Framing and selling global education policy: the promotion of public-private partnerships for education in low-income contexts

Public-private partnerships in education (ePPP) are acquiring increasing centrality in the agendas of international organizations and development agencies dealing with educational affairs. They are designed as an opportunity to correct inefficiencies in the public delivery of education and to mobilize new resources to increase the access to and cost-effectiveness of education in low-income contexts. This article explores the emergence of ePPP as a ‘programmatic idea’ and, in particular, the semiotic strategies by means of which this idea has been located in the global education agenda and promoted internationally among practice communities by a network of policy entrepreneurs. The analysis is supported by extensive fieldwork and by a new approach to the analysis of the framing and mobilization of new policy ideas, which incorporates literature on agenda setting, policy entrepreneurs, and policy frame analysis. The approach reveals the complex way in which policy ideas, political actors, institutions, and material factors interact to strategically put forward new policy alternatives in developing contexts.