Making Sense of Public-Private Partnership: A Case of Punjab Education Foundation

Abstract

The difference between policy rhetoric of Public Private Partnership PPPs and likely outcomes of these reforms call forth a dialectic investigation of the reform-agenda processes and the actors involved in it. This paper is based on a case analysis of PPP Model of Punjab Education foundation (PEF), which was established in the wake of neo-liberalism. The Model of PPP is considered to be responsible for a mushroom growth of Private entrepreneurs for the provision of public education. The private provision of education is legitimized in the garb of efficiency, quality and access. These public private partnership reforms are dictated by the donor agencies and IFIs as the hegemonic power to remotely control the policies ultimately resulting into ideological shifts in developing countries like Pakistan. Using the sense making technique the contents of the PPP model and the underlying rationale for the inception of Punjab Education Foundation are explained in the light of the governance context of Pakistan; hence the nature of this paper is more predictive than descriptive to explain the likely and apparent repercussions of Public-Private Partnerships as a reform agenda in the education sector of Pakistan.