Growing private-sector participation in basic education service delivery in many developing countries has led to calls for greater partnership arrangements with the public sector to improve access for poor and disadvantaged groups. In Ghana there is some interest in forging closer public–private partnerships to improve access for children who have been out of mainstream education or have difficulty accessing public schools. By examining three examples of non-state provision that have had links with the public sector to improve access, this paper evaluates the impact of such partnerships to draw lessons for policy and practice. An important conclusion the paper draws is that for public–private partnerships that serve the needs of disadvantaged groups to work, it is important that they take into account both the diversity and context-specific educational access needs of the groups concerned.