In a number of advanced market democracies the role of public technical and vocational education and training institutions has been called into question. This is one result of a singular dominant public policy discourse favouring the provision of public services through contracting out in competitive markets. With the limitations of this default…

No topic in private higher education study has attracted as great attention globally as has growth. This is appropriate as private growth has soared to nearly a third of the world's total higher education enrolment. But while private growth continues to be the dominant trend, important declines in private shares have emerged. These must be…

Policymakers worldwide are trying to figure how best to organize, govern, and support their education systems. They must manage multiple goals, such as workforce development, nurturing knowledgeable citizens, and ensuring educational opportunity. Some countries approach these issues with a public investment in teacher professionalization and a…

In recent years, privatization has been a growing phenomenon in Sub-Saharan Africa. It is viewed as an instrument used by the public sector to reduce the role of the state in the economies while enhancing the scope of private ownership and participation of goods and services (Akram et al, 2011). Researchers have noted that the telecommunication…

This article presents the author's response to Strathdee's "Reply to O'Neill: The privatisation of public schooling in New Zealand." Strathdee has alerted the editors to a basic arithmetic error in the author's paper (O'Neill 2011, 24). He also makes substantive criticisms. Strathdee's criticisms focus on the two cases that are used to…

The task of this article is to carry out a synthetic analysis of the concept of the "educational marketplace" as it is used in the popular discourse of education reform so as to unpack what has become a commonsensical idea in American politics. It is a conceptual framework that has opened an ever-expanding sovereign space in the American state for…

Utility services (telecommunications, power, water, and gas) throughout the world were traditionally provided by large, usually state-owned, monopolies. However, encouraged by technological change, regulatory innovation, and pressure from international organizations, many developing countries are privatizing state-owned companies and introducing…

In the United States, the relationship between state governments and public colleges and universities is being redefined with new notions of autonomy and accountability, and with funding policies that are highly market-driven (often referred to as "privatisation") as the centrepieces. Situations and institutional strategies unthinkable…

Challenges the following assumptions: (1) parental choice will motivate schools to improve programs to compete more effectively for students; (2) private not-for-profit schools will respond to marketplace incentives; (3) research indicates an advantage of private over public organizations; (4) public choice theory promotes school improvement; and…

A variety of trends in state colleges are viewed as privatization, including increased institutional responsibility for meeting costs, financial aid shortfalls that keep many students away, pressure for more institutional autonomy, recruitment of private colleges to provide some state-subsidized programs, payment of private colleges to accept…