ABSTRACT
Private sector involvement in education is not something new. In our previous work we have sought to map and categorize the participation of business in public sector education at a national level (Ball 2007) and the increasing role of business, social enterprise, and philanthropy in education service delivery and education policy at a global level (Ball 2012). In this chapter, we revisit the financescape of global edu-business, with particular attention to the role of venture capital and private equity investment, in order to account for its relation to educational opportunities and education policy. In order to illustrate the changing nature of investment in education, we map the emergence of specialized players in the education investment sector. We then focus our analysis on the Pearson Aordable Learning Fund (PALF) as a case in point of developmental investment in the sector, drawing upon secondary sources as well as data from interviews conducted as part of a Leverhulme Trust-funded study on new philanthropy, education policy and governance.1
