However, governments are increasingly burdened with increasing demand of education services matched with increased enrolment, especially at primary and secondary education levels.
The governments therefore take initiatives to involve the private sector in supporting the education development.
Public-private partnerships play an important role in enhancing the supply of quality of human capital and education facilities.
The partnerships differ in form and structure, in the extent of public and private participation, and in the forms of their engagement.
The purpose of this article is to offer valuable insights into the purpose, trend, and impact of public-private partnerships, and an understanding of the barriers they face, and therefore initiate and engage various education stakeholders in Tanzania into dialogue, debate and eventually actions towards motivating the increased private sector engagement in improvement of education sector programs.
I might not be able to cover up all aspects, and therefore I expect the readers to bring in more of their ideas and criticisms where applicable towards improvement of discussions about education development in Tanzania.
According to the World Bank, the main rationale for Public-Private Partnership (PPP) programs is the potential role of the private sector for expanding equitable access and improving learning outcomes.
In low income countries excess demand for schooling results in private supply when the state cannot afford schooling for all. In high income countries, however, "differentiated" demand leads to a demand for private schooling, as a sophisticated clientele demands different kinds of schools.
By providing demand-side financing and contracting private organizations to provide support services, governments can provide better choices to parents and grant them an opportunity to fully participate in their children’s schooling.
The education market highlights the importance of effective regulatory frameworks and contractual instruments to ensure quality and effective use of public resources.
In August 2008, I presented a paper on ‘Public-Private Partnerships in Achieving Millennium Development Goals’ at the International Young Professionals Summit on Millennium Development Goals at the University of Manchester, United Kingdom where I argued that achievement of MDGs cannot be left only on the hands of the public sector, there is a need for private sector to take initiative and take fully ownership of MDG programs through engagement in planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the policies and programs in relation to the MDGs.
The private sector could participate and support through technical skills provision, financial support and actual implementation of the projects through its own resources.
My arguments were centred on two facts which are: First, the private (business) sector requires highly skilled employees, whereby in countries such as Tanzania where the private sector has just grown a decade ago, most of the highly skilled employees in the private sector were educated under the government costs.
Therefore, as the demand for highly skilled employees grows in the private sector and the government cannot afford to ensure access to education for all qualified students, the private sector needs to fully engage in investing in creating conducive environment for education development in order to obtain human resources which will eventually boost the growth of the private sector and the economy in general.
The contribution of the private sector will be needed more as new investments are explored whereby they cannot find skilled employees in that area, therefore the private sector will need to invest in training some citizens to obtain the required skills.
Secondly, the government has created a conducive environment for growth of the private sector including wavering of duties for a certain period. This calls for the private sector to support the government’s initiative in education development.
Due to limited space, I will present just one example of essential partnership in promoting ICT education in Tanzania, though there are many areas in the education sector which can be promoted through partnership.
In November, 2012, it was reported in the media that Huawei Technologies Tanzania launched an ICT education program that will foster ICT development and ICT talent training in Tanzania.
This program will be in partnership with the government of Tanzania, and it will work with students starting from primary to university level.
The program known as "Huawei ICT Star program for Tanzania education", will support primary and secondary schools as well as universities, to develop ICT interests, which will contribute to the development of ICT industry in Tanzania.
For primary and secondary schools, the program will contribute in improving the learning infrastructures that gives a better learning environment for the students in their earlier stage. And it will raise ICT awareness among students as well.
For universities, Huawei is going to set up "Huawei ICT Star" scholarship. After that, they will provide specific free packages of ICT training to excellent students in Huawei Africa Training centres.
This program will provide ICT knowledge transfer and ICT talent trainings; make ICT students practice the latest ICT technologies. By doing this, we expect to enriching the backbone of ICT talent in Tanzania’s ICT industry in long term basis,' said Zhang.
Huawei is a world leading ICT solution provider. Since its inception in Tanzania in 2001, Huawei have been engaging in several CSR activities in the education field.
And today, the "Huawei ICT Star program for Tanzania education" is expected to create a link between ICT industry and ICT talent development with the aim of enhancing economic growth in Tanzania.'
Private-Public-Partnerships can complement and enhance the role of the government in the provision of education. The task that each player can provide includes financial provision, pedagogical development, human resources development, service delivery, infrastructure and facilities management among others.
Furthermore, each partnership works in specific locations and markets. For these reasons, it is critical to investigate which are the appropriate roles of each stakeholder in the provision of education in the context of specific markets and locations.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Masozi David Nyirenda
Quelle/Source: IPPmedia, 08.04.2013
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