The Relationship between Educational Public-Private Partnerships (ePPPs), Teaching Autonomy and Education Quality

: Exploring Stakeholder Perceptions in a Southern Province China

Abstract

Since the mid-1980s, educational public-private partnerships (ePPPs) have developed significantly internationally. Some researchers believed that the development of ePPPs aims to address the problem of the government’s failure to provide high-quality educational services, and one of the mechanisms is to increase school autonomy through ePPPs. Scholars further believed that more school autonomy will encourage innovation and efficiency and bring about school progress. However, scholars have not yet reached a consensus on the actual effects of the above two points, especially in the context of China, where there are little relevant theoretical and empirical research. Therefore, this study will focus on teachers’ and school leaders’ views on the impact of ePPPs on teaching autonomy and the impact of teaching autonomy on education quality. This study aims to provide new empirical evidence related to these theoretical perspectives in an international context and to make suggestions on how to improve teaching autonomy and education quality. This study adopts a qualitative comparative empirical approach and selects four junior high schools of different types in a southern province China. The data collection method includes interviews and focus groups with 39 teachers and school leaders. Through reflexive thematic analysis of the collected data, this study found that: according to the interviewees, in dimensions of teaching autonomy, the autonomy of state school is the most restricted, while the other three types of schools have relatively more autonomy; teachers in state school have stable status and have to undertake more work not related to teaching, so their work motivation is greatly restricted, while the other three types of schools pay more attention to performance appraisal, so teachers are more motivated; the pursuit of students’ test scores has become the largest factor limiting teachers’ teaching autonomy, and the influence of the government and parents is also quite obvious; teachers pay more attention to the role of student intake and length of learning time in improving students’ academic performance, and relatively neglect factors such as teachers’ teaching, funding and peer effects; teachers also seek to gain more teaching autonomy, but some teachers lack confidence in themselves. Overall, this study found that the ePPPs model can improve the teaching autonomy of schools to a certain extent, but its effect needs to be combined with many other factors such as school management and funding. The current data does not support the conclusion that ePPPs model can directly improve the teaching autonomy of schools. The impact of teaching autonomy on education quality is also difficult to determine directly. When teachers lack confidence in teaching autonomy and are constrained by the examination-oriented education system, it is difficult to popularize teaching autonomy in the majority of middle schools. The above research results also show that the government can introduce more comprehensive supporting reform measures and provide more guarantees to improve the enthusiasm and actual effect of schools exercising their teaching autonomy. The government can also modify the evaluation methods and examination system, and increase the dimensions of government evaluation of schools, such as students’ artistic literacy and social common sense, in order to make the education system more effectively.

Date of Award	9 Dec 2025
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Bristol
Supervisor	Sally M Thomas (Supervisor) & Jon James (Supervisor)