EDUCATION: Privatisation and globalisation Flashcards
Define privatisation
The transfer of industries previously owned by the state to ownership of private businesses, who run them to make profit
Privatisation - pros
- cons
PROS: The UK spends approximately £90b on education, but with privatisation that number would go down.
- increased competition between schools and driven up standards
CONS: a narrowing of the curriculum might be the result – with more of an emphasis on maths and less of an emphasis on critical humanities subjects which aren’t as profitable.
- cola-isation of schools (Ball)
- increasing inequality of educational provision as private companies cherry pick the best schools to take over and leave the worst schools under Local Education Authority Control.
Define exogenous privatisation
Examples
Privatisation from outside
- Setting up academies
- Building and maintaining school buildings
Define endogenous privatisation
What does this basically mean?
Examples
Privatisation within the education system
Privatisation within education refers to the introduction of FREE-MARKET principles into the day to day running of schools. This is basically MARKETISATION.
- Linking school funding to success rates (formula funding)
- Making schools compete for pupils so they become like businesses
Ball (ESI)
- What
- What examples are there for involvement of private companies in the ESI
- Education Service Industry
- What Ball calls the process where eduction becomes a source of profit for capitalists
- Building schools
- Providing supply teachers
- OFSTED inspection services
Ball (ESI)
- What
- What examples are there for involvement of private companies in the ESI
- Education Service Industry
- What Ball calls the process where eduction becomes a source of profit for capitalists
- Building schools
- Providing supply teachers
- OFSTED inspection services
Many of these activities are very profitable
Ball (PPP’s)
- What
- Public Private Partnership
- Private companies provide capital to design, build, finance and operate educational services.
- Companies involved in this work expect to make up 10x
as much profit as they do on other contracts (so they are very profitable) - But, Local authorities are often obliged to enter into these agreement as the only way of building new schools because of a lack of funding by central government
Blurring the public / private boundary
- What
- Pollack
When teachers/ senior officials in the public sector leave work to set up work fro private sectors
- These private sectors bid for contracts to produce services to schools
POLLACK: This flow of personnel allows companies to buy ‘insider knowledge’ to help win contracts, as well as side-stepping local authority democracy
Privatisation in education
- Many private companies are… (Example)
- Buckingham + Scanlon
- How do contracts work in privatisation and globalisation
- Exporting education policy and what results from this
- ‘Foreign owned’ (Edexcel is owned by the US)
BUCKINGHAM + SCANLON: Said the UK’s 4 leading educational software companies are owned by global munitions
- Contracts are sold on by the original company to others like banks and investment funds. They are then bought by private sectors.
In globalisation these are bought by overseas companies - Private companies often export education policy to other countries and then provide the services to deliver the policies
Result = nation-states are becoming less important in policymaking, shifting yo a global level which is also often privatised
Cola-isation of schools
- What
- How
- Molnar
- Ball
- Beder
WHAT: When schools are targeted by private companies because they are kind of product support
HOW: Vending machines in school, and the development of brand loyalty through displays of logos and sponsorships
MOLNAR: Schools are targeted by companies because ‘by nature, they carry enormous goodwill and can thus confer legitimacy on anything associated with them = they are a kind of product endorsement
BALL: A Cadbury sports equipment promotion was scrapped after pupils would have to eat 5,440 chocolate bars just to qualify for setting up of volleyball posts
BEDER: UK families spent £110,000 in Tesco supermarkets in return for a single computer in school
Education as a commodity
- Ball
- Marxist Hall
- Marxism
BALL: policies are increasingly focused on moving education services out of the public sector, to be privatised
In the process, education is becoming a ‘legitimate object of private profit-making’, a community to be brought and sold in education market
MARXIST HALL: See coalition gov. policies as part of the ‘long march of the neoliberal revolution’.
Sees academies as an example of hanging over public services to private capitalists
MARXISM: The Neoliberal claim that privatisation and competition drive up standards is a myth to legitimate the turning to education into a source for private profit
Great impacts of globalisation on education
8
- Multi-culturalism: Migration into he Uk leading to the development of a more inclusive and diverse curriculum
- Variety of schools and marketisation: Free schools and academies influenced by Sweden and US.
Increased marketisation of British schools overseas and academy trust opening chains as the desire for Western education grows - International rankings: PISA league tables rank countries according to how well pupils’ score on English and maths tests
- University entrance: Increased foreign students to fill gaps in higher education.
Unis setting up causes globally to capitalise on desire for Western education - British values and PREVENT: Growing globalisation has led to anti-Western feeling = reinforcing social solidarity through BV and challenging possible terrorism through PREVENT in schools
- Changes to teaching and learning assessment: More emphasis on collaborative teaching and learning activities influence by international research
- Changes to curriculum: Focusing on languages, history and teaching English as an additional language
- Skills for global economy: Led to students needing more skills to be able to compete in the global market
Impact of globalisation in the Uk education system and attainment
- Schools: Sweden, US impacted free schools and academies
- Rise of technology: challenges traditional schooling and means changes to the curriculum to create skilled, adaptable workers
- Multiculturalism: All schools teach about 6 world religions, and there are many faith schools
- Transnational corporations: Make a profit providing services like curriculums and online learning materials to the government
- Competition: Increased competition abroad, meaning students today have to stay in education for longer (evident by the increasing age to legally leave school/ encouragement to go uni)
Unskilled factory jobs now moved abroad = British workers need to be better educated to get jobs at all
What are some criticisms of globalisation
- Limited range of subjects
- Cultural differences between nations
- Validity and reliability of testing
- Expensive and often policies are short lived