Moving into the Portuguese case I would like to recall my hypothesis, regarding the privatization of education. I am only dealing with exogenous privatization as defined previously, this is when private providers take over the management of schools, as in the case of vouchers, academy schools, free schools, or charter schools, or when students are sent to private education subsidised by the state. In the case of Portugal, privatization of teaching services to after-school activities will also be analysed .
In Portugal, the privatization process of education has happened occasionally but not in a continuous manner as seen in England. Basically, in the 1980s three measures to favour public partnerships at basic and secondary education level were launched and moderately implemented. At the beginning of the 1990s, the fourth type of partnership was launched. It was on the side of professional education that the ePPPs model proliferated with more enthusiasm, though it came to a halt a few years later, and the expansion on this segment did not have impact waves.
The hypothesis that we are testing is: the possibility of a successful implementation of privatisation measures in education increases when a window of opportunity opens, the policy is attached to a compatible problem within a favourable political environment. The coupling of the streams happens in the presence of policy entrepreneurs who are strong and quick enough to make the streams go through the window before it closes.
Success is measured by the number of schools that adopted the proposed policy or is in balance with the objectives initially set by the political actors. Naturally the scope of the policy, in terms of the number of schools/ students that would be entitled to adopt the policy under analysis is part of the measurement of the policy difficulty level.
The analysis has a strong qualitative process tracing component, but there is also an attempt of proposing an algorithm that transforms qualitative analysis into a formula of a favourable configuration, through the usage of a checklist of attributes for each of the dimensions. The numerical approach is due to confirm, in a more abstract manner, that a policy has a higher possibility of being successfully implemented when:
Entrepreneurial ≤(((Problem+policy)*National Mood)+Politics)| (WINDOW OPEN)
For this purpose, I engaged in the collection of qualitative evidence from legislation, parliamentary debates, electoral programmes and political manifestos, speeches from the leaders, newspaper articles, web pages, surveys, published articles in scientific journals and other secondary sources of information.
All the evidence was analysed in search for evidence regarding the identification of the policy and its design in relation to: (i) technical feasibility, (ii) value acceptability, (iii) resource adequacy, (iv) network integration and (v) policy community. From the analysis of these dimensions, a set of checkpoints was verified to decide on the difficulty of a certain policy to be implemented or to comprehend where the weak points of policy design were that would make the policy more susceptible to failure.
In relation to problems I also analysed the same sources to understand which problem had been selected to couple to a certain policy and the analysis categorised into understanding where the problem came from and how serious it was: (i) focusing event; (ii) data; (iii) made clear from a previous policy in a feedback mechanism; or (iv) was it just a perception of society (load).
In relation to politics I gathered and classified information in relation to: (i) ideology in power and balance with institutions (ii) national mood.
The opening and closure of the window of opportunity were identified through the analysis of (i) institutional context; (ii) speed and style of decision making and (iii) whether it opened in the political or problem streams; (iv) emerging of reasons for window closure.
Finally, entrepreneurs were analysed in order to understand who they were and what was the (i) access to decision makers; (ii) resources invested (knowledge, capital, time, etc); (iii) strategies for framing their speech and level of influence in the politics stream .
The Portuguese constitution revised in 1982, contemplates the possibility of private schools , although supervised by the state, they are part of the education service of the country. The same document makes it clear that education is to be provided by the state and a public network of schools must be offered, as education is a fundamental and universal right. As education is seen as a welfare service the state has the obligation to ensure quality, continuity and access to every child. Therefore, transforming education into a privatized provision option is made more difficult, though not impossible.
The law of 1980 established the rules for the cooperation between the state and private providers and established the rules for:
Associaition contracts were defined as contracts with privately run schools located in areas where the state did not have enough infrastructure in order to surpress offer shortage. The state would pay for the attendance of children to private schools with an association contract. Private suppliers to substitute the sate geographically.
Simple contracts were celebrated to allow individual children whose parents wanted them to attend private schools to benefit from a partial payment from the state, this payment would be made based on income proof, and would only be made to families with low income. The objective was to favour liberty of choice.
Sponsorship agreements were made with schools with a proved alternative methodology or specialising in arts – namely music, dance or theatre. Cooperation agreements were with institutions that were able to take children with special needs. The state would be totally responsible for the payment to the schools, though initiative and management were from private providers. Private providers to substitute the state in special types of learning.
This logic held still until 2013, when a new law was approved to accept ePPPs as a tool to respond to free choice by the families, considering, for the first time, possible that support to families or schools could be made, even if a public school was working next door. In this law, there would be more place for different types of contracts : simple family support; further family support (for pre-school children); association; sponsorship and cooperation agreements.
The two first were foreseen as mechanisms to partially support families wishing to register their children in private education, whose resources were not enough. The contracts were celebrated directly with the schools and the amount would vary per children according to her family income. Though they may seem to constitute the design for free choice, the way they have been drawn is far from this scenario, as I will analyse in the section ahead.
The 2013 law tries to introduce subtle changes to the association contracts, as these contracts could from there on be celebrated in any region, despite public offer, with the objective to assure families can choose between public and private education providers.
The sponsorship and cooperation agreements have to do with the diversity of teaching methodologies and alternative curricular programmes that justify the extension of public offer into this schools. Professional, artistic, special needs schools all fall within this typology. Often the state cannot provide such specific training, therefore a space for private providers is created under this umbrella. Once again, this type of contracts is only possible if the state does not provide an equivalent offer within the regional limits.
Though this is the law that is still in hold the results on implementation level are null, partially for the change of government into a left-wing coalition, but, according to our model for other problems in the policy approval process.
Finally, the idea of special subsidies was to allow for the creation of special conditions to provide help with investment or temporary financial trouble.
Beyond the legislative process, it is by now clear that the Portuguese education system remains very much under public management, except where there were needs that the state was unable to supply in the short run. EPPPs emerge in basic secondary education through association contracts, and professional/artistic education through sponsorship agreements and special needs through cooperation agreements. On top of this agreements the law created some space for parent choice through family support agreements, wish have also very little implementation.