Session Information
23 SES 04 B, Market Ideas and Practices (Part 2)
Paper Session
Contribution
More and more international aid and philanthropy are no longer ‘donated’ as grants to governments and NGOs but rather are ‘invested’ in edu-businesses and the development of market solutions to educational problems. Business methods and social enterprise initiatives are seen as more effective ways of achieving wider access to and improved quality of education than, it is argued, can be achieved by governments or via traditional aid or charity. The shifts and moves involved here are made up of and driven by a complex set of advocacy networks, business interests, ‘new’ philanthropy, and changes in the form and modalities of the state – that is a transition from government to governance; that is from bureaucracy to networks, from service delivery to target-setting, monitoring and regulation. Each of these elements needs to be attended to in the analysis of the new global education policy paradigm.
In this paper we will analyse two market advocacy networks in education. First, the Clinton Global Initiative was launched in 2005. It plays a key role in creating an infrastructure for market-making and acting as a broker between the different players and interests in the field of education (also health and gender) at its global ‘forums’. The CGI works by brokering ‘commitments’ between funders, donors and providers and has ‘garnered’ 1,950 such commitments valued at $63bn, and established partnerships in 170 countries. CGI claims that because of the efforts of its members ‘more than 110 million children have gained access to better education’ and ‘650,000 people have learned new professional skills’.
Second, “Enterprising Schools” is an initiative of Gray Matters Capital. The central aim of the network is the defence and expansion of the private sector, towards the empowerment of what they call the “Affordable Private Schools”. The network was created as one of the concluding commitments of the “Affordable Private Schools Symposium”, where 40 organisations were listed as participants, including philanthropies, businesses, microfinance banks, the Ghana Ministry of Education and Kenya Independent Schools Association. APPS is a fascinating example of the new, complex, and multi-facetted relationships being established in the new education policy arenas.
Such events are sites for advocacy - new ideas and discourse flow, and influence and involvement spreads - but are also opportunities for building relationships – sponsorship, investment, partnerships, joint-ventures etc. – which feed into educational programmes, projects and initiatives in developing countries. All these bring together philanthropies, charity and commercial banks, private equity, commercial providers, social enterprises and governments and are producing a new generation of multi-national education businesses, some with diverse involvements in educational services and products.
Research Questions:
- What is the nature and extent of policy change arising from the deployment of these new ‘solutions’ to entrenched educational problems?
- How do these for-profit initiatives work? How are ‘commitments’ developed, and how do they move from talk into practice?
- What kinds of relationships facilitate and develop in relation to the commitments?
- What is the scale and scope and what are the methods of the new edu-businesses?
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Ball, S. J. (2007) Education Plc: Private Sector Participation in Public Sector Education. London, Routledge. Ball, S. J. (2008) “New Philanthropy, New Networks and New Governance in Education” Political Studies, 56 (4), pp. 747-765. Ball, S. J. (2009) “Privatizing education, privatizing education policy, privatizing educational research: network governance and the ‘competition state”, Journal of Education Policy, 24 (1), pp. 83-100. Ball, S. J. (2010) “New States, New Governance and New Education Policy” in M. Apple, S.J. Ball and L.A. Gandin (Eds.) The Routledge International Handbook of the Sociology of Education. Abingdon, Routledge. Bermingham, D. (2009) “We Don't Need No Education? Why the United States Should Take the Lead on Global Education”, retrieved from http://www.cgdev.org/files/1421215_file_Bermingham_Global_Education_FINAL.pdf (accessed 14/10/2010) Geo-Jaja, M. A. (2004). Decentralisation And Privatisation Of Education In Africa: Which Option For Nigeria? International Review of Education, 50(3), 307-323. Kendall, N. (2007). Education for All Meets Political Democratization: Free Primary Education and the Neoliberalization of the Malawian School and State. Comparative Education Review, 51(3), 281-305. Nambissan, G. & Ball, S.J. (2010) “Advocacy networks, choice and schooling of the poor in India”, Global Networks. 10 (3), pp. 1-20. Olmedo, A. & Santa Cruz, E. (2010) “Dynamics of privatization in and of public education: the implementation of the quasi-market model in Spain”. Paper presented at the European Conference on Educational Research, Helsinki, Finland. Mehrotra, S. & Panchamukhi, R. (2006) “Private provision of elementary education in India: findings of a survey in eight states”, Compare, 36 (4), pp. 421–442. Rose, P. and Adelabu, M. (2007). Private sector contributions to Education for All in Nigeria. In Srivastava, P. and Walford, G. Private Schooling in Less Economically Developed Countries: Asian and African Perspectives. Symposium Books, Oxford. Sarangapani, P. and Winch, C. (2010) “Tooley, Dixon and Gomathi on private education in Hyderabad: a reply”, Oxford Review of Education, 36: 4, pp. 499-515.
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