5.5 Privatisation of Education

Question 1

Privatisation

Answer 1

• Involves the transfer of public assets such as schools to private companies.

Question 2

Privatisation’s impact on education

Answer 2

• education becomes a source of profit for capitalists in what Ball calls the ‘education services industry’

Question 3

How do private companies in the ESI intervene in the education system?

Answer 3

• Building schools
• Providing teachers
• Ofsted inspection services

Question 4

Ball (2007)

Answer 4

• Companies involved in such work expect to make us 10x as much profit as they do on other contracts.
• However, local authorities are often obliged to enter these agreements due to lack of funding by central government.

Question 5

Blurring the public/private boundary

Answer 5

• Many senior officials in the pubic sector now leave to set up or work for private sector education businesses.
• These companies then bid for contracts to provide services to schools and local authorities.
• 2 companies set up in this way hold 4/5 of the national contracts for school inspection services.

Question 6

Pollock (2004)

Answer 6

This flow of personnel allows companies to but insider knowledge to help win contracts, as well as side-stepping local authority democracy.

Question 7

Foreign owned companies in ESI

Answer 7

Pearson: US educational publishing and testing giant owns Edexcel (Ball: some Pearson exam answers are now marked in Sydney and Iowa)
Buckingham and Scanlon (2005): The UK’s four leading educational software companies are all owned by global multinationals such as Disney.