Interrogating education privatisation in Latin America (Privatisation in Education Research Initiative)

Session Submission Type: Group Panel

Description of Session

Education has long been considered as central to national economic growth and societal development. This was affirmed at the Jomtien and Dakar congress of 1990 and 2000. Strongly humanist in its vision, the Education for All (EFA) framework centralized ideas of equity and social justice as driving purposes for education, and the six goals as a road map for realizing a combined socio-economic vision. Substantial changes, greatly aided by energetic civil society engagement, drove international financing and national policy reforms accordingly. Yet in the last decade critical issues have arisen that demand close scrutiny.

The strong framing of education by economists has become increasingly hegemonic, in part a result of processes broadly conceived of as ‘globalisation’ (Dale and Robertson, 2014). This view draws on Human Capital Theory (see Schultz, 1971) and emphasizes that investments in the education sector are conceptualised as investments in the stock of human capital available to the economy. The key tenets of this reform movement have broadly been shaped by neo-liberal theory, which argues that education systems will be more efficient and effective if they are reorganised using the principles of the free market; those of choice and competition, and publicly available performance information on quality and standards. Further, a distinct dynamic is the idea that education can best be delivered by the private sector, that education systems should operate like private-sector organisations, that private sector organisations are best placed to shape policy and practices for the sector, and that education is itself a consumer good. Nowhere are these assumptions more evident in education than in Chile where, under Pinochet’s dictatorship, the entire education system was restructured along the neo-liberal ideas of Milton Freidman.

These ideas gained increasing traction following the financial meltdown in 2008 since when, following a brief period of stagnation, decreasing Overseas Development Aid (ODA) led to donor and recipient government concerns for greater access to better quality education for less spending per capita. Environmental factors have also been shaped by malfunctioning public school systems and the framing of privatised education by international actors at the apex of the discourse and policy pyramids. Supply factors include the de facto increase in the provision of private schools offering comparatively better learning outcomes than public schools, particularly low-fee charging private schools. Demand factors include the ‘ubiquitous desire’ (Bhatta and Budakhoti 2013) of parents for private education based on perceptions of better quality and accountability and aspirations of upwards social mobility.

Together these factors have driven the increased provision of non-state education, including for-profit private schools, NGO schools, community schools and private tutoring. Configurations of these factors are also driving the increased provision of education Public Private Partnerships (ePPPs); state-private sector arrangements on a range of financing, management and provision services.

The panel will present four papers supported by the Privatisation in Education Research Initiative (PERI) on different variants of private sector engagement in education in Latin America: (1) neo-liberalisation of the education system in Chile; (2) educational PPPs in Colombia; (3) commercial logics in the governance of municipal public education systems in Brazil, and (4) low free private schools in Peru. Together they argue four linked ideas.

First, what is new about these manifestations is their scale, scope and penetration into almost all aspects of education from the administrative apparatus to policy making, and from formal provision in education settings to out-of-school activities, such as private tutoring. Second, what is particularly controversial about these developments is how education itself is being recast; as a sector it is increasingly being opened up to profit making and trade, and to agenda setting by private, commercial interests. Third, the learner is increasingly conceptualised as a consumer, and education a consumer good. Fourth, increased maketisation and privatization has been accompanied by increased segregation in education as well as economic inequality.

These papers enable us to reflect more deeply on how different forms of the private in education alter what is at stake, for whom, and with what outcomes, and the consequences for individuals and societies in Latin America. In turn, these raise the very important question about what they mean for our conceptualisations of education, learning and teaching, on the one hand, and for education as a site and means for emancipation on the other. Together they ask what privatization trends mean for human-ness, for Ubuntu, in Latin America.

Sub Unit

• SIG: Globalization and Education

Chair

• Ian Macpherson, Open Society Foundations

Individual Presentations

• Neo-liberalisation of education in Chile - Camila Cocina, University College London (UCL)

• Do charter schools really make a difference? The role and impact of Colegios en Concesión in Bogotá - Antoni Verger, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona; Xavier Bonal, Department of Sociology of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB); Andreu Termes, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

• Patterns and consequences of the growth of private education in Peru - Maria Balarin, Grupo de Analisis para el Desarrollo (GRADE)

• Getting down to business - the commodification of education in Sao Paulo, Brazil - Gustavo Paiva, Acao Educaciva