Paper Title
Public Private Partnerships in Education as a Market Solution in the Post- Socialist Context of Kazakhstan

Abstract
Given the increasing participation of non-state actors in public education, public private partnerships in education (EPPP) is widely regarded to be a global education policy. Although EPPP constitute a global trend, they are manifested in greater variability in terms of policy rationales, modalities and arrangements depending on a particular local context. Building on multiple case study design and drawing on Cultural Political Economy, this paper focuses on education services delivery as the main EPPP modality in Kazakhstan’s public school system. Accordingly, the study addresses two related purposes. First, it examines the historical policy context for expanding greater private engagement in Kazakhstan’s public school education. Second, the paper explores policy rationales and motives of state actors and private sector stakeholders in the adoption of e PPP as a pro-private policy. The paper argues that the introduction and legitimation of Eppp at the national level influenced the emergence of quasi-market regulation as a new model of educational governance in the post-socialist system of public schools in Kazakhstan. The study shows that in the post-socialist school system of Kazakhstan, on the one hand, the State frames public-private collaboration schemes as an opportunity to expand access, to bring educational innovations and to enable school choice. On the other hand, public-private interactions stimulate commercial orientation of school education and thus accelerate education privatization. The findings reveal that effects of public-private hybridization led to significant tensions between public accountability, inclusion and education inequalities. Keywords - Public Private Partnerships in Education, Governance Models, Education Privatization, Marketization of Education