Towards a Political Economy of Education

The global education landscape is changing rapidly. The last few decades have witnessed shifts in at least four major areas. First, there has been a growing trend of liberalization, marketization, commercialization, and privatization of educational markets, and the penetration of market dialogue into debates on education. The liberalization of most markets has also called for a rethinking of the role of the government and the private sector in many areas, especially those that were traditionally taken to be the domain of the government.

Second, fiscal pressures on lending and borrowing governments, intensified by the persisting global economic crisis, have pushed this rethinking and forced the exploration of ways to combine private and public initiatives for ensuring provision in some of the sectors thought to be the responsibility of the state. Non-traditional methods of raising funds for education have been sought and a number of prospective instruments developed.

Third, there has been increasing recognition of the importance of human capital development - and education in particular - for the processes of economic growth and national development. This looks likely to increase, with a growing emphasis on Technical and Vocational Education by international organizations, development banks, and bilateral donors. The sharper focus between education and the workplace through human capital development results as much from dissatisfaction with the basic education agenda as the perceived need for increasing economic growth and national development.

Fourth, there continues to be recognition of education as a right of every child, at least up to the secondary level. Demands for economic and social justice usually provide the justification for ensuring provision even in cases where education might not be taken as a basic right. International commitments such as the ‘Education for All’ goals and the MDGs are examples of such thinking, while nationally the change of educational rights from non-justiciable sections of a constitution to the basic rights sections highlights the traction of rights-based dialogue at national levels.

Research does exist that addresses each major trend, yet very little is undertaken that explores the extent and manner in which they fit together. Additionally, while non-traditional funding instruments have been developed, they have not been piloted nor has there been critical scrutiny outside of the tight circles that developed them. Nor does research seem to exist on the implications of the confluence for financing, education governance, and the organization of service delivery in education across the world. Further, there is a lacuna of inquiry into the social justice implications of these converging trends. Further still, the scant analysis is not widely available or utilized in such a way that informs a debate among education decision-makers – including policymakers, practitioners, and academics.

This course aims to bring together original thinking, internationally renowned academics at the top of their field, state-of-the-art research, and original web-based resources into critical debates on education financing and privatization in and of education in its different forms.

The summer school will run two concurrent streams. One will be on Regionalisation, Globalisation, and Privatisation in Education; the other will be on Innovative Financing Mechanisms for Quality Education. Taken together, the two streams work towards a more comprehensive analysis and exploration of the political economy of education and as such begin to establish a core of durable and useful ideas and debates around education justice and to provide knowledge and examples of how these can be advanced collaboratively and internationally. 

Applicants will be requested to make their choice between the above two streams in the online application system and submit their application to one or the other. If they wish, they can submit a separate application for both streams marking their preference on the Course Ranking Page (page 10) of the online form. The participants for each stream will be different but they will work together on cross-cutting areas.