ReliefWeb

THE CHALLENGE

Efforts to secure inclusive and equitable education for all have prompted calls for greater engagement by the private sector, asserting that businesses and foundations can play significant roles as partners in achieving Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG4).

In recent years, given shortfalls in public financing and the need for urgent responses, private actors have increasingly become involved in various aspects of educational programming for education in emergencies (EiE). This arrangement, however, can produce tensions between private engagement and humanitarian response in education, which need to be addressed and in turn require extra coordination, advocacy and attention. This brief explores some of these tensions and makes recommendations to support the prioritization of safe, equitable, and quality public education for all children and young people affected by crises.

INEE supports every young person’s right to education and recognizes the State as the primary duty-bearer of schooling, in alignment with international declarations, frameworks, and legal instruments that assert and protect the right to education (see box on legal instruments that protect the right to education).

INEE also acknowledges the growing role of private actors in education, in both development and humanitarian contexts, and seeks to ensure private sector engagement upholds equity, quality, and rights in education.
Various non-state actors play a central role in education in emergencies. For instance, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) frequently act as funders and implementers of education programs in contexts of crisis, often supporting state-driven activities. Given the debates associated with the specific roles and activities of actors seeking to profit from interventions in education, this advocacy brief focuses on the particular area of for-profit actors and the various forms of their engagement, while also recognizing the limitations in scope and the complexity of partnership arrangements among public and private entities.

The unique interplay between for-profit actors and EiE elicits particular tensions: between the urgent needs that might be met more efficiently by the private sector (e.g. financing, innovation), according to popular perception, on the one hand, and the rights-based concerns about ensuring equity and access, and preventing exploitation on the other. For example, as the world grapples with the impact of COVID-19 on education and related school closures, the private sector has taken on a prominent role in enabling virtual learning and supplying educational technology. This critical moment, therefore, is spurring the need for a clearer understanding of issues relating to the engagement of for-profit actors in education in times of crisis, and ways of addressing tensions that may arise from this engagement. The box below summarizes seven key recommendations to governments, donors and non-governmental actors working in the field of EiE for ensuring effective private sector participation, based on the analysis conducted for this brief.