Over the course of the last few decades, education has increasingly been referred to as a public good in education development and human rights discourse. The education-related Goal 4 of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development1āEnsure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for allāoutlined in the Incheon Declaration,2 is grounded on long-established foundational principles that refer to the recognition of education as a human right and as a public good (UNESCO 2015a: 5). This vision is also recalled and further detailed in the Framework for Action3 which outlines how to translate into practice the commitments envisaged in the Education 2030 agenda. It is stated that āEducation is a public good, of which the state is the duty bearerā (UNESCO 2015a: 10).
On the basis of a general interpretation of the theory of public goods, as developed by the economists Samuelson and Musgrave,4 the notion of education as a public good aims to reaffirm the primary responsibility of the State in ensuring that all children have access to education by directly providing or financing educational opportunities, particularly for the duration of compulsory education. Indeed, the first target of Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG4) further stipulates the provision of 12 years of free public primary and secondary education of which at least 9 years should be compulsory. The role of the State is considered fundamental since, as also envisaged in legal frameworks underpinning the right to education, it is the main actor that has to safeguard the respect of principles of equality of opportunity, equity and inclusion. This is all the more important given the need to ensure that discrimination is avoided, and marginalized or underprivileged groups also have access to quality education opportunities. In this perspective, States have a key role in safeguarding the public interest in education and are expected to directly provide or finance educational opportunities, especially at the basic and compulsory level.
The leading role of the State in educational policies and practices is however increasingly being questioned, largely as a result of the changing dynamics in the global educational landscape. This is characterized by the greater involvement of non-state actors5 in educational policy and provision, as well as by the growing scale of for-profit education at all levels. These changes are undoubtedly the result of several interconnected trends that have seen the increasing involvement of private actors in the funding and delivery of education opportunities. One of the main trends can be attributed to the āremarkable and unprecedented expansion in access to education at all levelsā that has occurred worldwide over the last two decades and which has resulted in greater pressures on public financing (UNESCO 2015b: 13). The resulting public sector capacity constraints have created numerous opportunities for non-state actors to get involved in the sector. Under the trends of education privatization lies the assumption that the private sector can provide better quality education and, when functioning as corporate or business organizations, can be more efficient also in the management of the education system. The growing collaboration with the private sector, and the consequently increasing diversification of actors involved at different levels of the education endeavour, has contributed to the blurring of boundaries between the public and the private. Within this context, it has been argued that the multifaceted process of privatization may undermine the relevance of the concept of the public good as a guiding principle for educational governance (UNESCO 2015c).
Moreover, the principle of education as a public good, traditionally defined within the contours of the nation-state, is further challenged by the progressive shift in the locus of decision-making, from a national to a global level. Indeed, regional and global initiatives in education are increasingly influencing national education policies and practices, sometimes encouraging the development of for-profit private education. At the same time, the trends of globalization and liberalization of markets have encouraged a more utilitarian and individualistic approach to education, based on the human capital theory and on rates of return on investment in education, also promoting private engagement in the sector. Rooted in neo-liberal ideologies, these dynamics enhance the adoption of free-market logics, notably those of choice, economic competition and performance. In this perspective, education is conceived merely as an individual socio-economic investment and, therefore, as a marketable, consumable good (Macpherson et al. 2014). Indeed, it has been argued that the introduction of market mechanisms in the education sector may call into question specific aspects of the properties of public goods, since market involvement can lead to some forms of exclusion, thus making education more similar to a private good (Kohlrausch and Leuze 2007).
1.1 Rationale
The issue of determining the extent to which the private sector should be engaged in education has been at the centre of an intense debate in the education development field. The growing trend of the involvement of for-profit actors in the sector has raised important issues with regard to the nature and purposes of education itself, and with regard to the consequences for societal development in general. Whether education is considered to be a public or private marketable good is related to two competing visions of the purposes of education (Labaree 2011). It raises important questions about both the organization of education and the governance of education systems. This is related to the respective roles of the State, the market and other stakeholders involved in education and the distribution of power that exists among them.
Questions have been raised regarding the viability of the traditional role of the State in educationāone that commits States to the primary responsibility to directly fund, provide, monitor, and regulate education opportunities. Indeed, the increasing demand for education at all levels has contributed, along with the Education for All and the Millennium Development Goals global agendas, to an expansion of access to education and to the lengthening of the average duration of schooling across the world. The growth in enrolment, also resulting from the significant global demographic changes, has generated greater pressures on public schooling systems in terms of both funding and delivery of education opportunities, contributing to the āfailureā of governments to provide quality, basic education to all their citizens.
It has been argued that the notion of public goodāand the role of the public and private sector in achieving thisāāwill probably always be, and should be, a contested subjectā (Mansbridge 1998: 4). In a context characterized by increased complexity and by the blurring of boundaries between the public and the private, it is necessary to revisit the concept of education as a public good in order to determine the policy implications with regard to the role of the State in the governance of education systems.
Moreover, given āthe peculiar nature of educationā, which involves both public and private interests (Levin 2000), and the difficulty in making a clear-cut distinction between the public and private sphere in this field (Robertson et al. 2012), it seems more and more difficult to reconcile the economic private purposes with the public-good aspects of education. Since private providersāalso for-profit onesāmay be expected to provide public goods (Olson 1965), and that forms of privatization and of marketization are possible also thanks to the direct intervention of the State, it is becoming increasingly challenging to ensure that economic investments of for-profit actors in the field of education are not guided by mere opportunity for business expansion but are principally aimed at contributing to the public interest.
Since systems of governance for the delivery of education are becoming more complex, it is necessary to rethink the principles that should guide such governance. In this respect, it is more and more evident that a āblanket defence of the public sector, as it is or was, over and against the inroads of privatisation, is untenable. [ā¦]There is no going back to a past in which the public sector as a whole worked well and worked fairly in the interests of all learners. There was no such pastā (Ball 2007: i). As acknowledged by many scholars, in order to address the long-standing crisis in education systems, there is need for a shift in cultureāa transformative change in order to significantly revisit and reshape the way of functioning of public institutions themselves (UNESCO 2016; Apple and Beane 1995, 2007; Hursh 2016; Tedesco 1995).
Since such a challenge is not merely a question of economics but of democracy (Reich 2015), reframing the concept of education as a public good should take into consideration both economic and political perspectives which focus on the institutional regulation of goods (Kohlrausch and Leuze 2007). As argued by the historian and social critic Tony Judt (2010), āthe choice will no longer be between the state and the market, but between two sorts of states. It is thus incumbent upon us to reconceive the role of government. If we do not, others willā (p. 9).
1.2 The Object and Purpose of the Book
The new global educational landscape requires a clearer understanding of why the principle of education as a public good has constantly appeared in education development discourse over the last few decades and what it possibly means today in light of the changing dynamics in the governance of education both at the national and at the global level. This is all the more important given the renewed commitment and the ambitious goal of the international community to ensure that āall girls and boys complete free, equitable and quality primary and secondary education leading to relevant and effective learning outcomesā6.
This book maps out trends in, and the rationales for, private engagement in schooling, includ...