The privatization of education. Drivers, social effects and regulatory challenges of private sector participation in schooling Antoni Verger a , Clara Fontdevila b , and Adria ´ n Zancajo c , a Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Cerdanyola, Spain; b University of Glasgow, Glasgow, United Kingdom; and c University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom © 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Definition and scope 174 Conceptual demarcation and relevant distinctions 174 World trends 175 Main drivers 175 Privatization by design versus de facto privatization 177 Beyond the neoliberal creed: privatization as a globalizing policy 177 The effects of privatization: emerging consensus and persisting discrepancies 178 Regulation and governance of private provision 179 The regulation of PPPs in education 179 Regulating independent schools: the case of LFPS 180 To conclude 180 References 181 The privatization of education is a global phenomenon taking place at all educational levels and growing worldwide. In this entry we define educational privatization and examine its growth in different regions, discussing why it emerged, and how it has developed. We also reflect on the main effects of education privatization policies, with an emphasis on the challenges these policies pose for educational equity and the public regulation of education. We focus on basic education, including primary and secondary education. Definition and scope Conceptual demarcation and relevant distinctions Privatization is a process through which the private sector increasingly participates in economic and social activities that, in most countries, used to be the remit of the State. In the last decades, privatization has crystallized in public services that were previously de-commodified and in relation to which the State has had an important historical presence over the 20th century, as tends to be the case of education. Nonetheless, privatization processes can occur in various guises and to different degrees. To start with, we can distinguish between drastic and gradual modes of privatization. Drastic privatization implies that both service ownership and management responsibilities are transferred from public to private hands at a large scale. Although this form of privatization has been more common in gas, water or telecommunications sectors, the expansion of fully private schools, which are exclusively funded by families’ fees and/or philanthropic resources, would be also considered as part of a drastic privatization trend. In contrast, gradual privatization entails a progressive or partial transfer of service ownership and/or management and delivery responsibilities from the public to the private sector, with the State retaining full or an important part of the ownership. In most contexts, the privat- ization of education has tended to follow a gradual privatization path rather than a drastic one. In fact, the privatization of educa- tion tends to crystallize at the level of provision (via the outsourcing of service provision to private management organizations) and/ or funding (via co-payment policies). Conversely, it rarely entails changes at the ownership level- with the rapid academization of schools in England being more an exception than the rule (Verger, 2020). The concept of Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) has been broadly used in educational literature to capture the predominantly gradual character of privatization processes in education, as well as the hybrid nature that educational provision is acquiring in numerous school systems. PPPs in education encompass a broad range of policies and programs that entail a contract between the State and the private sector in which public sources fund an education service, and a private actor takes responsibility for its delivery. In the context of PPPs, both sectors, the private and the public, are expected to share risks, ideas, and other resources in delivering services (Hodge et al., 2010). In education, it is possible to distinguish at least three main policy categories that fall under the PPP umbrella (Zancajo et al., 2021a): 1. Charter schools. Schools are owned by the State but managed by private entities. Frequently, these schools enjoy higher levels of autonomy than regular public schools. 2. Vouchers. Private schools receive public funding depending on the number of students enrolled. In some cases, private schools can combine voucher and self-funding students. 3. Contracted schools. Private schools that the government directly contracts to provide the educational service in exchange for public funding covering part or all the costs they require to operate. Under this scheme, and in contrast with vouchers, schools are not necessarily publicly funded on a per-capita basis. 174 International Encyclopedia of Education, 4th edition, Volume 1 https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-818630-5.01030-7