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Philanthropic Engagement in Education: Localised Expressions of Global Flows in India
Abstract
This article argues that the rise of domestic and international philanthropic engagement in education in India cannot be understood in isolation; rather, it is part of a broader trend of what is termed ‘new global philanthropy in education’ in the Global South. Central to understanding the nature of this engagement is the localised expression of global flows, that is, the movement and connections of ideas and actors that enable philanthropic action and discourse. Based on a global review of the literature, this article contextualises and applies a conceptual framework of philanthropic governance to India given the country’s prominence in the review. It also presents illustrative examples of philanthropic engagement in India.
... According to Nambissan and Ball (2011), policy entrepreneurs are 'deeply embedded' in the infrastructure of neoliberal organizations internationally and locally with access to transnational advocacy networks with large financial resources. These social links form powerful and influential ties -for example, Pearson's chief education adviser, Sir Michael Barber, was a former top aide to former UK prime minister Tony Blair and 'an old friend of Tooley from when they taught in Zimbabwe together years ago' (Srivastava, 2016). What has emerged are new categories for understanding policy change within these market-making institutions. ...
... As previously mentioned, much of this philanthropic engagement has been in conjunction with other non-state private actors or through PPPs, particularly in relation to efforts aimed at universalizing education beyond basic levels (Fengler and Kharas, 2010;Srivastava and Oh, 2010). Srivastava (2016) provides an extensive overview of several foundations and corporate philanthropy in education operating across India. She noted significant differences among them with, for example, organizations like the Azim Premji Foundation, a relatively new player, alongside older more established organizations like the Sir Ratan Tata Trust. ...
... I must underscore that, as I understand them in this piece, LFPS are a very specific subset within a broader universe of schools in the Global South targeting the least well-off. Multiple non-state private actors are currently involved in the provision of education in developing nations, including local and international NGOs, donor agencies of foreign governments, United Nations bodies, and local religious institutions, not to mention public-private partnerships (see Srivastava, 2016 for a conceptualization of private and philanthropic engagement in the Global South), and many of these institutions support a great variety of not-for-profit schools. These schools are not the subject of this article. ...
... This is not the case of LFPS I have in mind. As I mention throughout the paper, these schools are corporate-backed chains that often team up with service providers, such as education micro-finance institutions; rating systems; scripted curriculum delivery systems; and education technology providers (Srivastava, 2016). This institutional evolution is very significant for understanding why LFPS could prevent the emergence of public school systems. ...
This paper examines and rejects two normative justifications for low-fee private schools (LFPS), whose expansion throughout the Global South in recent years has been significant. The first justification – what I shall call the ideal thesis – contends that LFPS are the best mechanism to expand access to quality education, particularly at the primary level, and that the premise of their success is that they reject educational equality and state intervention in educational affairs, traditionally associated with public schools, embracing instead educational adequacy and unregulated markets for education. Against this thesis, the paper argues that an ideal educational arrangement must not do away with educational equality and some degree of state interference. The other justification for LFPS – the secondbest thesis – contends that although LFPS do not represent the ideal state of affairs, they nonetheless bring us a step closer to the ideal of universal primary education; they are a ‘realistic’ approximation to that goal. Against the second-best thesis, the paper argues that this justification commits the approximation fallacy: by deviating from the ideal educational arrangement LFPS may obstruct rather than facilitate its achievement.
... Thirdly there is a pervasive public discourse commenting on the low quality of education in government institutions. Srivastava (2016) adds that an argument regarding scarce public resources has also been made to mobilise increased action from non-state actors to fill financing gaps and respond to the demand for schooling, although she and others make the point that a low level of public funding to public education responds to a lack of political will at the highest levels of government to finance public education 29 Srivastava, 2016). According to Venkatnarayanan (2015), this has indirectly contributed to increased privatisation, particularly at the elementary level. ...
... Thirdly there is a pervasive public discourse commenting on the low quality of education in government institutions. Srivastava (2016) adds that an argument regarding scarce public resources has also been made to mobilise increased action from non-state actors to fill financing gaps and respond to the demand for schooling, although she and others make the point that a low level of public funding to public education responds to a lack of political will at the highest levels of government to finance public education 29 Srivastava, 2016). According to Venkatnarayanan (2015), this has indirectly contributed to increased privatisation, particularly at the elementary level. ...
... In Brazil, the corporate reform of education does not sustain a privatising model with charter and academy schools and vouchers found in places like the USA, England or Chile. Nor does it focus on low-fee schools found in lowincome countries (see Srivastava and Walford, 2016;Srivastava, 2016aSrivastava, , 2016b. Instead, the corporate policies and new philanthropy agenda revolves around a results-oriented education management, with a standardisation of education, large-scale assessment and focus on STEM disciplines (Arelaro, 2007;Krawczyk and Vieira, 2008). ...
... In conclusion, in spite of long-term tensions between different traditions in the study of networks, some authors have been striving towards an anthropological approach to networks, with a greater search for meaning and context. It is within the context of crossfertilizations between SNA and anthropological approaches to networks that recently policy sociology scholars have been adopting the method of network ethnography to analyse education policy networks, like Junemann (2012, 2015), Olmedo (2014Olmedo ( , 2016Olmedo ( , 2017, and Hogan, Sellar and Lingard (2015a, 2015b, 2016a, amongst others. The method and its procedures will be discussed in the next section. ...
The provision of public services is increasingly shared in networks of governance with public and private actors, including business and philanthropy. Concomitantly, philanthropy is changing by incorporating business sensibilities, referred to as “new philanthropy”. Besides operating in service delivery, new philanthropists are working in policy-making, supporting policies that foment a corporate reform of education. This thesis aims to address the question of how new philanthropy operates in the network governance of education in Brazil, focusing on the labour invested by foundations in policy networks. Though having the main empirical setting of Brazilian institutions, this research analyses networks, policies and discourses that surpass national borders and considers their “glocal” dynamics, addressing how new philanthropists are connected to global networks and participate in global policy mobilities. The method of “network ethnography” is employed, with extensive online searches, interviews, and field observation. Throughout the activities, network graphs are built to identify relevant individuals, institutions and relationships. The method is supported by the approach of “following policy”, looking at the whos, whats and wheres of policy. Three fundamental and interrelated modalities of labour are identified in the activities of new philanthropy institutions: labour to frame policy problems and solutions with policy entrepreneurship; labour to coordinate, mobilise and activate relationships and resources in networks; and labour to institutionalise policies and relationships in heterarchies. This means that first, new philanthropists aim at participating in education policy-making, and labour to frame policy problems and solutions discursively. Second, networks are created and animated with many activities, such as sharing resources and promoting meetings to foster relationships. Finally, policy ideas and relationships become institutionalised in heterarchies, in which new philanthropy and public authorities collaborate to exert the governance of education. Throughout these efforts, boundaries between public and private are blurred, and education policy is rescaled globally.
... According to Nambissan and Ball (2011), policy entrepreneurs are 'deeply embedded' in the infrastructure of neoliberal organizations internationally and locally with access to transnational advocacy networks with large financial resources. These social links form powerful and influential ties -for example, Pearson's chief education adviser, Sir Michael Barber, was a former top aide to former UK prime minister Tony Blair and 'an old friend of Tooley from when they taught in Zimbabwe together years ago' (Srivastava, 2016). What has emerged are new categories for understanding policy change within these market-making institutions. ...
... As previously mentioned, much of this philanthropic engagement has been in conjunction with other non-state private actors or through PPPs, particularly in relation to efforts aimed at universalizing education beyond basic levels (Fengler and Kharas, 2010;Srivastava and Oh, 2010). Srivastava (2016) provides an extensive overview of several foundations and corporate philanthropy in education operating across India. She noted significant differences among them with, for example, organizations like the Azim Premji Foundation, a relatively new player, alongside older more established organizations like the Sir Ratan Tata Trust. ...
Businesses, philanthropies and non-profit entities are increasingly successful in capturing public funds to support private provision of schooling in developed and developing countries. Coupled with market-based reforms that include weak regulation, control over workforces, standardization of processes and economies of scale, private provision of schooling is often seen to be convenient for both public authorities and businesses. This book examines how the public subsidization of these forms of private education affects quality, equality and the realization of human rights.
With original research from leading experts, The State, Business and Education sheds light on the privatization of education in fragile circumstances. It illustrates the ways in which private actors have expanded their involvement in education as a business, and shows the influence of policy borrowing on the spread of for-profit education. Case studies from Argentina, Bangladesh, Brazil, China, India, and Syrian refugee camps illustrate the ways in which private actors have expanded their involvement in education as a business.
This book will be of interest not only to academics and students of
international and comparative education, but also to education development professionals in both the private and public sectors, with its empirical assessment of case studies, and careful consideration of the lessons to be learned from each.
... While these declarations and related reports frame issues and challenges, taken together, they have done little to improve the overall quality of education that children encounter, even as nation-states enroll more children than in previous generations (Srivastava, 2016b). Despite global commitments to fund education at 6% of GDP and 20% of government expenditure, much of the world labors to achieve these contribution levels (Srivastava, 2016a). India, for instance, which has committed to similar benchmarks since the 1960s and after, still only funds education at a rate of 3.8% of GDP. ...
This article highlights the key themes that animate the critical discourse on private education initiatives targeting poor children in the Global South. Scholars in the field remain skeptical that public‐private partnerships, low‐fee private schools, and various subsidy and voucher programs are best suited to addressing the underlying issues of equity and quality that plague public education systems in low‐ and middle‐income countries. Most, however, tend to adopt one of two different, though complementary, lines of analysis in drawing attention to the issue. Some scholars, for instance, use empirical evidence to show how low‐fee private schools fall short of delivering on promises to address the needs of all children and enhancing basic literacy and numeracy scores in comparison to public schools. Other scholars, however, map networks of people and money to reveal how private education in the Global South is guided by power and profit. The paper outlines the moral and analytic interests that guide these two approaches to the challenge private education presents, while also making the case for an additional mode of analysis that would test the democratic and social justice claims that feature in mission statements of larger foundations and institutions set in vulnerable societies.
... Among the wide range of NGOs working in the area of teacher training, a select segment that is largely supported by prominent corporates is increasingly gaining considerable importance in education policymaking circles (Srivastava, 2016). These NGOs employ a managerialist approach to education where the school teacher is envisioned as a technician imparting literacy and numeracy skills. ...
The Teach for India (TFI) programme, an important offshoot of the Teach for All/Teach for America global education network, began as a public–private partnership in 2009 in poorly functioning municipal schools in Pune and Mumbai. Like its American counterpart, the programme in India has similar ideas of reform and recruits college graduates and young professionals to serve as teachers in under-resourced government schools and low-cost private schools as part of a two-year fellowship. Over the past 7 years, the organisation has expanded its reach to five other cities in the country—Delhi, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai and Ahmedabad—and is emerging as a focal point in a growing network of urban not-for-profit organisations seeking to infuse new logics of reform in municipal school administrative bodies. This article situates the emergence of the TFI programme in the Indian context and maps its links to local, national and global actors and organisations using Social Network Analysis (SNA). Through the use of SNA, the article highlights the growing network of non-state institutions in metro cities, most notably Mumbai and Delhi, which are playing a key role in school reform focusing on school management, school leadership, advocacy and teacher training.
Impact investment, typically described as an investment strategy with the intention to generate social and/or environmental returns alongside financial returns, is seen as a new innovative strategy for development sector finance. It is generating considerable optimism in education. Paradoxically, while education is viewed as a “high-impact” sector, naturally allied with producing the social aims of impact investment, early global sectoral data do not show substantial impact capital invested in education relative to other development sectors. Similarly, South Asia has been highlighted as ripe for impact investment but, with the exception of India, has failed to garner “big” impact capital. Nonetheless, optimism remains. Through a detailed analysis, this chapter shows that global, regional, and domestic networks and network service organizations (NSOs) create market opportunities for, and maintain interest in, education impact investment. Market-making activity is deliberate and is legitimized by NSOs through three main activities: (1) incorporating the Sustainable Development Goals as a mobilizing framework; (2) making a niche for themselves to identify and create investment opportunities; and (3) positioning themselves as knowledge experts by providing technical expertise and producing valuable data on the nascent sector.
A provision of India’s Right to Education Act requires private schools to enrol 25% of children from ‘disadvantaged’ and ‘economically weaker’ backgrounds. Described as a unique public-private partnership, this policy has been widely debated for its promotion of private actors in ensuring equity and access to education. Within this controversial policy field is the increasing involvement of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that aim to reform the education sector through neoliberal logics and privatisation in India and globally. We analyse documents and reports from two NGOs and pay special attention to the discursive strategies employed. Among them, we find that establishing neutral expertise, legitimising educational privatisation, and promoting assimilationist pedagogy are noteworthy practices. We contribute to the extant literature by illuminating how NGOs implement this controversial provision and negotiate tensions around their position within a neoliberal policy landscape, which embodies privatisation in education yet touts social justice and equality as its objectives.
Over the past decade the Teach for India (TFI) organisation has emerged as a prominent non-governmental organisation (NGO) involved in Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) with ailing urban municipal government bodies across select cities in India. An off-shoot of the Teach for America (TFA) programme, TFI aims to improve quality of education in under-resourced municipal government schools through English medium education. Through in-depth interviews with members associated with TFI, some municipal school teachers and information accessed through Right to Information (RTI) applications, this article delineates the modalities of the PPP arrangement within municipal schools in Delhi. It examines how the intervention is institutionalising parallel governance structures, accentuating class-based tensions and exacerbating pedagogical inequities within these long-neglected schools.
This chapter describes the broad neoliberal underpinnings and the corporate interests in for‐profit education and shows how these efforts undermine public education as a fundamental human right. It demonstrates how the privatization and commercialization of education through scalable chains of low‐fee schools and selling educational products and services unfolded and evolved in Hyderabad, India. The chapter also shows that privatization leads to increasing inequalities based on gender discrimination and social exclusion, as well as the de‐professionalization of teachers. Global multinationals have their country headquarters in the city, making it an attractive destination for global edu‐businesses looking for commercially viable technology‐based solutions in education. The chapter concludes by asserting that all children have the right to a free quality public education and draws attention to several compounding factors that have led to the decimation of public education in India.
Over the last decade, education for the poor in the developing world has become an increasingly attractive market for global investors and multinational corporations. This movement, known as the Global Education Industry (GEI), is vested in setting up schools for profit. The GEI presents private schools as the best alternative to public schooling and possibly the only alternative to universalising access to education in developing and emerging economies. Our case study about the GEI in Hyderabad, India lays out the broad underpinnings of the corporate interests in for-profit education and how these efforts undermine public education as a fundamental human right. It provides a detailed understanding of how the commercialisation of education through scalable chains of schools and selling educational products and services unfolds on the ground. The study of the expansive and growing private education sector in India reveals a complex well-networked assemblage of global actors that are invested in the business of school privatisation and that stand to make a considerable profit from it, while undermining quality education for all.
Available for free download at http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/43256/
This thesis explores the development of a multi-stakeholder partnership model using a multiple case study research design. Specifically this study examines the rationale for the launch of the Rajasthan Education initiative, its development and its impact on educational development and reaches conclusions about the scalability and sustainability of multi-stakeholder partnerships (MSPs) in the context of Rajasthan.
Far from simply being a form of cost sharing between the "state" and the "market," PPP has been celebrated by some, and condemned by others, as the champion of change in the new millennium. This book has been written by the best minds in education policy, political economy, and development studies. They convincingly argue that public private partnership represents a new mode of governance that ranges from covert support of the private sector (vouchers, subsidies) to overt collaboration with corporate actors in the rapidly growing education industry. The analyses are simply brilliant and indispensable for understanding how and why this particular best/worst practice went global. - Gita Steiner-Khamsi, Columbia University, New York, US. © Susan L. Robertson, Karen Mundy, Antoni Verger and Francine Menashy 2012. All rights reserved.
We are experiencing a global paradigmatic change in the relationships between government(s), education, philanthropy and business. The ways in which social and educational problems are being organised and addressed, nationally and globally, are changing in response to the methods of ‘new’ philanthropy and the privileging of ‘market-based’ solutions to these problems. The new sensibilities of giving and social ‘investment’ have led to increasing use of commercial and enterprise models of practice as a new generic form of philanthropic organisation, practice and language — venture philanthropy, philanthropic investments and portfolios, due diligence, entrepreneurial solutions, etc. New philanthropy is bringing new players into the field of social and education policy, repopulating and reworking existing policy networks. The first part of the article explores succinctly some key concepts involved in the ongoing changes in the roles and methods of philanthropy, configuring what the authors refer to as ‘philanthropic governance’. The second part focuses on the identification of sets of new actors within new networks of policy, of which philanthropy is a part. More concretely, the authors analyse here specific ‘generative nodes’, such as the Clinton Global Initiative, which connect and facilitate the creation of partnerships between actors from the public and the private sector. The article concludes by highlighting how the shifts and moves involved here are made up of and driven by a complex set of advocacy networks, business interests, ‘new’ philanthropy, and changes in the form and modalities of the state.
This paper discusses the strange "non-death of neo-liberalism" (Crouch, 2011) in the Bank's education sector policy priorities. A key point of entry will be the two education sector strategy reports, Education Sector Strategy 1999 (World Bank, 1999) and the Education Strategy 2020 (World Bank, 2011), to guide the Bank's education operations. The article focuses particularly on the ways in which an expanded private sector, together with the International Finance Corporation (the Bank's private sector investment arm) are promoted as having the knowledge, and capacity, to play a more central role in education as "an emerging market".Thus, the paper criticizes public private partnerships (PPPs), reflecting on neo-liberalism as a political project, and on the apparent paradox that, for the moment at least, its manifest failures seem to animate further rounds of neoliberal ingenuity in the education sector.
This paper explores the social justice implications of two, ‘linked’, governance developments which have been instrumental in reshaping many education systems throughout the world: the ‘privatising’ and ‘globalising’ of education (Klees, Stromquist, & Samoff, 201229.
Klees , S. ,
Stromquist , N. and
Samoff , J. , eds. 2012. A critical review of the World Bank’s education strategy 2020, Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. View all references). We argue that such education governance innovations demand an explicit engagement with social justice theories, both in themselves, and as offering an opportunity to address issues of social justice that go beyond the re/distribution of education inputs and outputs, important though these are, and which take account of the political and accountability issues raised by globalising of education governance activity. To do this we draw upon Iris Marion Young’s concept of ‘the basic structure’ and her ‘social connection model’ of responsibility (Young, 200659.
Young , I. M. 2006. Taking the basic structure seriously. Perspectives in Politics, 4: 91–97. View all referencesa,b) to develop a relational account of justice in education governance frameworks.
While some of the controversies on India's Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 (RTE Act) were reported in the media and publicly discussed, this paper exposes contestation, controversy, and concessions that were made in policy backrooms throughout the processes framing the Act. The paper presents results from a larger household, school, and institutional-level study on the role of the private sector and the early phase of implementation of the RTE Act . We report data from semi-structured interviews with key education officials and implementers, some of whom were responsible for drafting the Act, and trace successive iterations of draft bills. We found financial concessions, concessions on quality, and concessions on pre-school as an unfulfilled right. We also trace the evolution of the 25% free seats provision and outline the related internal controversy.
The global aid environment has changed profoundly over the last decade. New official and nonstate players have emerged as prominent actors, new challenges like climate change and stabilizing fragile states have arisen, and new approaches to providing aid are being tried. This note summarizes findings presented in the authors’ 2010 publication, Delivering Aid Differently—Lessons from the Field
Debates on the global economic recession have failed to draw adequate attention to the meaning of the crisis for the poor and their education, especially in later developing societies. In this paper, I focus on the education of children of the poor in India – a country that has experienced economic slowdown rather than recession. Available research suggests that the economic slowdown is likely to have resulted in large numbers of informal sector workers slipping into poverty, adversely affecting the education of their children. However, I argue that poverty and the education of the poor has to be looked at in a context much broader than the global recession or the national economic slowdown. I refer in particular to the neoliberal discourse advocating low‐cost private schools as solutions to the education of poor children, a discourse that preceded the meltdown. I argue that while publicly funded schooling in India is certainly in need of an overhaul, the private school agenda is driven by markets and profits and a reduced role of the state in education. There are serious implications that follow that must be urgently addressed.
Public–private partnerships in education (ePPP) are acquiring increasing centrality in the agendas of international organizations and development agencies dealing with educational affairs. They are designed as an opportunity to correct inefficiencies in the public delivery of education and to mobilize new resources to increase the access to and cost-effectiveness of education in low-income contexts. This article explores the emergence of ePPP as a ‘programmatic idea’ and, in particular, the semiotic strategies by means of which this idea has been located in the global education agenda and promoted internationally among practice communities by a network of policy entrepreneurs. The analysis is supported by extensive fieldwork and by a new approach to the analysis of the framing and mobilization of new policy ideas, which incorporates literature on agenda setting, policy entrepreneurs, and policy frame analysis. The approach reveals the complex way in which policy ideas, political actors, institutions, and material factors interact to strategically put forward new policy alternatives in developing contexts.
For too long we have debated about how wealth in this country should be distributed equally. But before we can distribute wealth, we need to create wealth, or all we can distribute is poverty." "Things no longer appear in a linear, predictable manner. Use your imagination. Innovation comes from it. I do not mean incremental improvement…but generating radically different ideas. This needs an inventive spirit and the courage to move out of the comfort zone." Azim Premji, founder, Wipro (Bangalore) 1 In India as in the United States, the philanthropy that is emerging from urban-based "new economy" entrepreneurs is beginning to demonstrate significant differences from the philanthropic giving of an earlier generation of entrepreneurs. In India a new generation of high-technology corporate leaders, their families and their companies are seeking – not always with immediate success – to explore new paths in social innovation through philanthropy just as they have pioneered new forms of corporate development. The * The author served as the Ford Foundation's first program staff member focusing full-time on philanthropy and the nonprofit sector outside the United States, establishing a program to strengthen philanthropy and the nonprofit sector in India and South Asia from New Delhi, India in 1999 and 2000. He is currently Associate Professor of Law at the University of Iowa and a research fellow at the University's Obermann Center for Advanced Studies. The author is grateful to numerous Indian colleagues for discussions and assistance in understanding Indian philanthropy and the newer developments in Bangalore and Hyderabad. They include (as well as several anonymous Bangalore police officers for assistance during the public disturbances associated with the Rajkumar kidnap incident in early August 2000).
There has been increasing interest on the role of private foundations in education finance and delivery. We argue that this is due to a macro-policy context of stagnating levels of official development assistance for education and an uncritical acceptance of a logic of neutrality and the efficiency and effectiveness of of partnerships and philanthropy. This paper reports on the results of a literature review on private foundations in education and development. It found significant contestation against the claims of neutrality, efficiency, effectiveness. It also identifies salient methodological and substantive issues for the development of a research agenda on the issue.
This contribution examines the Government of India’s proposed public–private partnership (PPP) strategies in education in its Tenth and Eleventh Five Year Plans. The analysis aims to ascertain the state’s role as financier, manager, and regulator of education in view of the proposed PPP strategies. The analysis shows that strategies strongly link PPPs in education with privatisation, and further, that despite assertions of ‘a greatly expanded role for the state’, the proposed strategies result in a diminished role for the state in education financing, management, and regulation.
Prachi Srivastava argues that the seeming paradox of privatization within the context of Education for All is a result of the limited number of policy options that were legitimized by key policy actors of the movement, due to its internally contentious alliance. She identifies four ‘mobilizing frames’ that are strategically used to coalesce action around privatization: scarce resources, efficiency, competition-choice-quality, and social equity.
There are many obstacles to the successful provision of universal primary and secondary education. The failure of State schools to provide adequate schooling is a serious hindrance to achieving the international goal of Education for All. Non-State providers of education are regarded as an alternative but the variation in the quality of education provided is a growing concern. Educational partnerships between the public and private sector have been regarded as a way out of this impasse in the United States and Western Europe and there has been considerable debate about the economic and political implications of these public-private partnerships (PPPs). Disentangling the economic and political dimensions of provision would further our understanding of these new models of educational provision. This paper sets out a typology of identifying the economic and political aspects of provision through using the Hirschmanian concepts of ‘exit’ and ‘voice’. The idea of ‘exit’ draws on the mainstream economic understanding of free entry and exit, with the latter occurring when individuals are no longer satisfied with what is on offer in the market. The term ‘voice’ is used to denote political activity undertaken by an individual to ensure the continued provision of a good and/or the quality of the good. Conceptualising educational provision in relation to exit and voice permits the examination of how the role of the market and community affects access to and the quality of education. Educational initiatives by State and non-State providers in India are mapped onto this typology to gain an understanding of how the new models of education, such as PPPs, would affect the current provision of education.
The tail-end of EFA, the post-2015 discourse, the disenchantment with ODA, and the growing presence of an increased array of international and domestic private non-state actors constitute a new moment of the politics of education. Alongside the funding and learning crises framing post-2015 engagement in education, there is a growing buzz around the potential of philanthropic actors to fill resource gaps and substantive gaps in scaling up ‘solutions’. This chapter reports results of a systematic-type literature review on philanthropic and private foundation engagement in education in developing countries. Results are extended by a discourse analysis of strategy documents of some of the most immediate post-2015 international fora and strategies impacting education, and comparing these with previous frameworks to locate the articulated roles of the private sector and philanthropic actors. Results of the review found a tendency of the logics of intervention of philanthropic engagement to be market-oriented, results-oriented and metrics-based, and top-down, and for the post-2015 architecture for philanthropic engagement in education to be framed by blurring corporate, philanthropic, and domestic and international development activities and actors, operating in new formal and non-formal global policy spaces. The chapter sketches the beginnings of a conceptual analytic on ‘new global philanthropy’ and philanthropic governance in the new moment of the politics of education intimated above.
Do private and philanthropic solutions to the problems of education signal the end of state education in its ‘welfare’ form?
Public-Private Partnership in school education is projected as a strategy to distribute the ownership of institutions, rather than tasks within institutions, between private entrepreneurs and NGOS on the one hand, and the government or state on the other. While the rationale for PPP is inefficiency of the government, the means offered to overcome it actually promise no relief or improvement, PPP is not an idea, but rather an ideology which promotes privatisation as a means of reducing the government's responsibility to increase the number of schools.
Inclusive growth is regarded as the new mantra of development. This paper critically looks at the approach to the development of education outlined in the Approach to the Eleventh Five-Year Plan, some of the new and not-so-new strategies proposed, a few controversial proposals, the assumptions that underlie them, the issues conveniently ignored and highlights the weaknesses and the continuation of the big policy vacuum.
India's Parliament passed the Right to Education Act in 2009, which entitles all children 6–14 years old to at least eight years of schooling. This paper examines the cost of achieving this right to education, and asks whether India can fill the financing gap that must be filled if the right is to be realized. The paper notes the very considerable increase in central and state government allocation implied by the Act, and finds that there will be difficulties in finding the resources, given the large fiscal deficit occasioned by the global economic crisis. However, the paper goes on to suggest a series of measures that can be taken so that the right to schooling is no more denied or delayed.
Major actors in the global education community are emerging with new education strategies, including the World Bank, U.S. Agency for International Development and U.K. Department for International Development. These strategies attempt to identify game-changing policies to make strides in global education in anticipation of the Millennium Development Goals deadline of 2015 and beyond. One common thread among these targeted efforts is the special emphasis placed on public-private partnerships to mobilize resources for education. This need for external resources and the emergence of new education strategies make corporate philanthropy timely to examine. This paper addresses the lack of data by asking one central question: Do U.S.-based companies leverage their key philanthropic assets to address global education challenges in a way that maximizes shared value for society and business? To answer this question, this study surveyed more than 500 companies; conducted in-depth interviews with corporate philanthropy leaders; and analyzed the existing literature and reports on corporate social responsibility to assess the magnitude, focus and motivations of U.S. corporate philanthropy vis-a-vis education in developing countries. The first part of this paper examines what companies are doing to support global education and estimates that U.S.-based companies give approximately half a billion dollars to education to developing countries annually, more than initially projected based on philanthropy estimates. The second part of the paper explores why companies make philanthropic contributions to education in developing countries. The third part explains how companies support global education. The last part of the paper highlights the assets and liabilities of corporate philanthropy for global education. The study identifies ten opportunities to achieve greater impact through corporate philanthropy to education in developing countries: (1) Maximize the Effectiveness of Multiple Donors in the Same Country; (2) Broaden Areas of Strategic Investment; (3) Innovate in Education; (4) Invest in Education in Disaster Contexts for Longer-Term, Higher Impact; (5) Incorporate Local Feedback into Philanthropy Strategies; (6) Build Networks for Global Education; (7) Design Metrics and Invest in Impact Evaluation; (8) Improve NGO Engagement with Corporate Philanthropy; (9) Adopt Innovative Financing by Combining Brand, Business and Individual Donors; and (10) Become Corporate Advocates for Education. Appendices include: (1) Participants; and (2) Study Methods. (Contains 1 box, 16 tables, 11 figures and 8 endnotes.)
This article is about the flows of rhetorics and discourses, particularly those that advocate choice and private schooling, and the role that transnational advocacy networks play in managing and driving these flows. We explore a set of network relations between advocacy groups in the UK and the USA and local ‘choice’ advocates in India, and some of the emerging impacts of local and transnational advocacy on the politics of education and education policy in India. The network advocates school choice and private schooling as solutions to the problem of achieving universal, high-quality primary education. Individual policy entrepreneurs are active in making these connections and circulating ideas. A complex of funding, exchange, cross-referencing, dissemination and mutual sponsorship links the Indian choice and privatization advocacy network, and connects it to other countries in a global network for neoliberalism.
This article draws upon and contributes to a body of theory and research within political science which is concerned with changes in the policy process and new methods of governing society; that is, with a shift from centralised and bureaucratic government to governance in and by networks. This is sometimes called the ‘Anglo-governance model’ and the most prominent and influential figure in the field is Rod Rhodes. The article focuses on one aspect of these kinds of change within the field of education policy and argues that a new form of ‘experimental’ and ‘strategic’ governance is being fostered, based upon network relations among new policy communities. These new policy communities bring new kinds of actors into the policy process, validate new policy discourses and enable new forms of policy influence and enactment, and in some respects disable or disenfranchise established actors and agencies. The argument is illustrated with examples of networks identified and mapped by the author. Some of the relationships among participants who make up these new networks are traced and discussed, drawing upon research into the privatisation of education funded by the ESRC. These relationships interlink business, philanthropy, quangos and non-governmental agencies.
Democratic capitalism has become the popular paradigm in the modern world, and it is spreading further through globalization. It is a model based on growth, expansion and constant innovation. However, it is accompanied by social problems which may worsen despite overall gains in wealth. In this paper, we suggest that democratic capitalist societies may benefit from the application of what has been a primarily American institution: Philanthropy. We present the Entrepreneurship-Philanthropy Cycle, which demonstrates the relationship between wealthy entrepreneurs, philanthropic contributions and economic opportunity. As a nonmarket and nonstate mechanism, philanthropy is unique in its structure and operations, and may offer the ideal approach to solving social problems. We suggest that both the internationalization of American foundations, and the growth of domestic philanthropy, can help developing countries offset social problems.
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