Copyright © 2018 Authors. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Implementing Fully Privately Run Public Schools: Top View Sheikh Muhamad Hizam Sheikh Khairuddin*, Kamaruzzaman Ismail**, and Zalina Zainudin* University of Kuala Lumpur Business School, Malaysia* Centre for Preparatory Studies (CPS), University of Kuala Lumpur (UniKL), Malaysia** *Corresponding author E-mail: sheikhmhizam@unikl.edu.my Abstract The aim of this paper is to identify the perceptions of teachers and regulators in implementing fully privately run public schools (FPRPS) in Malaysia. Under the Malaysian Educational Blueprint (MEB) 2013 - 2025, it is clearly stated that the programs and activities that would encourage and allow parents, the public and private sectors, NGOs, and society to forge a partnership with the school will benefit especially concerning values education. These school community partnerships can be related to the ninth shift in the Blueprint which is “partnering with parents, community and private sector at scale,” although, the emphasis of this shift is more on students’ a cademic progress. This study was conducted for three months’ periods, involving 87 teachers and principals (in 13 schools) in the districts of Petaling Utama, Wilayah Bangsar-Pudu and Hulu Langat and 23 regulators in 10 Regulatory Bodies. The method used was in the form of focus group discussion (FGD). The data was processed by using Atlas ti. From the interviews conducted on FPRPS, all of the respondents (i.e. teachers, principals and regulators) indicated that they are ready and willing to accept the FPRPS implementation. This is because FPRS offers huge potential benefits to them. These include improvement in students’ skill, teacher training, academic performance, employability, financial support, infrastructures, facilities, security, maintenance, workload, and school efficiency. The study contributes to the development of a new type of school in Malaysia. Keywords: MEB, public-private partnership, feasibility study, teachers, regulators, fully privately run public schools, implementation, top view 1. Introduction Public-private partnership (PPP) and privatization in education has been a global phenomenon recently 1-2 . Using student data, PPP schools in UK has been found to be significantly different in terms of quality of school management compared to government and private schools 3 . The involvement of private companies in the education sector is particularly serious when the Malaysian government encourages partnerships especially in areas with high expertise. Smart partnership implementation can produce the following benefits: • Saves the cost of system development • Improve overall government agency performance • Facilitate sharing of data and resources • Improve skills, knowledge and expertise • Reduce the gap between government agencies that are more capable with less-capable agencies in building IT applications • Establish coordination between government agencies in IT development • Assisting the overall economic development and recovery efforts of the country Under the Ninth Malaysia plan, the government officially announced the implementation of public projects using the PPP or Private Finance Initiative (PFI) scheme 4 . The involvement of the private sector in delivering public facilities and services in education is not a new phenomenon in Malaysia 5 . Several form of PPP in education has been embraced in Malaysia including support services such as security, maintenance and canteen operation of school, trust school and adopted school. What yet to be implemented in Malaysia is Fully Privately Run Public Schools (FPRPS) by private sectors or commonly known as full PPP. PPP in education is claimed to offer potential for overcoming some of the critical challenges and for developing the higher education subsector in developing countries 6 . Therefore, the objective of this study is to examine the perceptions and expectations as well as challenges and opportunities of stakeholders such as the teachers and regulators pertaining to the implementation of FPRPS in the country in the future. 2. Literature Review An innovative idea to tap private resources, increase competition, and efficiency is through PPP7. School as a distinct social system has become an agent of change to the society. This is because the problem of society is a school problem too. In this case, inevitably communities need to cooperate with schools to achieve the ideals of schools and countries8. Smart or smart partnership is a strategic alliance that brings synergistic benefits to all parties involved. In the context of the public sectors, smart sharing takes place when agencies or companies share expertise, adopting experience or products in a field that has proven to be successful and appropriate. In 2012, the Ministry of Education (MoE) has launched the National Education Blueprint (2013-2025). The blueprint outlines 11 shifts required to transform the national education system to be on par with and comparable to that of developed nations, over the next 13 years. It was found that partners would like more active engagement and once created, need to be nurtured and extended so that there exists a strong as well as sustainable partnership system, which not only involves the active and participating of government (ministry of education) International Journal of Engineering & Technology, 7 (4.15) (2018) 252-256 International Journal of Engineering & Technology Website: www.sciencepubco.com/index.php/IJET Research paper