The Privatisation of Education

Question 1

What does privatisation of education involve?

Answer 1

• The transfer of public assets, like schools to private companies.
• In recent years, there’s been a trend towards the privatisation of important aspects of education, both in the UK and globally.
• In the process, education becomes a source of profit for capitalist in what Ball called the ‘Education services industry’ (ESI)

Question 2

How are private companies involved in education?

Answer 2

Private companies in the ESI increase the range of activities in education, including building schools; providing supply teachers, careers advice and Ofsted inspection

Question 3

What is the blurring the public/private boundary?

Answer 3

• Senior officials (directors of local authorities and head teachers) now leave to set up or work in the private sector.
• Pollack (2004) notes this flow of personnel allows companies to buy ‘insider knowledge’ to help with contracts and side-stepping authority democracy

Question 4

Describe globalisation and privatisation of education policy

Answer 4

• Many private companies in the education services industry are foreign-owned. Edexcel is owned by the US educational publishing and testing giant Pearson and according to Ball some Pearson GCSs exam answers are now marked in Sydney and Iowa.
• But some UK edu-businesses work overseas, e.g. Prospects has worked in China, Macedonia and Finland. Often, private companies are exporting UK education policy to other countries (Ofsted-type inspections) and provide services to deliver the polices.
• Nation-states become less important in policymaking, which is shifting to a global level and which is also often privatised

Question 5

What is cola-isation of schools?

Answer 5

Private sectors penetrates education indirectly e.g. through vending machines on school premises and the development of brand loyalty through displaces of logos and sponsorships

Question 6

Why are schools targeted by private companies?

Answer 6

Molnar (2005) argues that ‘schools by nature carry enormous goodwill and can thus confer legitimacy on anything associated with them.’ They’re a kind of product endorsement

Question 7

What are the disadvantages of schools and pupils going into the private sector?

Answer 7

According to Ball, a Cadbury’s sport equipment promotion was scrapped after it was revealed pupils would have to eat 5,440 chocolate bars to quality for a set of volleyball posts.

Question 8

What does Ball conclude about education as a commodity?

Answer 8

• Privatisation is becoming a key factor shaping education policy.
• Policy is focused on moving educational services out of the public sector controlled by the state, to be provided by private companies.
• In the process, education is being turned into a ‘legitimate object of private profit-making’, a commodity to be bought and sold in an education market

Question 9

What is a Marxists view on privatisation of education?

Answer 9

• Marxists like Hall see Coalition government policies as part of the ‘long march of the neoliberal revolution’
• Hall sees academies as handing over public services to private capitalists (educational businesses)
• In Marxist view, the neoliberal claim that privatisation and competition drive up standards is a myth used to legitimate the turning of education into a source of private profit

Question 10

Describe the impact of educational policy on gender

Answer 10

• In the 19c, females were largely excluded from higher education.
• More recently, under the tripartite system, girls often had to achieve a higher mark than boys in the 11+ in order to obtain a grammar school place.
• Since the 1970s, however, polices like GIST have tried to reduce gender differences in subject

Question 11

Describe assimilation polices as raising ethnic minority achievement

Answer 11

In the 1960s and 70s they focused on the need for pupils from minority ethnic groups to assimilation into mainstream British culture as a way of raising achievement, especially for those whose first language wasn’t English

Question 12

What are criticisms of assimilation polices?

Answer 12

Some minority group who are at risk of underachieving, such as African Caribbeans, already speak English and that the real cause of their underachievement lies in poverty or racism

Question 13

Describe multicultural education as raising ethnic minority achievement

Answer 13

MCE polices through the 1980s and 90s aimed to promote the achievements of ethnic minority children by valuing all cultures in the school curriculum, thereby raising minority pupils’ self-esteem and achievement

Question 14

What are criticisms of MCE?

Answer 14

• Stone argues that black pupils don’t fail due to lack of self-esteem, so MCE is misguided
• Critical race theorists argue that MCE is mere tokenisms. Picks out stereotypical features of minority cultures for inclusion in the curriculum, but fails to tackle institutional racism
• The NR criticise for MCE for perpetuating cultural divisions. They take the view that education should promote a shared national culture and identity into which minorities should assimilated

Question 15

Describe social inclusion polices as raising ethnic minority achievement

Answer 15

• Social inclusion of pupils from minority ethnic groups
• Detailed monitoring of exam results by ethnicity
• Amending to Race Relations Act to place a legal duty on schools to promote racial equality
• Help for voluntary ‘Saturday schools’ in the black community
• English as an Additional Language programmes

Question 16

What are criticisms of educational polity tackling ethnic differences?

Answer 16

• Mirza sees little change in policy. She argues that, instead of tackling the structural causes of ethnic inequality such as poverty and racisms, educational policy takes a ‘soft’ approach that focuses on culture, behaviour and the home
• Gillborn argues that institutionally racist polices, in relation to ethnocentric curriculum, assessment and streaming continue to disadvantage minority ethnic groups