Perceived Impact of Privatization on Quality Education: Educator’s perspectives in Punjab
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.62843/jrsr/2026.v.v.233Keywords:
Educator’s Perception, Privatization, Public Schools, Quality EducationAbstract
Privatization of public education is a debatable topic that has been widely discussed, but the evidence on its relationship with perceived educational quality is not clear, especially in South Asian contexts. This research explored the linkages between privatization and perceived quality of education among all educational professionals from public and private sectors in Lahore division and explored if such perceptions varied by profession. Data was collected from the 252 participants as government teachers, private teachers and education officers in four districts of Lahore division using a validated questionnaire instrument and with the help of survey design. Exploratory factor analysis, Pearson correlation, simple linear regression and one-way analysis of variance were used for data analysis. The results indicated that privatization was significantly and negatively related to perceived quality of education, and significantly predicted lower scores on perceived quality of education. Professional role had a significant influence on attitudes toward privatization and perceptions of the quality of education, with significant variations between private teachers and certain others with government roles. The results suggest that support for privatization may be a sign of unhappiness with public school systems rather than confidence that privatization will actually benefit students, and that policymakers need to hear from stakeholders with various professional roles individually, and not lump them together when formulating policies on privatization.
References
Andrabi, T., Bau, N., Das, J., Karachiwalla, N., & Khwaja, A. I. (2024). Crowding in private quality: The equilibrium effects of public spending in education. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 139(4), 2525–2577. https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjae014
Andrabi, T., Das, J., Khwaja, A. I., & Ozyurt, S. (2025). Helping schools survive: Experimental evidence on the impact of financial and educational support to private schools (No. W34042; p. w34042). National Bureau of Economic Research. https://doi.org/10.3386/w34042
Azmat, M., & Naseem, A. (2026). Influence of school culture on teachers’ commitment towards curriculum change. The Knowledge, 5(1), 83-98. https://doi.org/10.55737/tk/v5i1.51125
Balyer, A., & Bayram, A. (2024). Competition in public education from school administrators’ perspective: A qualitative study on public schools in Türkiye. International Journal on Lifelong Education and Leadership, 10(1), 10–23. https://doi.org/10.25233/ijlel.1381304
Bennell, P. (2024). An education revolution: The privatisation of schooling in capital city conurbations in Sub-Saharan Africa. International Journal of Educational Development, 105, 102988. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijedudev.2024.102988
Bold, T., Kimenyi, M., Mwabu, G., & Sandefur, J. (2013). The high return to low-cost private schooling in a developing country (IGC Working Paper). International Growth Centre.
Buchanan, J. M., & Tullock, G. (1962). The calculus of consent: Logical foundations of constitutional democracy. University of Michigan Press.
Chudgar, A., & Quin, E. (2012). Relationship between private schooling and achievement: Results from rural and urban India. Economics of Education Review, 31(4), 376–390. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econedurev.2011.12.003
Coomans, F., & Hallo de Wolf, A. (2005). Privatisation of education and the right to education. In K. De Feyter & F. Gómez Isa (Eds.), Privatisation and human rights in the age of globalisation (pp. 22–258). Intersentia.
Creswell, J. W., & Plano Clark, V. L. (2007). Designing and conducting mixed methods research (2nd ed.). SAGE Publications.
De Witte, K., & López-Torres, L. (2017). Efficiency in education: A review of literature and a way forward. Journal of the Operational Research Society, 68(4), 339–363. https://doi.org/10.1057/jors.2015.92
Demirbağ, İ., & Sezgin, S. (2021). Book Review: Guidelines on the development of open educational resources policies. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 22(2), 261–263. https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v22i2.5513
French, R., & Kingdon, G. (2010). The relative effectiveness of private and government schools in rural India: Evidence from ASER data. (DoQSS Working Papers No, 10–03).
Hamid, S., Bukhari, S. M. M., Ghani, A., & Kayani, T. (2024). Public and private teachers’ perspective on privatization of schools at primary level in Punjab. IUB Journal of Social Sciences, 6(1), 197–206. https://doi.org/10.52461/ijoss.v6i1.2894
Jabbar, M. N., Hashmi, M. A., & Ashraf, M. (2019). Comparison between public and private secondary schools regarding service quality management and its effect on students’ satisfaction in Pakistan. Bulletin of Education and Research 41, 27–40.
Jimenez, E., Lockheed, M. E., Luna, E., & Paqueo, V. (1991). School effects and costs for private and public schools in the Dominican Republic. International Journal of Educational Research, 15(5), 393–410. https://doi.org/10.1016/0883-0355(91)90021-J
Kanwal, A., Kamran, F., & Rafiq, S. (2023). Perceptions of teachers on government school privatization in Punjab, Pakistan. Gomal University Journal of Research, 39(4), 404–419. https://doi.org/10.51380/gujr-39-04-02
Knight, J. (2013). Education hubs: International, regional and local dimensions of scale and scope. Comparative Education, 49(3), 374–387. https://doi.org/10.1080/03050068.2013.803783
Kumar, D., & Choudhury, P. K. (2021). Do private schools really produce more learning than public schools in India? Accounting for student’s school absenteeism and the time spent on homework. International Journal of Educational Development, 83, 102395. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijedudev.2021.102395
Lee, B. X., Kjaerulf, F., Turner, S., Cohen, L., Donnelly, P. D., Muggah, R., Davis, R., Realini, A., Kieselbach, B., MacGregor, L. S., Waller, I., Gordon, R., Moloney-Kitts, M., Lee, G., & Gilligan, J. (2016). Transforming our world: Implementing the 2030 Agenda through sustainable development goal Indicators. Journal of Public Health Policy, 37(Suppl 1), 13–31. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41271-016-0002-7
Marope, P. T. M. (2016). Quality and development-relevant education and learning: Setting the stage for the education 2030 Agenda. Prospects, 46(1), 1–3. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11125-016-9387-0
Mufic, J. (2022). ‘Measurable but not quantifiable’: The Swedish Schools Inspectorate on construing “quality” as “ auditable”. International Journal of Lifelong Education, 41(2), 199–211. https://doi.org/10.1080/02601370.2022.2041747
Mumtaz, B., Bashir, I., & Naseem, A. (2024). Effect of principals’ instructional management practices on school culture. Archives of Educational Studies, 4(2), 217–232.
Muralidharan, K., & Sundararaman, V. (2015). The aggregate effect of school choice: Evidence from a two-stage experiment in India. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 130(3), 1011–1066. https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjv013
Ravi, S. S. (2015). Impact of privatisation of education in Indian society. Journal of Culture, Society and Development, 6, 22–26.
Rizvi, F. (2016). Privatization in education: Trends and consequences (Education Research and Foresight Working Paper No. 18). UNESCO. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000246485
Singh, A. (2013). Size and sources of the private school premium in test scores in India (Young Lives Working Paper 98). Young Lives, University of Oxford. https://resourcecentre.savethechildren.net/pdf/yl-wp98_singh.pdf
Touriñán López, J. M. (2022). Construyendo educación de calidad desde la pedagogía. Sophía, (32), 41–92. https://doi.org/10.17163/soph.n32.2022.01
Verger, A., Fontdevila, C., & Zancajo, A. (2016). The privatization of education: A political economy of global education reform. Teachers College Press. https://research.manchester.ac.uk/en/publications/the-privatization-of-education-a-political-economy-of-global-educ/
Yokoyama, Y. (2018). Privatization. In A. Farazmand (Ed.), Global encyclopedia of public administration, public policy, and governance (pp. 1–5). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-31816-5_364-1
Yousaf, S., & Naseem, A. (2025). Exploring school leaders’ experiences of external accountability: Narrative review. Journal of Asian Development Studies, 14(2), 1797-1810
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
