In late August 2018, alarm bells started ringing around the education development world with the discovery of a document that wasn’t meant to see the light of day. The document revealed the business plan for the establishment of yet another international financing agency for education—the Education Outcomes Fund (EOF) for Africa and the Middle East. Its brazen ideological bent was on full display.

Rather than strengthening and expanding the provision of quality, free, universally accessible public education for all in countries where increased public financing for education is desperately needed, the EOF would exclusively fund non-state actors, including for-profit companies. Not only would it be a market creation scheme for private actors, it would also guarantee returns for investors by transferring tax-payer funded aid into the pockets of corporations and individuals.

The news of the possible creation of this agency triggered outraged responses from teachers in potentially affected countries. Education unions in Ethiopia, Kenya, South Africa, Uganda, Nigeria, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Morocco, Egypt, Tunisia, Lebanon and Palestine condemned the move.

Alarmed to learn that the focus of this fund would be on non-state actors, they rightly described that the EOF would “contribute to the commercialization and commodification of education and legitimize profit making in the provision of education.”

They highlighted that the promotion by the EOF of schooling models including charter schools and fee charging, so called ‘low-cost’ private schools willfully ignored the research which shows that privatization does not improve access to nor improve outcomes in education, but rather deepens inequality and segregation, denying the right of all children to quality education.

The concerns of teachers in these potentially affected countries also attracted the interest of education unions from the UK, USA, Brazil, Spain, Australia, Argentina, Germany and New Zealand. In statements of solidarity, they described as “deplorable” the EOF’s intention to transfer tax-payer funds intended for the well-being of children to private investors who seek to profit from education.

Since that time, the concerns associated with this ideological experiment have not been allayed but rather increased.

In a more recent publication, the EOF appears intent to continue, enthusiastically, in its mission to create markets for private actors concerned that their operations are not “stifl[ed] … with restricted funding.” So much for these prophets of the free market!