Do private schools provide a better quality of education? Beyond the private–public divide: a literature review 1981-2022

The neoliberal theory argues that private schools provide better-quality education than public schools, thus justifying an increasing involvement of non-state actors in education over the past decades. This paper focuses on primary and secondary education with the aim of informing the neoliberal argument. First, it presents the theoretical debate on the quality of education and private schools’ impact on it. Second, it reviews the empirical evidence on the differential impacts of the private and public education sectors on quality. It then looks at the public-private school debate through a different lens, assessing the two core characteristics of private schools, management autonomy and market orientation. Finally, it proposes that the debate should be a reframed by moving beyond the public-private divide.