Paper 2: Education as Business and Business of Education

• In Event: The Business of Education – Challenging the economic grip on education

Proposal

Higher education (HE) is arguably one of the hottest sites of protest in education. While all protests are against a perceived injustice, only some of them receive a broader public justification and approval. Protests in HE are generally twofold: Against what HE positively does such as managerial acts and, negatively, against deprivation of fundamental dues such as basic rights and liberties. This paper focuses on the former. As a part of an ongoing collaborative research on ‘Business of Education,’ this presentation starts by considering the field of educational administration/management as a community of diverse epistemologies (Park, 2015). The referred ‘Diversity of Epistemologies’ in the field is an asset rather than a liability for further development of education. It then moves on to strategically and semantically differentiate ‘Education as Business’ (B1) from ‘Business of Education’ (B2). The ongoing disconformity about HE and its systemic administration reflects B2 and its underlying neoliberal ideologies as well as their neo-colonial ‘Globalization Project’ (Ginsberg, 2011; Parreira do Amaral & Thompson, 2022). While HE is the education sector under the most intense scrutiny for its sustainability (Barnett, 2017; Savelyeva & Rikards, 2017), B2 seems to be at odds with global/local sustainability. It is further argued that B1 qua education as munera (Lat. task, job) and praxis has always depended on B2 to a certain extent. However, the current situation of B1 as ancillary to B2 is not conducive to ‘Diversity of Epistemologies’ as it exclusively fosters the epistemological hegemon of global neoliberalism. This presentation concludes by returning to the initial discussion on the nature of protest against injustice. Whereas non-justifiable protests are regarded as riots and disturbances, this paper offers a justification to the protests against ‘Business of Education’ (B2) in HE.

Authors

• Jae Park, Education University of Hong Kong

• Tamara Savelyeva, The Hong Kong Institute of Education for Sustainable Development