“Role of Public Private Partnership in education of Children with

Special needs- A study”

(RESEARCH PROPOSAL)

SUBMITTED TO JAMIA MILLIA ISLAMIA

MASTER OF EDUCATION

(SPECIAL EDUCATION)

SUPERVISOR INVESTIGATOR

Dr. Bharti Sharma Deepika Bhatt

(Associate Professor) M.Ed (Special )

Faculty of Education Session: 2014-2015

JMI, New Delh-25

DEPARTMENT OF TEACHER TRAINING & NON FORMAL EDUCATION

INSTITUTE OF ADVANCED STUDIED IN EDUCATION

FACULTY OF EDUCATION

JAMIA MILLIA ISLAMIA

NEW DELHI-110025

INTRODUCTION

“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much,” – Helen Keller

Provision of public services and infrastructure has traditionally been the exclusive

domain of the government. However, with increasing population pressures and

urbanization government’s ability to adequately address the public needs through

traditional means has been severally constrained. This has led the Government’

s across the world to increasingly look at the private sector to supplement public

investments and provide public services through Public Private Partnerships.

In India, pressure to change the standard model of public procurement arose

initially from concerns about the level of public debt, which grew rapidly during

the macroeconomic crisis of the 1980s and 1990s. Respective governments

since the start of liberalization of the Indian economy in 90s have sought to

encourage private investment especially in infrastructure and other allied areas.

Government of India defines public- private partnership as "a partnership

between a public sector entity (sponsoring authority) and a private sector entity

(a legal entity in which 51% or more of equity is with the private partner/s) for the

creation and/or management of infrastructure for public purpose for a specified

period.

Public-Private Partnership or PPP in the context of the education sector is an

instrument for improving the education of the population. Public private

partnership is to be seen in the context of viewing the whole education sector as

national asset with education promotion as goal of all education providers,

private or public.

In the 1970s, the government launched the centrally sponsored scheme of

Integrated Education for Disabled Children (IEDC). The scheme aimed at

providing educational opportunities to learners with disabilities in regular schools,

and to facilitate their achievement and retention.

In 1997 IEDC was amalgamated with other major basic education projects like

the DPEP (Chadha, 2002) and the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) (Department of

Elementary Education, 2000).

The overall objective was to integrate children with disabilities in the general

community at all levels as equal partners to prepare them for normal

development and to enable them to face life with courage and confidence.

In 2008, the Government of India (GoI), have announced a scheme for setting up

of 2,500 Model Schools under Public-Private Partnership (PPP) mode. The

objective is to provide access to high quality school education at the block level

through these schools of excellence, so that every block in the country will have

at least one such school which would be a model for all other schools in the

block. All round development of the children of the school will be the goal.

The Government is visualizing that the enactment of the Right of children to Free

and Compulsory Education Act-2009 would entail an increase in the demand of

education facilities at the school level.

Post independence disability was looked upon as a charitable institution, but now

has evolved over time and various innovative ways are being explored, such as

corporate social responsibility, The Indian government is mulling over the New

Companies Bill which prescribes that every company with a net worth of atleast

INR 5000 million or turnover of atleast INR 10,000 million , or net profit of 50

million will have to spend 2 % of its three years average profit on CSR activities.

This move will push the plethora of activities under CSR into a much broader

perspective with added responsibility moving beyond the charities and vanilla

rural development activities.

There are usually two fundamental drivers for Public private partnerships. Firstly,

Public-private partnerships are claimed to enable the public sector to harness the

expertise and efficiencies that the private sector can bring to the delivery of

certain facilities and services traditionally procured and delivered by the public

sector. Secondly, a Public-private partnerships is structured so that the public

sector body seeking to make a capital investment does not incur any borrowing.

Public- private partnerships are organized along a continuum between public and

private nodes and needs as they integrate normative, albeit separate and

distinct, functions of society—the market and the commons.

The unique characteristics of public -private partnership in special education shall

include these requirements for the partnership to be a success : Focus on

providing services to the poor without the opportunity to cross subsidize, potential

to earn revenues or return on investment and complex monitoring systems eg

measuring learning outcomes

OECD defines Public- private partnership as, “arrangements whereby the private

sector provides infrastructure, assets and services that traditionally have been

provided by government.”This is radically different from privatization where “the

permanent transfer of control , whether as a consequence of a transfer of

ownership right from a public agency to one or more private parties or for

example, of a capital increase to which the public sector shareholder has waived

its right to subscribe”.

THREATS TO Public -private partnership IN SPECIAL EDUCATION SYSTEM :

Richard Elmore summarized his years of research and think into a widely

academically popular book , School Reforms from the Inside Out – Policy,

Practice and Performance.

His thesis best explained that the problems of the system are the problem of

smallest unit focusing on accountability. He further postulated that when

accountability knocks everyone will answer. Based on the conceptual framework

drawn from the work of Wagner, posited that a school would react to external

accountability requirements by examining a set of relationship amongst three

factors that is - Individual conception of responsibility, shared expectation

amongst the stake holders and school participants and internal and external

accountability.

These factors share a close mutual reciprocal relationship wherein their

interaction will determine the success and failure of Public private partnership in

the organizational climate of the school in wake of the challenges faced. Other

challenges grappling the model are implementation and ecosystem challenges.

Benefits of Public private partnership: India is still in developing state bombarded

with population explosion public private partnership makes it viably possible to

set up a greater number of schools , even distribution of wealth, greater

efficiency, quality outcomes and optimization of resources culminating into

healthy marriage of public and private sectors on the terms of mutual benefit.

An illuminating example in case here is the success story of an all girl

government vocational higher secondary school in Nadakavvu(Kerala). With the

right partnership with the local governing body under MLA A Pradeep Kumar,

funding from Faisal and Shabana foundation and direction under Prof. Saji

Gopinath of IIM –Kozhikode. From shambles the school now boasts of eight fully

wired classrooms, four modern laboratories, fifty six sparkling clean toilets,

corporate style kitchen, dining hall,13000 sqft indoor stadium and 18110 sqft

Astroturf multi purpose field.

NEED/ RATIONALE OF THE STUDY

Even though current disability figures are not the most reliable, it is noteworthy

that national prevalence rates suggest that about 35% of people with disabilities

are in the 10-29 years age group.

The Office of the Chief Commissioner of Persons with Disabilities stated that not

more than 4% of children with disabilities have access to education.

About 11% of disabled persons between the ages of 5–18 years were enrolled

in special schools in the urban areas as compared to less than 1% in the rural

areas (NSSO, 2002) necessarily highlighting the urban- rural divide in this

context.

This raises important issues of access to education and a need for focusing on

transitions (educational, socio-emotional, physical etc.) for young people with

disabilities in later years.

Education of children with special needs has shifted through various models

from the humble beginnings of charitable model to bio-centric and then functional

model.

But the last two decades have been crucial and critical to special education with

focus on Human rights. The Greek philosopher, Aristotle, once said that “things

that are alike should be treated alike, whereas things that are unalike should be

treated unalike in proportion to their un-alikeness.”

The principle of respect for difference and acceptance of disability as part of

human diversity and humanity is important, as disability is a universal feature of

the human condition and seeks to break down the barriers, equality, non

discrimination and a right to dignified life.

This aim is unattainable without education of Children with special needs

(CWSN), and we shall seek to establish the best model so move from

segregation to inclusion in our society.

The wave of 1980’s ushered a new era of integration, but under Integrated

Education for Disabled Children (IEDC) only 2-3% of the learners had access to

this service and a need for a better model in special education was felt across

the globe.

The reconceptualization of the educational difficulties lead to PRAGMATIC

PLACEMENT PRINCIPLE, which got endorsed in 1994 by SALAMANCA

STATEMENT and further played a key role in postulating inclusion.

Special Educational Needs (SEN) learners who can be educated in general

classroom should be educated in general classroom and those studying in

special schools should be transferred once they are ready to make the shift

(MHRD-Program me for action 1992)

India is bottom ranked amongst the world’s 195 countries on almost every

parameter of national development – learning outcome, health, nutrition,

productivity, infrastructure, per capita consumption. In the context of education

Indian education system is marked by poor public education services,

proliferation of private system of education- leading to commercialization of

education.

“Nowhere is the failure of the failure of Indian state more tragic than in its failure

to provide universal quality education to children. A striking way of thinking about

the quality crisis in government schools is to look at the flight to private schools

and ask : ‘What does it say about the quality of the product (government schools)

when you can’t even give it for free “. (Dr.Kartik Murlidharan, Seminar Journal

2007).

The situation further worsened when the historic Right to free and compulsory

education, (RTE) 2009 also made it mandatory for private schools to reserve

25%capacity for children from certified poor household in the neighborhoods

(s.12 1c).

The court, however, exempted boarding and minority schools to comply with this

rule and a majority of private institutions are now claiming this status, leading to a

chaotic situation mired in confusion and litigation.

Booth (2000) has pointed out that access to education is only the first stage in

overcoming the exclusion of persons with disabilities from the mainstream. More

challenging is the task of bringing about a shift in public perspective and values,

so that diversity is cherished.

In India, the concept of Inclusive Education has not yet been linked to a broader

discussion of pedagogy (Anita, 2000) and quality education (Taneja, 2001). Any

broad reform in education cannot be implemented without taking the inclusion of

learners with SEN into consideration.

It is, therefore, important to bring about a number of reforms at various levels in

order to develop a “school for all” having an inclusive curriculum. The curriculum

needs to be balanced in such a way that it is common for all, and yet takes

account of the individual needs of all learners. It is also important to take into

consideration pedagogical issues.

The curriculum should be accessible to all children and for this specialist support

would be required. Care then has to be exercised to ensure that learners with

SEN are not segregated from the mainstream by providing this specialist support.

Social equity is the foremost reason that most democracies in the world have

government control education system. Issues of sizes, complexity and efficiency

plague the public system. Privatizing simply means decentralizing public system.

Though privatization does bring faster decision making processes, greater

operational efficiencies but leads to commercialization and control in a hand of

few.

So far we have seen the grim situation of education in India and special

education even fares worse, it is time to find the solution to this problem under

the guise of Public private partnership.

Why the urgent need to infuse Public private partnership in our special

education system

Public- private partnership can increase access to quality schools in underserved

communities such as SEN. They can help build model schools which can serve

as innovation centers for improving the quality of education.

Public- private partnership can widen access and utilization of existing assets. In

rural areas where there is lack of infrastructure and access to resources it will

rejuvenate the system with optimum utilization and effective collaboration to set

up new schools.

In urban areas where government school infrastructure is underutilized due to

rapid cover of privatization and SEN are forced to attend special schools

because of the lack of infrastructure and support in inclusive set up.

Through the Public- private partnership route, an ideal model for cornering

support and collaboration between various agencies depending on the specific

requirement of the child can be created. This ideal mix will be greatly contribution

to increase the retention rate of SEN in inclusive set up where their drop rates

are high.

Through the Public- private partnership model, the quality of education can also

be improvised. It will be the perfect marriage of the merits of the public and

private systems bringing forth innovation such as multi differentiated instruction

or activity based instruction.

Through the Public -private partnership model, the choice for low income parents

can also be increased. These parents are mostly laden with the medical costs

that can at times fail to provide quality education to the Special educational

needs. It will provide them with a range of options to choose from in the best

interest of the child

This model will also strengthen accountability of government system as they

operate under strict performance standards.

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM : Role of Public Private Partnership in

education of Children with Special needs- A study

DEFINITION OF KEY TERMS :

PUBLIC- PRIVATE PARTNERSHIP STUDY : A public–private partnership

(PPP) is a government service or private business venture which is funded and

operated through a partnership of government and one or more private sector

companies.

STUDY: A systematic process for determining and addressing needs, or "gaps"

between current conditions and desired conditions or "wants". The discrepancy

between the current condition and wanted condition must be measured to

appropriately identify the need, it can serve as a part of planning processes,

used for improvement in individuals, education/training, organizations, or

communities. It can refine and improve a product such as a training or service a

client receives.

CHILDREN WITH SPECIAL NEEDS : Children with special needs are defined

as those who have certain disability and require specially designed instructions to

realize their full potential. They can be taught in inclusive or segregated settings

depending on the extent of the disability

OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY

The following study was undertaken to explore the role and viability of PPP in

Indian education sector with reference to CWSN, Specifically the objectives are:-

1. To review existing public -private partnerships in Indian education sector.

2. To review existing public private partnerships in context of children with

special needs.

3. To study the role of PPP in education of CWSN as perceived by

professionals working in the area of special education.

METHODOLOGY:

POPULATION: All the coordinators/in charges of Corporate Social

Responsibility sector of different companies, officials of Rehabilitation Council of

India , will constitute the population of the study.

15 professionals and higher officials working in the education, rehabilitation,

employment and CSR of CWSN were selected as the sample of the study.

TOOLS & TECHNIQUES:

Interview schedule with coordinators/in charges of Corporate Social

Responsibility sector of different companies, officials of Rehabilitation Council of

India, principals and special educators of schools.

DATA ANALYSIS:

Data analysis will be done using both qualitative methods.

DELIMITATION:

1. Study will be delimited to geographical location in Delhi only although

telephonic interview, emails and other technological advances like social

networking sites and skype etc will be used.

2. The study will be confined to public private partnership in context of

children with special needs only.

3. The study will be confined to focusing on usefulness of public.

BIBILIOGRAPHY:

BuckleyJ& M Schneider,(2009),Charter schools: hope or hype? USA: Princeton

University Press

LaRoque N, (2008), Literature review- Public private partnerships in basic

education, Cfbt Education Trust

Hill ,(2012), The Growth of Academy Chains: Implications for leaders and

leadership, UK :National College for school leadership,Nottingham

UNESCO(2000). Inclusion in Education: The Participation of Disabled Learners. World Education Forum:Education For All 2000 Assessment. Paris: UNESCO. Anita, B.K. (2000). Village Caste and Education. Jaipur: Rawat Publications. Alur, M. (2002). “Special Needs Policy in India”, in S. Hegarty and M. Alue (eds), Education and Children with Special Needs: From Segregation to Inclusion. New Delhi: Sage. Baquer, A. and A. Sharma (1997). Disability: Challenges vs. Responses. New Delhi: CAN. Booth, T. (1996). “Stories of Exclusion: Natural and Unnatural Selection”, in E. Blyth and J.Milner (eds), Exclusion from School: Inter Professional Issues from Policy and Practice. London: Routledge. UNESCO(2000). Inclusion in Education: The Participation of Disabled Learners. World Education Forum: Education For All 2000 Assessment. Paris: UNESCO. Jha, M.M. (2002). School Without Walls: Inclusive Education for All. Oxford: Heinemann

www.ideak-1steu/news/public-privatepartnership-ppresearchand-innovation

www.Esnic.org/pdf/texter-2011/cabral.pdf

http://mhrd/gov.in/sites/upload-files/mhrd/files/schmes-MS-PPP