The Non-public Stakeholders’ Participation in the Implementation of Educational Tasks as a Form of Education Policy Rationalization. The Case of Local Education Policy in Poland

The aim of the article is to present the process of non-state actors’ involvement in the implementation of educational tasks. The author focused on the most engaging form of participation in terms of education policy, which is the acquisition of education tasks, including school management by non-public stakeholders. The non-public stakeholders’ participation in education policy implementation discussed in the article has been present for a few years now and used by Polish municipalities as a tool to reduce costs of educational tasks. The costs of education policy implementation have been steadily increasing for years, disproportionately to the number of students. The problem of high costs of education is particularly acute for small municipalities, especially rural and urban-rural. Looking for solutions to rationalize local expenditures and curb spending on education policy, which in some municipalities consumes more than 60% of the total budget spending, the authorities look for new ways to save money. Such a solution is the possibility of transferring small schools (up to 70 students) to non-public stakeholders (including social organization or natural person) to avoid their liquidation. On the one hand, the implemented solution was created to support local governments, which, in the face of growing educational expenditures, had limited investment opportunities in other areas. On the other hand, this solution corresponds to local communities’ needs and takes into account the specificity of rural areas and the relationships within local communities (usually small, rural) for which the school was not only educational institution, but also integration and meetings centre. In this article the author analyzes the conditions of involving non-public stakeholders in the process of carrying out educational tasks as well as the current formal and legal basis of this procedure. The process of implementing educational tasks by non-public stakeholders refers to the concept of co-production of public services, which is the theoretical framework of the present article. The analysis presented in the text is based on the concept of co-production as a form of performance of public tasks involving members of the local community who contribute and bear partial responsibility for the performance of public services, with a view to improving their quality and delivery standards. In the course of the analysis, the author tries to verify the hypothesis, that the actual participation of non-state actors manifests itself in full engagement in public tasks, involving expenditure (financial, labour), personal commitment and responsibility. In this sense, participation can be considered a form of co-production. By examining the hypothesis, the researcher poses the following research questions: What are the constraints between the apparent and the actual participation of the stakeholders in education policy?, What are the circumstances of the participation of non-public actors in the public service provision? What are the conditions of the non-public entity’s participation in the public service delivery system? How do the roles of both public and non-public actors change in the context of co-production of public services? In the article, the author uses the following research methods: the analysis of existing sources, including the content of normative acts and documents as well as the literature of the subject. In addition, the partial empirical studies conducted by the author in Polish municipalities were used in the publication. In total, the author conducted 60 semi-structured interviews based on the interview scenario. The selection of respondents to the study was purposeful and selected in two stages. In the first stage, the author selected the provinces (województwa) to study, among those in which the most and the least local schools were closed in 2006–2014. Then, the author selected the municipalities in each of the provinces (4 municipalities in each province). In the second stage, the respondents were selected. In the group of respondents were the representatives of local authorities (executive and constituent bodies), the representatives of the school community, the representatives of social organizations, local community members as well as public officials and local leaders of the selected municipalities. The conclusions of the research indicate that the mechanism in the form of participation of non-public actors in the performance of educational tasks is in practice difficult to implement and depends on a number of factors, such as: the level of local community activity, the experience of cooperation between public authorities and local community in other areas, the attitude of local authorities to cooperate with social actors. The reluctance to cooperate, the lack of mutual trust between local governments and local communities, and the domination of the traditional model of local governance with the leading position of local authorities (as a creator and public service contractor) make the running of schools by non-public actors rarely practiced. Frequently, the main problem is the relationship and attitude of both local authorities and the local community, which make this solution impossible to implement. In the course of the research three models of relations between local authorities and local stakeholders were identified: a) the so-called “radical model” – local authorities plan to liquidate the school entirely and do not plan to transfer it to other entities; b) the so-called “cooperative model” – local authorities propose to delegate educational tasks to non-public stokeholds declaring financial and non-financial support; c) the so-called “conciliation model” – local authorities do not plan to transfer the school, but in a face of local community initiative they agree to let it be run by a non-public stakeholder.