Mauro Moschetti

The growth of private education in Argentina: evidence and explanations

During the second half of the twentieth century, the Argentine education system went through a clear process of privatisation expressed in the increasing enrolment and state funding of the private sector. Especially in the 1990s, when the country implemented neoliberal economic policies, the academic literature had found in neoliberalism (in ideology, public policy and the enactment of certain laws) an explanation for this process of privatisation. Since the 2000s, and after a severe economic crisis, successive governments have rejected the neoliberal policies and have established a set of regulations and public policies with the explicit purpose of changing the previous policy trend. This article shows that after one decade of this new policy opposed to neoliberalism, the evidence suggests that privatisation of education has not only not been reversed but even expanded in a significant manner, reaching striking rates of increase, both in private enrolment and in state funding. Finally, the evidence presented shows that neither neoliberal nor post-neoliberal policies seem to determine the privatisation of education for the Argentine case. The article concludes with some remarks so as to design an explanatory model to account for the dynamics of the education system.

Why does private school enrollment grow? Evidence from Argentina

Abstract During the second half of the twentieth century, a process of privatization took place in the Argentine education system. This paper seeks to explain the growth of private enrollments in Argentina over the last years. Drawing on the concept of quasi-monopoly, we run a random-effects estimation on panel data to analyze the determinants of the complex (and dynamic) equilibrium between public and private education supply. It is observed that the behavior of both sectors is explained by (1) the incorporation of new students to the education system, (2) the State action regulating and financing, and (3) the general socioeconomic conditions.

Quasi-State monopoly of the education system and socio-economic segregation in Argentina

This paper analyses the provision of education in Argentina in systemic terms. Using the concept of quasi-monopoly and the notions of exit, voice and loyalty, we study the logic of organization and distribution of students within the educational system. We support the idea that the provision of private and public education makes a coherent whole, where the State plays an active role. We then evaluate the implications of this configuration on the Argentine system in terms of: (a) freedom of choice; (b) productive efficiency; (c) equity; and (d) social cohesion following Levin’s framework. We describe how the Argentine quasi-State monopoly system works as an important device of scarcity administration, increasing socio-economic segregation through its tendency to push the middle and upper-middle classes into private schooling while granting public schooling for the lowest income sectors. Finally, this article lays the foundation for the use of the quasi-State monopoly notion for the study of other educational systems.

El crecimiento de la educación privada en Argentina: ocho explicaciones paradigmáticas

Este articulo ofrece una revision de la produccion academica que ha intentado analizar las causas del proceso de privatizacion de la educacion en Argentina. Se delimitan ocho explicaciones paradigmaticas que condensan las diversas interpretaciones y construcciones teoricas surgidas en los ultimos veinte anos referidas a la cuestion de la privatizacion, y se identifican sus logros y limitaciones empiricas y hermeneuticas. El articulo culmina postulando una explicacion estructural en la que se verifican algunos elementos de otras explicaciones a la vez que se resignifican procesos de caracter micropolitico que, por su inobjetable consistencia intertemporal, evidencian la existencia de una politica de Estado de privatizacion.