This document provides an introduction and rationale for a research proposal examining the role of public-private partnerships in educating children with special needs in India. It discusses how public-private partnerships can help address the increasing demand for education facilities while harnessing private sector expertise. The proposal aims to establish the best model to move from segregation to inclusion of children with special needs in society by leveraging public-private partnerships. It notes challenges include implementation difficulties, accountability issues, and ensuring services reach the poor. The study is needed because currently only a small percentage of children with disabilities in India have access to education.

1. “Role of Public Private Partnership in education of Children with
Special needs- A study”
(RESEARCH PROPOSAL)
SUBMITTED TO JAMIA MILLIA ISLAMIA
MASTER OF EDUCATION
(SPECIAL EDUCATION)
SUPERVISOR INVESTIGATOR
Dr. Bharti Sharma Deepika Bhatt
(Associate Professor) M.Ed (Special )
Faculty of Education Session: 2014-2015
JMI, New Delh-25
DEPARTMENT OF TEACHER TRAINING & NON FORMAL EDUCATION
INSTITUTE OF ADVANCED STUDIED IN EDUCATION
FACULTY OF EDUCATION
JAMIA MILLIA ISLAMIA
NEW DELHI-110025

2. INTRODUCTION
“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much,” – Helen Keller
Provision of public services and infrastructure has traditionally been the exclusive
domain of the government. However, with increasing population pressures and
urbanization government’s ability to adequately address the public needs through
traditional means has been severally constrained. This has led the Government’
s across the world to increasingly look at the private sector to supplement public
investments and provide public services through Public Private Partnerships.
In India, pressure to change the standard model of public procurement arose
initially from concerns about the level of public debt, which grew rapidly during
the macroeconomic crisis of the 1980s and 1990s. Respective governments
since the start of liberalization of the Indian economy in 90s have sought to
encourage private investment especially in infrastructure and other allied areas.
Government of India defines public- private partnership as "a partnership
between a public sector entity (sponsoring authority) and a private sector entity
(a legal entity in which 51% or more of equity is with the private partner/s) for the
creation and/or management of infrastructure for public purpose for a specified
period.
Public-Private Partnership or PPP in the context of the education sector is an
instrument for improving the education of the population. Public private
partnership is to be seen in the context of viewing the whole education sector as
national asset with education promotion as goal of all education providers,
private or public.
In the 1970s, the government launched the centrally sponsored scheme of
Integrated Education for Disabled Children (IEDC). The scheme aimed at
providing educational opportunities to learners with disabilities in regular schools,
and to facilitate their achievement and retention.
In 1997 IEDC was amalgamated with other major basic education projects like
the DPEP (Chadha, 2002) and the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) (Department of
Elementary Education, 2000).

3. The overall objective was to integrate children with disabilities in the general
community at all levels as equal partners to prepare them for normal
development and to enable them to face life with courage and confidence.
In 2008, the Government of India (GoI), have announced a scheme for setting up
of 2,500 Model Schools under Public-Private Partnership (PPP) mode. The
objective is to provide access to high quality school education at the block level
through these schools of excellence, so that every block in the country will have
at least one such school which would be a model for all other schools in the
block. All round development of the children of the school will be the goal.
The Government is visualizing that the enactment of the Right of children to Free
and Compulsory Education Act-2009 would entail an increase in the demand of
education facilities at the school level.
Post independence disability was looked upon as a charitable institution, but now
has evolved over time and various innovative ways are being explored, such as
corporate social responsibility, The Indian government is mulling over the New
Companies Bill which prescribes that every company with a net worth of atleast
INR 5000 million or turnover of atleast INR 10,000 million , or net profit of 50
million will have to spend 2 % of its three years average profit on CSR activities.
This move will push the plethora of activities under CSR into a much broader
perspective with added responsibility moving beyond the charities and vanilla
rural development activities.
There are usually two fundamental drivers for Public private partnerships. Firstly,
Public-private partnerships are claimed to enable the public sector to harness the
expertise and efficiencies that the private sector can bring to the delivery of
certain facilities and services traditionally procured and delivered by the public
sector. Secondly, a Public-private partnerships is structured so that the public
sector body seeking to make a capital investment does not incur any borrowing.
Public- private partnerships are organized along a continuum between public and
private nodes and needs as they integrate normative, albeit separate and
distinct, functions of society—the market and the commons.
The unique characteristics of public -private partnership in special education shall
include these requirements for the partnership to be a success : Focus on
providing services to the poor without the opportunity to cross subsidize, potential
to earn revenues or return on investment and complex monitoring systems eg
measuring learning outcomes

4. OECD defines Public- private partnership as, “arrangements whereby the private
sector provides infrastructure, assets and services that traditionally have been
provided by government.”This is radically different from privatization where “the
permanent transfer of control , whether as a consequence of a transfer of
ownership right from a public agency to one or more private parties or for
example, of a capital increase to which the public sector shareholder has waived
its right to subscribe”.
THREATS TO Public -private partnership IN SPECIAL EDUCATION SYSTEM :
Richard Elmore summarized his years of research and think into a widely
academically popular book , School Reforms from the Inside Out – Policy,
Practice and Performance.
His thesis best explained that the problems of the system are the problem of
smallest unit focusing on accountability. He further postulated that when
accountability knocks everyone will answer. Based on the conceptual framework
drawn from the work of Wagner, posited that a school would react to external
accountability requirements by examining a set of relationship amongst three
factors that is - Individual conception of responsibility, shared expectation
amongst the stake holders and school participants and internal and external
accountability.
These factors share a close mutual reciprocal relationship wherein their
interaction will determine the success and failure of Public private partnership in
the organizational climate of the school in wake of the challenges faced. Other
challenges grappling the model are implementation and ecosystem challenges.
Benefits of Public private partnership: India is still in developing state bombarded
with population explosion public private partnership makes it viably possible to
set up a greater number of schools , even distribution of wealth, greater
efficiency, quality outcomes and optimization of resources culminating into
healthy marriage of public and private sectors on the terms of mutual benefit.
An illuminating example in case here is the success story of an all girl
government vocational higher secondary school in Nadakavvu(Kerala). With the
right partnership with the local governing body under MLA A Pradeep Kumar,
funding from Faisal and Shabana foundation and direction under Prof. Saji
Gopinath of IIM –Kozhikode. From shambles the school now boasts of eight fully
wired classrooms, four modern laboratories, fifty six sparkling clean toilets,
corporate style kitchen, dining hall,13000 sqft indoor stadium and 18110 sqft
Astroturf multi purpose field.

5. NEED/ RATIONALE OF THE STUDY
Even though current disability figures are not the most reliable, it is noteworthy
that national prevalence rates suggest that about 35% of people with disabilities
are in the 10-29 years age group.
The Office of the Chief Commissioner of Persons with Disabilities stated that not
more than 4% of children with disabilities have access to education.
About 11% of disabled persons between the ages of 5–18 years were enrolled
in special schools in the urban areas as compared to less than 1% in the rural
areas (NSSO, 2002) necessarily highlighting the urban- rural divide in this
context.
This raises important issues of access to education and a need for focusing on
transitions (educational, socio-emotional, physical etc.) for young people with
disabilities in later years.
Education of children with special needs has shifted through various models
from the humble beginnings of charitable model to bio-centric and then functional
model.
But the last two decades have been crucial and critical to special education with
focus on Human rights. The Greek philosopher, Aristotle, once said that “things
that are alike should be treated alike, whereas things that are unalike should be
treated unalike in proportion to their un-alikeness.”
The principle of respect for difference and acceptance of disability as part of
human diversity and humanity is important, as disability is a universal feature of
the human condition and seeks to break down the barriers, equality, non
discrimination and a right to dignified life.
This aim is unattainable without education of Children with special needs
(CWSN), and we shall seek to establish the best model so move from
segregation to inclusion in our society.
The wave of 1980’s ushered a new era of integration, but under Integrated
Education for Disabled Children (IEDC) only 2-3% of the learners had access to
this service and a need for a better model in special education was felt across
the globe.

6. The reconceptualization of the educational difficulties lead to PRAGMATIC
PLACEMENT PRINCIPLE, which got endorsed in 1994 by SALAMANCA
STATEMENT and further played a key role in postulating inclusion.
Special Educational Needs (SEN) learners who can be educated in general
classroom should be educated in general classroom and those studying in
special schools should be transferred once they are ready to make the shift
(MHRD-Program me for action 1992)
India is bottom ranked amongst the world’s 195 countries on almost every
parameter of national development – learning outcome, health, nutrition,
productivity, infrastructure, per capita consumption. In the context of education
Indian education system is marked by poor public education services,
proliferation of private system of education- leading to commercialization of
education.
“Nowhere is the failure of the failure of Indian state more tragic than in its failure
to provide universal quality education to children. A striking way of thinking about
the quality crisis in government schools is to look at the flight to private schools
and ask : ‘What does it say about the quality of the product (government schools)
when you can’t even give it for free “. (Dr.Kartik Murlidharan, Seminar Journal
2007).
The situation further worsened when the historic Right to free and compulsory
education, (RTE) 2009 also made it mandatory for private schools to reserve
25%capacity for children from certified poor household in the neighborhoods
(s.12 1c).
The court, however, exempted boarding and minority schools to comply with this
rule and a majority of private institutions are now claiming this status, leading to a
chaotic situation mired in confusion and litigation.
Booth (2000) has pointed out that access to education is only the first stage in
overcoming the exclusion of persons with disabilities from the mainstream. More
challenging is the task of bringing about a shift in public perspective and values,
so that diversity is cherished.
In India, the concept of Inclusive Education has not yet been linked to a broader
discussion of pedagogy (Anita, 2000) and quality education (Taneja, 2001). Any
broad reform in education cannot be implemented without taking the inclusion of
learners with SEN into consideration.

7. It is, therefore, important to bring about a number of reforms at various levels in
order to develop a “school for all” having an inclusive curriculum. The curriculum
needs to be balanced in such a way that it is common for all, and yet takes
account of the individual needs of all learners. It is also important to take into
consideration pedagogical issues.
The curriculum should be accessible to all children and for this specialist support
would be required. Care then has to be exercised to ensure that learners with
SEN are not segregated from the mainstream by providing this specialist support.
Social equity is the foremost reason that most democracies in the world have
government control education system. Issues of sizes, complexity and efficiency
plague the public system. Privatizing simply means decentralizing public system.
Though privatization does bring faster decision making processes, greater
operational efficiencies but leads to commercialization and control in a hand of
few.
So far we have seen the grim situation of education in India and special
education even fares worse, it is time to find the solution to this problem under
the guise of Public private partnership.
Why the urgent need to infuse Public private partnership in our special
education system
Public- private partnership can increase access to quality schools in underserved
communities such as SEN. They can help build model schools which can serve
as innovation centers for improving the quality of education.
Public- private partnership can widen access and utilization of existing assets. In
rural areas where there is lack of infrastructure and access to resources it will
rejuvenate the system with optimum utilization and effective collaboration to set
up new schools.
In urban areas where government school infrastructure is underutilized due to
rapid cover of privatization and SEN are forced to attend special schools
because of the lack of infrastructure and support in inclusive set up.
Through the Public- private partnership route, an ideal model for cornering
support and collaboration between various agencies depending on the specific
requirement of the child can be created. This ideal mix will be greatly contribution
to increase the retention rate of SEN in inclusive set up where their drop rates
are high.

8. Through the Public- private partnership model, the quality of education can also
be improvised. It will be the perfect marriage of the merits of the public and
private systems bringing forth innovation such as multi differentiated instruction
or activity based instruction.
Through the Public -private partnership model, the choice for low income parents
can also be increased. These parents are mostly laden with the medical costs
that can at times fail to provide quality education to the Special educational
needs. It will provide them with a range of options to choose from in the best
interest of the child
This model will also strengthen accountability of government system as they
operate under strict performance standards.
STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM : Role of Public Private Partnership in
education of Children with Special needs- A study
DEFINITION OF KEY TERMS :
PUBLIC- PRIVATE PARTNERSHIP STUDY : A public–private partnership
(PPP) is a government service or private business venture which is funded and
operated through a partnership of government and one or more private sector
companies.
STUDY: A systematic process for determining and addressing needs, or "gaps"
between current conditions and desired conditions or "wants". The discrepancy
between the current condition and wanted condition must be measured to
appropriately identify the need, it can serve as a part of planning processes,
used for improvement in individuals, education/training, organizations, or
communities. It can refine and improve a product such as a training or service a
client receives.
CHILDREN WITH SPECIAL NEEDS : Children with special needs are defined
as those who have certain disability and require specially designed instructions to
realize their full potential. They can be taught in inclusive or segregated settings
depending on the extent of the disability

9. OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY
The following study was undertaken to explore the role and viability of PPP in
Indian education sector with reference to CWSN, Specifically the objectives are:-
1. To review existing public -private partnerships in Indian education sector.
2. To review existing public private partnerships in context of children with
special needs.
3. To study the role of PPP in education of CWSN as perceived by
professionals working in the area of special education.
METHODOLOGY:
POPULATION: All the coordinators/in charges of Corporate Social
Responsibility sector of different companies, officials of Rehabilitation Council of
India , will constitute the population of the study.
15 professionals and higher officials working in the education, rehabilitation,
employment and CSR of CWSN were selected as the sample of the study.
TOOLS & TECHNIQUES:
Interview schedule with coordinators/in charges of Corporate Social
Responsibility sector of different companies, officials of Rehabilitation Council of
India, principals and special educators of schools.
DATA ANALYSIS:
Data analysis will be done using both qualitative methods.

10. DELIMITATION:
1. Study will be delimited to geographical location in Delhi only although
telephonic interview, emails and other technological advances like social
networking sites and skype etc will be used.
2. The study will be confined to public private partnership in context of
children with special needs only.
3. The study will be confined to focusing on usefulness of public.

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www.ideak-1steu/news/public-privatepartnership-ppresearchand-innovation
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