A life in low-cost private education

Two factors – my experience in developing countries coupled with an understanding of the potential role for private education – led to me leading a team that won a grant from the International Finance Corporation to study private education in developing countries. I felt that my life should be concerned with the poor, so was dissatisfied by being an expert in private education, which everyone knew was for the privileged only. My epiphany came in the slums of Hyderabad, India, where I found low-cost private schools serving the poor. I got a grant from the John Templeton Foundation to study the nature and extent of low-cost private education in Africa and Asia. Thus my life’s work in private education began. The work was extremely controversial in the beginning, but I became less of a pariah when in 2005 I won an international private sector development award. Taking four years unpaid leave from academia, I co-created chains and federations of low-cost private schools around the world. Many social entrepreneurs were inspired by my research findings to create loan companies – providing low-cost private schools with much-needed capital – and chains of school – capitalizing on economies of scale to improve low-cost schools even further. Some lessons for young academics are outlined.