Sweden has during a long time gone through a change to a higher rate of private providers in welfare services. Due to this change the Swedish government, in 2013, conducted an investigation regarding the monitoring of private providers. The investigation presented a suggestion of a new law to encourage municipalities to have a more structured monitoring. The investigation also proclaimed a need to investigate further how the law could include even the services provided by the municipalities themselves. The investigation saw a need to make the law more neutral between the both forms of providers. The purpose of this paper is to compare the two municipalities Linköping and Eskilstuna and the presence of the Act on System of Choice in the Public Sector and how that affect the monitoring and evaluation of the home care services that is provided by the municipalities themselves. The method chosen for this paper is a comparative case study. In both cases people with central professions have been interviewed and documents related to monitoring have been studied. Given this material, an analysis and a discussion about the results have been made. The conclusion of this is that there is a difference in the monitoring and evaluation of home care service between the both municipalities. The results indicate that the municipality with a higher rate of private providers have a more thorough and structured monitoring of both private providers and the services provided by the municipality itself. The municipality which have had only one private provider in home care services do not use the same material for monitoring both private and municipal providers.

American parents have a myriad of choices when it comes to educating their children, and these choices begin in the very beginning stages of children’s educational journey. Where parents decide to have their child spend their early formative years can have far-reaching implications for that child’s future. The focus of this research was to examine if a difference exists in kindergarten readiness preparation offered by Voluntary Prekindergarten (VPK) providers in the state of Florida. The VPK Provider Kindergarten Readiness Rates of public schools were compared to the VPK Provider Kindergarten Readiness Rates of private learning centers and, more specifically, of Seventh-day Adventist private learning centers. Furthermore, this study was conducted to examine whether a difference exists in the kindergarten readiness between VPK providers in urban and rural counties. This quantitative, non-experimental, causal comparative study explored the Kindergarten Readiness Rates of each of the 5,636 public and private VPK providers in the state of Florida. The Florida Kindergarten Readiness Screener was used to assess the kindergarten readiness level of each student. Individual student scores were tracked to the VPK provider that the students attended in order to assign a Readiness Rate for each provider. This screener consisted of the Early Childhood Observation SystemTM (ECHOSTM) and the Florida Assessments for Instruction in Reading (FAIR). A one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was utilized to examine significant differences between public school, private, and Seventh-day Adventist providers. The ANOVA was followed by a Scheffe post-hoc test to determine where differences iv occurred. The findings revealed that there existed a statistically significant difference in the means of public school and private VPK providers. Public school providers were found to have achieved higher Provider Kindergarten Readiness Rates than private providers. It was also found that though Seventh-day Adventist providers had a slightly lower average Provider Kindergarten Readiness Rate than public school providers and a slightly higher average than other private providers, this difference was not statistically significant. A two-way factorial ANOVA was performed to examine if significant differences existed in the average Provider Kindergarten Readiness Rate when considering both the type of community (urban or rural) where the provider was located and the type of provider (public or private). The findings indicated that there was no statistically significant difference in Provider Readiness Rate when examining the interaction between the provider type and community type.

Quality assurance has been a vexed and troubled journey for private providers in South Africa in a complex and burdensome educational environment. It is well recognised that private providers are significant role-players in the provision of education and training in South Africa and the stated intention is to create a more enabling regulatory framework The focus of this thesis is on the private providers at the post-school level. The quality assurance regime was examined and contextualised to analyse what is required, and to determine how the private provider is impacted by the regulatory requirements for the establishment and operation of a private tuition provider in South Africa. The experience of private providers, CEOs of professional bodies, ETQA managers and ETD practitioners was investigated using a mixed methods research approach. The conclusion is a call for a far more streamlined system with a centralised oversight body, greater stakeholder consultation, less political interference and a deeper appreciation for the contribution that private providers make to the education of learners in South Africa. / Educational Leadership and Management / D. Ed. (Education Management)

Quality assurance has been a vexed and troubled journey for private providers in South Africa in a complex and burdensome educational environment. It is well recognised that private providers are significant role-players in the provision of education and training in South Africa and the stated intention is to create a more enabling regulatory framework The focus of this thesis is on the private providers at the post-school level. The quality assurance regime was examined and contextualised to analyse what is required, and to determine how the private provider is impacted by the regulatory requirements for the establishment and operation of a private tuition provider in South Africa. The experience of private providers, CEOs of professional bodies, ETQA managers and ETD practitioners was investigated using a mixed methods research approach. The conclusion is a call for a far more streamlined system with a centralised oversight body, greater stakeholder consultation, less political interference and a deeper appreciation for the contribution that private providers make to the education of learners in South Africa. / Educational Leadership and Management / D. Ed. (Education Management)