Foreign Basic Education Public-private Cooperation In Research And Revelation

Following the wave of privatization Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs), a new type of providing public goods/services, has come to the stage. Although its origin can be traced back to hundreds of years ago, PPPs as a concept emerged only about 20 years ago. In the view of writer, PPPs refers to all the partnerships developed between public sector and private sector when they provide public goods/services to the public by complementing each other's advantages on the premise of agreed aims, shared risks and benefits. PPPs can be implemented in basic education as well. In fact, such practice can be seen around the world.One possible taxology of PPPs in basic education could be like this. The first is infrastructure PPPs. The private sector finances, designs, builds and operates public schools which will be returned to government at the end of contract. The second is private operation of public schools. Partial or all operational services of one public school are contracted to the private partners. The third is government purchasing private education. The government grants part of education fund to students in the form of vouchers or to private schools in the form of subsidies aimed at assisting students to attend private schools. The forth is outsourcing of services. Private partners can contract with government to provide both educational services such as teachers' training, curriculum organization and textbooks and non-educational services such as meals and transportation. The public and private sectors develop a contractual partnership in the above four categories, so they are called contractual partnerships. The fifth is multi-stakeholders partnerships in education. Different from the others, the partnerships here can be contractual or voluntary. As international organizations and multi-national corporations are active actors in such partnerships, this category of partnerships is more complex.To be concluded, PPPs in basic education can be affected by economic, political and social conditions, including market mechanism, education marketization, laws of regulations, support by government and the public and development of private sectors such as non-government organizations. International examples enlighten China's similar practice, i.e. cost, benefit and policy assessment should be done firstly, then relative regulations and laws should be formulated, and finally appropriate implementation framework should be designed and carried out.