely to take root and grow strongly in the private, and specifically, profit-making sector (apart from research institutions). For example, the National Science Foundation in the US funds research based on the quality of the proposal, its potential compared to national priorities, and the track record of the concerned agency, irrespective of whether it is for-profit or not. A similar model could be considered in our case.

It is more or less an agreed fact that access is not as high priority an issue as it was some years ago, particularly at the primary level, thanks to the efforts of programmes like the District Primary Education Programme (DPEP) and Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA). There is, however, an urgent need to move beyond issues of access in order to tackle quality and to ensure that the child’s right to education is delivered in the spirit of the constitution and the act. Institutional capacity building is another area that has not received its due attention; the story of the District Institutes of Education and Training (DIET) and the State Councils for Educational Research and Training (SCERT) is too well known to bear repetition here. Both quality improvement and institutional capacity building are areas in which non-state actors can help; in particular, private participation can help to efficiently scale individual models of innovation that have been implemented by several civil society partners in various parts of the country. Additionally, this could help to bring in state-of-the-art technology, infrastructure, systems and processes.

 

Aside from the obvious areas of intervention that may be considered on a PPP basis – running existing schools (25 per cent reservations), pgrading non-functional schools, and establishing new ones – several service-related areas may also be considered, such as developing and disseminating new ideas and practices, improved teacher education, provision of various services such as lab facilities, computer education, and research, among others.

No discussion of PPP in school education would be complete if it did not refer to a model that has worked successfully in India in the past, viz., the aided school model. Aided schools played and continue to play an important role, by reducing costs for students without diluting norms and standards, especially with respect to teacher pay and qualifications. Within the ambit of The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, it may be possible to re-examine this model and explore the possibility of reviving it, but with better regulatory and accountability systems. If state governments were to consider the option of ‘public funds under private management’, albeit under well-defined parameters, this form of PPP may find many takers from the private sector.

 

Two other areas where PPP may be possible are monitoring and third party assessments. The former entails monitoring progress about implementation of the act and meeting the goals set down by it, while the latter could cover external assessments of progress made by children, not in the form of external examinations proscribed by the act, but in the nature of diagnostic assessments of learning outcomes. In both these situations, the private sector could partner the relevant government agencies and civil society organizations in undertaking these tasks. A PPP model for regular monitoring/school audit would help us keep tabs on what is happening inside our schools, critical in both private (aided and unaided) and government schools. Further, given the importance of ensuring that government schools also adhere to the norms of the act within three years, one could seek PPP pathways to enhance the quality and functionality of government schools.

 

The foregoing discussion may be summarised as in the table below:⁹

It may be noted that there are several forms of contracts which are currently used in education in other developing countries. Some governments buy the services involved in producing education while others contract with private organizations to manage and operate public schools. Further, there are governments which contract private organizations in education service provision. At every phase of contracting, i.e. input, process and output, there are a different set of challenges and potential benefits. There are seven possible formats of contracts between public and private parties in education.¹⁰

a) Management service contracts: Address public school performance by letting private organizations manage a single school or an entire school district in terms of financial management, staff management, long-term planning and leadership.

b) Support services contract: Non-teaching activities, including maintenance, student transportation, and school meals can be effectively contracted out to private service providers in order to increase cost effectiveness and free up resources and time of school staff.

c) Professional services contracting: Brings the expertise of private providers to bear on public education, particularly in services such as teacher training, the provision of textbooks, curriculum design, and quality certification of schools. There are further benefits of scale economies, if the organization can deliver these input services to multiple schools under many contracts.

d) Operational services contracting: In such a method of contracting, contracts are awarded for operations of public schools where private agencies can both manage and staff the public schools. (An example of this in India would be the operation of schools in Rajasthan by the Bharti Foundation.)

e) Education services contract: This essentially involves funding students to enrol in private schools. Through this route, governments can quickly expand access without having to spend the money on building new schools. An education service contract directly targets beneficiaries and specific student groups. To some extent, this has been envisaged by The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, through its provisions relating to 25 per cent reservation in the entry class for students from underprivileged backgrounds.

f) Facility availability contract: Helps governments in avoiding upfront capital costs by mobilizing private investments. (Usually utilized in India through the BOLT or BOOT models.)

g) Facility availability and education services: This is essentially a build-operate model where a private firm not only builds the facility but also undertakes all the activities associated in delivering education. The operator then captures efficiency gains from both construction and operation of school and receives cross-subsidies to make up for the high cost of borrowing.

NUEPA has estimated the cost of providing free and compulsory education to all children in the six to fourteen year age group over the next eight years at Rs 231,233 crore. This is a staggering sum by any yardstick; any steps that can be taken to reduce this burden on the government should be welcomed, as long as they do not compromise the responsibility of the state to ensure the provision of free and compulsory education of equitable quality to all children under the act.

 

Any strategy based on PPP projects must take into account the nature of returns permissible to private entities participating in the delivery of school-related services and the means by which they should be regulated. This could be ensured through the establishment of an independent regulatory commission that oversees and regulates non-state actors undertaking such projects. However, any such regulation must be light in nature, and should not end up stifling such initiatives through restrictive and unreasonable requirements.

 

Several different models of funding PPP projects can be considered; CII had recently suggested some when government was considering establishing 2500 Model Schools with private partnership.¹¹ The important point to note is that it will be necessary to be creative in structuring how these are resourced and in defining the respective roles of various parties involved.

Even though the onus of ensuring the provision of free and compulsory education to all children between the ages of six to fourteen years lies squarely with the state under The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, there remain several aspects of elementary education, including inter alia, the establishment of schools that conform to the norms of the act, which can be addressed by non-state agencies such as private agencies and NGOs.

If the national goal is to provide meaningful, uniformly high quality and holistic education to all in the country, it will require us to be open to new ideas and models. In latter day India, those models would probably be a mix of for-profit, non-profit and government education delivery mechanisms, encouraged by policy and systems to work together and mutually synergise, and with quality monitoring by independent agencies at key outcome stages.

 

* This article was originally drafted by the author as a member of the Working Group on Elementary Education and Literacy for the Twelfth Five Year Plan (2012-17), as a chapter submitted for the Group’s final report.

Footnotes:

1. http://www.dise.in/Downloads/Publications/Publications percent202009-10/Flash percent20Statistics percent202009-10.pdf; retrieved 22nd August 2011.

2. This does not include the apparently increasing number of unrecognized private schools, about whom there is very little data available.

3. J.P. Unnikrishnan vs State of Andhra Pradesh (1993) 1 SCC 645, http://legal servicesindia.com/article/article/fee-structure-vis-a-vis-private-unaided-educational-institutions-94-1.html; retrieved 22 August, 2011.

4. T.M.A. Pai Foundation and Ors., vs State of Karnataka and Ors., Supreme Court, 2002, http://www.indiankanoon.org/doc/512761; retrieved 22 August 2011.

5. M. Dutz, C. Harris, I.S. Dhingra and C. Shugart, India: Building Capacities for Public Private Partnerships. The World Bank, Washington DC, 2006.

6. http://www.indiankanoon.org/doc/512761, op cit.

7. ‘Private Education – The Swedish Model’, The Economist, London; http://www.econo mist.com/node/11535645, retrieved 23 August 2011, 2008.

8. Unpublished, ‘Scheme for Augmenting School Education Through Public Private Partnership – Report of the Sub-group on the Round Table on Education’, report submitted for consideration of MHRD, May 2010; http://infrastructure.gov.in/pdf/Paper_on_School_ Education.pdf, retrieved 24 August 2011.

9. Adapted from N. LaRocque, Public-Private Partnerships in Basic Education: An International Review. CfBT Education Trust, Berkshire, 2008.

10. H. Patrinos, F. Barrera-Osorio and J.Guáqueta, The Role and Impact of Public-Private Partnerships in Education. The World Bank, Washington DC, 2009.

11. Confederation of Indian Industry, Public Private Partnership in Schools. CII, New Delhi, 2008.