Public-private partnerships in early Childhood Education in Maringá (PR): a historical analysis of privatization strategies

Abstract

This work presents a brief historical review of early childhood education in the municipality of Maringá (PR), establishing a relation between past and present, highlighting significant moments of the public and private sectors’ interaction. This excerpt is part of a master’s thesis defended in the Graduate Program at the State University of Maringá, whose central theme is the public-private partnerships in the municipality. The aim of this article is to understand the historical trajectory of municipal education, emphasizing two remarkable moments: the implementation of the cooperative schools, in the 1990s; and the approval and execution of a project to purchase school placements in private institutions for early childhood education, from 2018 onward. These two milestones evince the strategies public power adopted to meet the educational demands in different historical contexts. The analysis of these two important privatization models of the educational provision shows that, although separated by approximately 30 years, both are part of the same social, economic, political and cultural context of capitalist society that adopts privatization and outsourcing public services as alternatives to structural challenges.