In Low-fee Private Schooling and Poverty in Developing Countries Joanna Härmä draws on primary research carried out in Sub-Saharan African countries and in India to show how the poor are being failed by both government and private schools. The primary research is combined with additional examples from around the world to offer a wide perspective on the issue of marketized education, low-fee private schooling and government systems. Härmä offers a pragmatic approach to a divisive and ideologically-driven issue and shows how the well-intentioned international drive towards ‘education for all’ is being encouraged and even imposed long before some countries have prepared the teachers and developed the systems needed to implement it successfully. Arguing that governments need to take a much more rational and constructive approach to the issue, Härmä argues for a greater acceptance of the challenges, abandoning ideological positions and a scaling back of ambition in the hope of laying stronger foundations for educational development.