Privatisation of education

Question 1

What is privatisation?

Answer 1

Privatisation refers to the drive to make schools and colleges operate more like independent private businesses, such as managing their own affairs and competing with other schools through systems like league tables.

Question 2

What does Ball and Youdell distinguish between when considering privatisation.

Answer 2

Ball and Youdell distinguish between:
- Privatisation in education (endogenous privatisation).
- Privatisation of education (exogenous privatisation).

Question 3

What is endogenous privatisation?

Answer 3

Privatisation in education involves schools and colleges operating in similar ways to private independent businesses, including managing their own affairs, competing with other schools for pupils, and using target setting and league tables to measure progress.

Question 4

What is exogenous privatisation?

Answer 4

Privatisation of education refers to the opening up of state education to private businesses who design, manage or deliver education (e.g. privately managed chains of academy schools, private companies taking responsibility for the exam system or ICT companies like Apple and Google providing online curriculum content).

Question 5

What are positives of education?

Answer 5

• Privatisation creates more business-like and efficient schools, leading to raised standards and an increase in the school’s popularity amongst a potential customer base.
• Privatisation provides parents with more choices.

Question 6

What are negatives of education?

Answer 6

• Money might be drained from education and into private profit.
• Privatisation might very well lead to more inequalities in education because schools will want to discourage those children from poorer and disadvantaged families who might threaten the schools league position.