The construction and expansion of the global education industry

• In Event: The Global Education Industry (1): Corporations and philanthropies setting education agendas

Abstract

This paper examines the rise of the global education industry both in OECD countries and in developing countries. Education is a very broad sector that faces an increasing and variegated global demand at many levels. This makes of education an increasingly appealing sector to a range of business actors and services providers, including transnational corporations, consultancy firms, corporate foundations, international schools and universities, and financial agencies. The political and economic activities of this amalgam of actors, despite not being necessarily coordinated, contributes to construct education as a market sector. The construction of education as a market sector is an economic project with clear political and cultural connotations. To advance such a project, business-based agents with the collaboration of a range of state actors and international organizations need to, on the one hand, advance more market-oriented governance structures and norms in the education sector and, on the other, generate new profitable educational services and/or transform traditionally decommodified services into profitable ones.
The paper develops these arguments by looking at three different levels of engagement between global business and education. They are, first, the role of corporations and philanthropies in the governance of education and in the configuration of education agendas. Second, the role of corporate actors, and especially consultancy firms, in selling educational reforms to governments, but also in setting education standards to which governmental reforms will need to accommodate. Third, the role of the global education industry in constructing and occupying new market niches which are increasingly supplied across-borders, including, teacher training services, ICT certification, or knowledge transfer programmes.

Authors

• Antoni Verger, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

• Gita Steiner-Khamsi, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Christopher Lubienski, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign