Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) involve a wide range of arrangements which bring the private and public sectors together with the stated objective of delivering a public service. PPPs abound too in education. Partnerships in providing education and related educational services were present in some countries long time before the terms PPP or P3 became widespread. However, the last three decades marked the rise of a different type of PPP a top-down alternative arrangement or strategy that is put forward to address the challenges confronting education systems. It has important implications for the role of the state vis--vis the private sector as a provider of public services, including education systems.

Partnerships in education may differ depending on the actors who are involved as well as the type of partnerships. The term partnership has emerged, associated with other terms such as multi-stakeholder and public-private, which can be used to mean any or all of the following: a pure contractual arrangement, a loose agreement among different parties to work together, a highly structured and governed mechanism, or an attitude of reciprocity in development programmes between donors and recipients.

This webpage is created to shed light on the issues and concerns related to Public Private Partnerships in different countries. Multi-stakeholder Partnerships, which are referred in the literature as PPPs, are treated separately. The webpage, a combination of papers and websites that provide useful information, analyses and current debates on PPPs, aims at helping the teachers unions and researchers gain critical understanding of PPPs towards a more informed and strategic response to the issue. Other public services unions may find the webpage relevant for their work.