Ark EPG is pleased to present this rigorous review of the evidence on public private partnerships in developing countries. We commissioned this review to provide a high-level global summary of the evidence currently available on the impact of PPPs on learning outcomes. We did this because EPG supports governments in developing countries to improve the performance of public education systems, including through partnering with the private sector – and we want our support to be as effective as possible. Getting children learning should be the primary objective of any educational policy. Public private partnerships are seen by some governments as one way to achieve this, by improving the quality and efficiency of education systems. If designed well and implemented alongside a strong accountability framework, they should hold the potential to raise learning outcomes.

Potential is one thing, evidence of impact is another. As Justin Sandefur notes in his foreword, the authors of the review found that the evidence base we have so far is limited. It does not allow us to draw strong and universal conclusions about the impact of PPPs on learning outcomes. This kind of policy innovation is complex, requires effective government oversight and can be politically contentious, so we advise our government partners to pilot cautiously and to gather contextually relevant evidence to inform any policy decisions. EPG has committed to evaluating as rigorously as possible the PPP programmes we support, to better-understand what works to improve children’s learning outcomes. In so doing, we will increase and improve the global evidence base.

We can all agree that learning outcomes across the developing world are dismal and radical improvement is urgently needed. We hope this review helps move the debate beyond unhelpful – and often false – dichotomies between the relative merits of the public and private sectors, and shines a light on the need to gather more and better data on what does and doesn’t work.

With thanks to Monazza Aslam, Shenila Rawal, Sahar Saeed, Baela Jamil and Geeta Kingdon.

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