Public-private partnership : a model for improving the quality of education in South African rural communities

Abstract

Education in South Africa is a key concern because the South African education system is underperforming compared to many other developing countries despite the large capital investment made by the South African government and its private sector. South African children are routinely underachieving and rate not only among the worst in the world, but often among the worst in the Southern African region and in Africa as a whole. Therefore, the aim of this study was to explore whether Public-Private Partnership (PPP) is a suitable model for improving the quality of education in South African rural communities.The objective of the study was answered in a two-phase approach. The first phase developed an understanding of the challenges that prevents the delivery of quality education in South African rural communities with experts in education. The second phase determined the suitability of PPP to improve the quality of education in South African rural communities and the critical success factors for implementing PPP in education from interviews with PPP practitioners.The findings of the study revealed that PPP is a suitable model to improve the quality of education in South African communities and a PPP framework was proposed by the researcher that indicates the benefits of implementing PPP, the critical success factors of PPP and the barriers of PPP in education. The study also highlighted conditions that must be met to achieve quality education in South African rural communities through PPPs.The research concludes by making recommendations to both the government and the public sector in light of the findings of this research. Limitations for the study were highlighted and other variables to be researched that are important to further understanding of PPP as a model to improve the quality of education in South African rural communities were suggested.