The Arab Campaign for Education for All (ACEA), in partnership with the Open Society Foundations and the Global Campaign for Education (GCE), held a two-day meeting in Istanbul, Turkey, to explore the different dimensions of education financing and privatization in the Middle East and North Africa. Previous research conducted by the Open Society Foundations found that increasing privatization in the education sector is widening inequalities in access to quality education across the region but particularly in Egypt, Lebanon, and Jordan. Political instability and economic agendas have conspired to undermine the public school system in a number of countries. In contexts already affected by acute societal divisions, the implications of increasing privatization in education are enormous. 

The objectives of the meeting were to explore the reality of privatization in the region, identify urgent research areas and explore ways in which advocacy and activism around privatization may be supported by addressing the key questions including, What are the main facets of privatization in the MENA region and how does this differ across countries? What do you expect the state of privatization of public education to be in three and then five years from now? Is privatization limited to education or is private provision a trend across all public sector services? What is the relationship between political stability, conflict, and private provision of services, in particular education? How is the quality of education in public and private school characterized in the media and national/regional discourses on education? Who typically attends public and private schools in your context? Has this changed in the past few years or is there a strong historical legacy? 4. What are the main developments of privatization in the MENA region in terms of policy shifts, international development support for private schooling, or the activities of civil society organizations? And what are the major concerns related to equity/educational justice and the need to provide quality education to all children that are either already manifesting themselves or are likely to manifest themselves in the future? 

The meeting also aimed to identify areas for research that could be explored over the next 12 – 18 months. The group also discussed advocacy objectives that the GCE and the Arab Campaign for Education for All could undertake. 

Participants were engaged in a discussion on Characterization of education privatization in the MENA region that focused on the main facets of privatization both regionally and nationally. The discussion including topic and question on whether there is a growing provision of low-fee private schools? Is private tutoring on the increase, whether the government speaks in terms of Public Private Partnerships in education, and whether privatization is limited to education or is private provision a trend across all public sector services? The participants built on the contextual information provided by answering these questions to discuss the implications economic, social, political, and equity implications of privatization in education. Participants were also involved in discussion on potential research areas for PERI. Some key potential research areas were identified including Situation Analysis; Policy Research and Analysis; and Privatization, Public Budgets, and the Teaching Profession. 

Finally Participants discussed potential advocacy objectives that the GCE and the Arab Campaign for Education for All (ACEA) should undertake. The discussion was guided by ACEA and identified a number of potential advocacy areas, including, calling attention to political leaders to budgets and quality issues in public education; calling for increased regulation of the private sector with fair taxation; creating toolkits for NGOs, teacher unions, students and the media on how to approach privatization in education; increasing dialogue with teachers on the issues of privatization and quality education; awareness campaigns highlighting negative impacts of privatization in education and closer monitoring of education budgets, education financing and responsible spending; and promoting the idea of education for a just society that does not discriminate rather than demonizing privatization and conveying this message nationally and internationally through consultations on the post 2015 agenda. 

The most important result of the conference: 

1.       Key trends regarding education privatization were identified including key players such as World Bank, IMF, IFC and the WTO; the symbiotic relationship between high stakes testing, private tutoring and low teacher salaries; the significant differences within the MENA region in understandings what education means; the massification of education in the Middle East since Jomtien and Dakar that has affected and increased the basic education opportunities for  many states that were unable to adequately provide Education for All; conflict in the region that has contributed to the degradation of the public education system in several countries; and Private providers that have moved in to support the expansion of education access in various ways including Public Private Partnerships (PPPs), not-for-profit partnerships, private tutoring, and low fee private schools;

2.      Characterizations of privatization in education were identified in each in country represented at the meeting including Palestine; Sudan Egypt; Pakistan; Morocco; Oman; and Jordan;

3.       Implications economic, social, political, and equity implications of privatization in education were identified including; the governments struggle to meet their obligations to provide education that caused a loss of trust in public education; the importance to think of outcomes and social justice rather than focus solely on public vs. private provision; Because it is often poorly regulated, private education can be influenced by various political and religious ideologies that may create further divisions and compromise nation states; and recasting education as a commodity rather than a public good for social welfare and nation building is an implication of increased privatization.

4.       It was agreed that action research should be central to PERI’s engagement in MENA with close links between the research being carried out and advocacy objectives of civil society organizations with one informing the other.

5.       It was also agreed that it would be very important to map existing surveys and data collection in the region so that PERI research could either add research questions to existing surveys or collect relevant data already available.

6.       The Education Support Program also agreed to share the report from the meeting with the Early Childhood and Higher Education Programs of the Open Society Foundations to see if they would be interested in co-funding research on their respective areas as

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