The book examines five ways through which public-private contracts can help countries meet education goals. First, public-private partnerships can increase access to good quality education for all, especially for poor children who live in remote, underserved communities and for children in minority populations. Second, lessons for innovative means of financing education can be particularly helpful in post-conflict countries undergoing reconstruction. Third, lessons about what works in terms of public-private partnerships contribute to the development of a more differentiated business model especially for middle-income countries. Fourth, the challenge of meeting the education Millennium Development Goals in less than a decade is a daunting one in the poorest countries. Understanding new partnership arrangements within a broad international aid architecture in education can help bring us closer to those goals. Fifth, some very innovative public-private partnership arrangements are happening in Arab countries, and lessons can be drawn from their experience.

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The Role and Impact of Public-Private Partnerships in Education

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Global Perspectives on Teacher Learning: Improving Policy and Practice

The Consortium for Research on Educational Access, Transitions and Equity (CREATE), was established with DFID support in 2006. It is a partnership between research institutions in the UK, Bangladesh, India, Ghana and South Africa. This paper is the first in a series of CREATE publications which will be developed over the life of the consortium. The first part of this paper discusses why access issues remain at the centre of the problems of achieving Education for All and the Millennium Development Goals. Many children remain unenrolled at primary level, many of those enrolled attend irregularly and learn little, and large numbers fail to make the transition to secondary schooling. After outlining the magnitude of the challenge of improving access to universal levels, the paper develops analytic frameworks to understand access issues in new ways, and generate empirical studies related to each of the zones of exclusion identified. The last part of the paper briefly outlines some of the empirical research that is being developed.

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Improving Access, Equity and Transitions in Education: Creating a Research Agenda. Create Pathways to Access. Research Monograph No. 1.

Can free primary education meet the needs of the poor? Evidence from Malawi

Researching Teacher Education: New Perspectives on Practice, Performance, and Policy, Multi-Site Teacher Education Research Project (MUSTER), Synthesis Report

Universal Primary Education (UPE) policy in the form of fee abolition has become popular in many countries in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) since the mid 1990s in order to achieve Education for All (EFA). Even after learning from the past, the current UPE policy is devoid of analytical studies on its impact and challenges beyond school enrollment. This paper is an attempt to make a comparative analysis on UPE in four countries, namely, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, and Uganda, to identify common and unique themes and to examine how these seemingly similar policies are responding to the capacity and needs of each country. The results show that effective policy implementation would require considerable consultation with key stakeholders and a baseline survey that will enable systematic implementation and consideration of equity. Mutual accountability and a responsibility mechanism between the government and parents/communities is also a key to the sustainability of the UPE policy.

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A Comparative Analysis of Universal Primary Education Policy in Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, and Uganda

The Malawi Integrated In-Service Teacher Education Programme: An Experiment with Mixed-Mode Training.

Non-Government Secondary Schooling in Sub-Saharan Africa: Exploring the Evidence in South Africa and Malawi

Primary Teacher Education in Malawi: Insights into Practice and Policy

This study investigated how school, classroom and pupil factors infl uence pupil achievement in mathematics, English and Chichewa. Tests in the three subjects were administered to 6,000 pupils in 100 primary schools. The results indicate the follows: low achievement in English and mathematics; greater achievement in urban schools, especially in English; better pupil performance in schools with teacher pupil ratios below 50 in standard 7; better pupil performance in classes with trained teachers; and better pupil performance in classes with textbooks in any ratio than those without textbooks. At the upper level, pupils at an appropriate age performed better than overage or underage pupils; boys consistently performed better than girls, although the differences were small; a pupil’s family socioeconomic status had a positive infl uence on achievement; and the mother’s education was also positively related to performance. The study concludes that basic education with rudimentary structures requires appropriate trained teacher pupil ratios to promote cognitive growth.

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Demis Kunje

Papers

A Comparative Analysis of Universal Primary Education Policy in Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, and Uganda

The Malawi Integrated In-Service Teacher Education Programme: An Experiment with Mixed-Mode Training.

Non-Government Secondary Schooling in Sub-Saharan Africa: Exploring the Evidence in South Africa and Malawi

Primary Teacher Education in Malawi: Insights into Practice and Policy

An Investigation of the Relationship between School and Pupil Characteristics and Achievement at the Basic Education Level in Malawi