ABSTRACT: There has been a steady growth of private sector participation in education in India. There are also attempts at government level for Public-Private-Partnerships. While traditionally, it was government’s obligation to provide education to all, the entry of private sector has brought with it a new market dimension. In the light of this, the present paper describes the role of public and private sectors’ in education, which appears to be complementary or diametrically opposite to each other. In the comparative study of these two prominent players in education, it has been observed that they are poles apart in terms of focus, methodology, assessment procedure, goal, intrinsic market and community oriented approach, management dimension, and expansion approach. In view of this, it may be more appropriate for the two sectors to exist independently to provide complementary role, rather than converging, which will be detrimental to themselves and to the stakeholders they serve. A better approach could be to provide empowered teaching community who could contribute for the cause of enriching the human resources. This is because a country like India with huge population needs to turn a liability into asset, which can happen through enrichment of human resource potential (students) through available human resource (teachers).

KEY WORDS: Approaches to education, curriculum, public-private-partnership, perspectives of India, and participation in education.

About the Author: Yagnamurthy Sreekanth, Ph.D. is Assistant Professor at the Department of Secondary Education NCERT (National Council of Educational Research and Training), Room No.222, CIET, Sri Aurobindo Marg, New Delhi 110016, India. He can be reached at: syagnamurthy@yahoo.com and sreekanth.ncert@nic.in

How to cite this article? Sreekanth, Yagnamurthy. (2011). “Dynamics of Public and Private Sector Participation in Education: A Perspective on India and Beyond” in EDUCARE: International Journal for Educational Studies, Vol.3(2) February, pp.159-176. Bandung, Indonesia: Minda Masagi Press owned by ASPENSI in Bandung, West Java; and FKIP UMP in Purwokerto, Central Java, ISSN 1979-7877.

Chronicle of the article: Accepted (December 5, 2010); Revised (January 7, 2011); and Published (February 17, 2011).

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