Can Public-Private Partnerships still transform education, worldwide?
The National Achievement Survey (NAS) conducted by the Ministry of Education in India in 2021 reported an average learning level of 59% in grade 3, 49% in grade 5, 42% in grade 8, and a mere 36% in grade 10. Similarly, more than one in five pupils in the EU has insufficient proficiency in reading, mathematics or science. A lack in quality of education and infrastructure presents a major challenge in developing as well as developed nations. Thus, transforming education becomes a top priority for countries to improve the quality as well as the infrastructure of education.
We find that students are affected by 3 major issues – Quality of Education, Training of Teachers and Poor Infrastructure. In this piece, we look at educational transformation programs undertaken across developed and developing nations through a public-private partnership (PPP). These programs majorly touch at least one of the issues described above and we deep dive into the solutions that they offered and finally any tangible impact that they have made.
Transforming Government Schools in Delhi, India, 2015 – Present
The Delhi Model of Education is probably one of the most successful initiatives done in the last decade. Government schools in Delhi, India suffered from dilapidated infrastructure, poor training of teaching staff, lack of funds, and poor quality of education & remedial class. The new state government in Delhi wanted to bridge these gaps in private and public schools making education a necessity and not a luxury. Till now 753 schools & 44,960 classrooms have been renovated or newly built with the student classroom ratio improving nearly 50% from 2015 to 2022. More than 2200 teachers have been trained in the best universities across the world. The program sought to improve learning outcomes through interventions (e.g., 20% increase in number of students between classes 3-5 who could solve arithmetic division problems). These initiatives have resulted in a pass result of 99.9% in the CBSE Class XII Board Examinations increasing from only 88% in 2015. The Delhi model serves a true embodiment of a mammoth transformation program which has been successful in the long term.
Brazil Launches the Netflix of Education – Hora Do Enem, Brazil, 2016-19
One out of every two students enrolled in high school in Brazil do not graduate while a considerable number still drop out of school to enter the job market. The majority claims not to be interested in the content brought by the school. Thus Brazil's Federal Government launched the “Netflix of Education” – Hora Do Enem, an online study portal, open to all, which integrates three initiatives: Geekie Games, which offers more than 600 classes, exercises and four major national quizzes, TV Escola, with daily news, tips, and interviews about the National High School Exam (ENEM), and Mecflix, a collection of video lessons created by the MEC in which students can build playlists on the topics of their interest. Students receive a personalized study plan using AI generated based on their successes and mistakes. Sold as the Netflix of schools, students who study through the platform have in average 30% more in development. Geekie is used by over 5,000 schools across the country to provide customized learning experiences for students.
India’s Think Tank collaborates with BCG to improve school education across 3 States, India, 2017
BCG collaborated with Project SATH-E (Sustainable Action for Transforming Human Capital in Education) by NITI Aayog (Indian Government’s Think Tank) to launch a project to transform public education in 3 Indian states of Jharkhand, Odisha, and Madhya Pradesh (MP). The initiative proposed to focus on core academic reforms to target improvement in learning outcomes of students through institutionalizing a competency-based approach with questions designed to test competency instead of learning capacity. The program aimed at strengthening the human capacity in schools through recruitment of teaching staff and delivering frequent and need-based teacher learning as opposed to a one-size fits all approach in a year. As a result, ~4,600 sub-scale schools (13% of total) have been reorganized into larger schools. The learning level of 15-25% children was found to have increased in the two months between baseline and midline (far more than what was seen in the same duration in previous years).
One Laptop Per Child Program to Improve Digital Education, Uruguay, 2013
Plan Ceibal is definitely one of the most advanced state agencies dedicated to digital education in Latin America. Its main initiative is “Mathematics Adaptive Platform” (PAM for its Spanish acronym) an online adaptive learning solution. PAM is the result of a public private initiative. The platform was developed in 2013 by the German company Bettermarks . It started as the One Laptop Per Child program, offering students over 100,000 activities with personalized assistance according to their level of knowledge. The content of PAM has been adapted to the national curriculum. PAM provides students with help through a set of over 25 thousand step-by-step exercises and 2800 feedback patterns to explain the solutions of each exercise. According to Plan Ceibal’s official website, the PAM platform offers the following advantages for learning: immediacy of the response; student independence; ease of correction; learning personalization; classroom gamification; promoting group work; adaptation to the rhythms of class and each student.
Public and Private Sector Actions to Strengthen Teaching Profession, USA, 2022
The US education system is struggling to attract, recruit, and retain teachers, mainly qualified teachers, and other critical school professionals – such as bus drivers, paraprofessionals, nurses, and mental health professionals – positions that are essential to help students recover academically since the pandemic. In August 2022, as part of the $130 billion “American Rescue Plan” addressed to the nation’s K-12 schools, the US government announced a partnership with private leading job platforms to facilitate to Americans to find opportunities in the education field. The funding allowed school districts across the country to increase compensation for teachers and has already helped school districts increase the number of school social workers by 54%, the number of school counsellors by 22% and the number of school nurses by 22% compared to years prior to the pandemic.
领英推荐
A close review of each of the above programs show that PPPs are effective in addressing the three major issues of school education. We also observe an increasing adoption of digital technologies from digital classrooms to remote education using AI/ML. Well-designed PPPs create models of innovation for education systems which can be replicated to similar problems across geographies.
Sources:
2.??????Delhi Govt. Performance Report
Teacher at Goshen Model school
1 年Please I am interested
Global Project Manager: Digital Inclusion|Corporate Social Responsibility
1 年Great Insights. This was so tangible as an impact through Capgemini’s government school adoption program. We used 2 phased model covering (Phase 1: Access, Equity, Infrastructure, and Phase 2: Quality). Building basic necessities in these schools directly impacted increased admissions and attendance (especially for girls). Giving ownership to the headmaster/headmistress and teachers was a key reason for sustained development.?So many more insights to share:)