The Profit Motive in Education: Continuing the Revolution (IEA Readings)

Making the case for widespread acceptance of the profit motive in education, this monograph does so not by presenting statistics that demonstrate that profit-making organizations could drive up quality; there is already a substantial literature on this. Instead, the authors show how profit-making organizations could create an entirely new dynamic of entrepreneurship and innovation. As well as improving quality and reducing costs within existing models, such an approach could lead to the development of completely new ways of providing education. The UK government in common with the governments of many Western countries is in the midst of implementing policies to reform education. However, the government has, as a matter of principle, decided that profit-making schools cannot provide state-funded education even if they would lead to substantial improvements in quality. Overall, this collection makes an important contribution to the international debate about education reform.