The real roots of education deform across the globe & in the US: free trade agreements made without popular consultation, input or knowledge: completely tyrannical & undemocratic.
The Global Assault on Teaching , Teachers, and Their Unions
If you want to understand what is happening to education across the globe in the face of privatisation and marketisation this book is indispensable...
Compton and Weiner
explain how the global neoliberal assault on public education is the direct result of policies driven by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organisation. In order to sign up to the General Agreement on Trade and Services, for example, countries are forced to open up their social welfare and education systems to direct and indirect privatisation... http://www.socialistreview.org.uk/article.php?articlenumber=10553The General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) is a round of international trade
negotiations by members of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) aimed at liberalising the
world trading system.
Intending to cover professional services such as architecture and
financial services,
GATS also proposes to liberalise social services, including health and
education. This is, in part, recognition of growth in the international trade in education
services which has already been taking place in recent years, particularly at higher levels.
Under the GATS rules, a nation state that has “committed” its education sector (or part
thereof) cannot discriminate in favour of national service providers...Due to its distinctive public role, the inclusion of education in GATS is proving controversial...
For example, under GATS, national education service providers may have to compete with transnational providers with implications for the integrity and future development of national education, training and accreditation systems. At the level of higher education, critics highlight
implications for academic freedom, intellectual property rights and the future of research and
knowledge production.www.pucminas.br/.../DOC_DSC_NOME_ARQUI20060214115158.pdf
The World Bank and the Commercialization of Higher Education
The commercialization of the higher education is basically carried out as part of the “Washington Consensus”, which includes as one of its features,
the privatization of public universities. According to Santos, this has been a two-stage process. The first from the 1980s to 1990 aimed at the expansion and consolidation of a national market for higher education. Once such a “national market” developed, the second stage, from 1990 on, centered on stimulating the creation of a “transnational” market on higher education, under US-European dominated World Trade Organization and of course, the World Bank.
In this context, higher education is defined and treated exclusively as a mercantile operation.By 1998, when the “second stage” was well underway,
the WB published a report; “The Financing and Administration of Superior Education” which laid out an agenda for educational “reform”... the report calls for its privatization, deregulation and “orientation by the market”.Looking at the demand side of the phenomenon, the financing of higher education acquires a peculiar connotation. This has to do, in the Bank’s own words, with the fact that “…when the government shifts cost to the students, it must introduce a parallel system of financial assistance”.15 Thus, the WB Report proposes these specific steps:
1.The introduction of substantial increases in registration costs
2.Charging full fees for room and board
3.The introduction of mechanisms to investigate economic resources of students applying for grants and loans.
4.Loans for students based on market interests rates
5.The improvement of the students’ loan payments by subcontracting private companies.
6.Implementation of a graduation fee imposed on all students.
7.Promotion of philanthropy to establish foundations for direct operation of universities or to grant scholarships to students.
8.Improving the quality of education by entrepreneurial training.
9.Offering for sale, research projects findings, training courses and all university services by means of concession agreements (multiple service agreements) or by subsidies.
10.Increasing the number of private institutions with a progressive decrease in public education.
http://www.jceps.com/index.php?pageID=article&articleID=44The thrust of international policy behind the phenomenon of economic globalization is neoliberal in nature. Being hugely profitable to corporations and the wealthy elite, neoliberal polices are propagated through the IMF, World Bank and WTO. Neoliberalism favours the free-market as the most efficient method of global resource allocation. Consequently it favours large-scale, corporate commerce and the privatization of resources.
The General Agreement on Trade and Services (GATS) was agreed at the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1994. Its aim is to remove any restrictions and internal government regulations that are considered to be "barriers to trade".
The agreement effectively abolishes a government’s sovereign right to regulate subsidies and provide essential national services on behalf of its citizens...
Of great concern is the recent privatization of education. The US education system is valued at around £800 billion, and it is estimated that 10% of this will be in corporate hands within the next 8 years. In the UK, 59 learning academies are replacing existing schools, most under direct sponsorship from the corporate community who provide substantial donations to the government. All these academies “give sponsors and governors broader scope and responsibility for ethos, strategic direction and challenge”. As a result, they have a substantial emphasis on business, enterprise and commerce, and are not accountable to the public in the same manner as ordinary schools.
This is just one example of the corporate takeover of public services in the UK as part of the Private Finance Initiative (PFI).
Government spin has ensured that the PFI is never referred to as privatization, although it plainly hands over substantial control of public services and resources in exchange for corporate financial aid.The ultimate goal of neoliberal economic globalization is the removal of all barriers to commerce, and the privatization of all available resources and services. In this scenario, public life will be at the mercy of volatile market forces, and the extracted profits will benefit the few.
The major failures of these policies are now common knowledge. Many countries, particularly in Latin America, are now openly defying the foreign corporate rule that was forced upon them by the international financial institutions. In these countries, economic ideologies based on competition and self interest are gradually being replaced by policies based on cooperation and the sharing of resources. Changing well-established political and economic structures is a difficult challenge, but pressure for justice is bubbling upward from the public. Change is crucial if the global public is to manage the essentials for life and ensure that all people have access to them as their human right.
http://www.stwr.org/globalization/neoliberalism-and-economic-globalization.html March 2007:
III. STATUS OF THE U.S. OFFER ON HIGHER EDUCATION
The educational services sector includes higher education and four other educational areas: (1) primary, (2) secondary, (3) adult (covering education for adults outside the regular education system), and (4) other (covering all other education services not covered in the other categories, but excluding those related to recreation matters).A. The Initial U.S. Offer on Higher Education Services (2003)
The United States made its first offer on higher education services in March 2003. This offer contained specific language about which ACE has voiced its continuing concerns, particularly the possibility that public and private higher education institutions could be subject to differential treatment pursuant to the GATS. However, the offer also addressed many of the concerns that ACE and the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) expressed to the USTR in meetings in early 2003...
ACE seeks to avoid trade agreements that cause WTO members to begin challenging U.S. federal and state laws, regulations, practices, or policies of higher education institutions, if a U.S. offer on higher education services becomes a binding U.S. WTO commitment...
B. The Revised U.S. Offer on Higher Education Services (2005)
The United States submitted revised offers in the GATS negotiations on May 31, 2005, including one on higher education services. Although USTR has not made the revised offers publicly available, the offer related to higher education was attached to a 2006 report released by Public Citizen...
The revised U.S. offer incorporates several of ACE’s recommendations to USTR intended to protect fundamental features of the U.S. higher education system from interference stemming from the GATS...
The revised U.S. offer does little, however, to protect the autonomy of U.S. institutions of higher education from potential challenges under the GATS....
...this footnote to the revised U.S. offer simply does not safeguard important features of U.S. higher education from potential WTO challenges as a result of the GATS. Important practices of U.S. colleges and universities could still be at risk from GATS challenges if the revised U.S. offer becomes effective...http://www.acenet.edu/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Intl&Template=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentFileID=2806PRIVATE EDUCATION SERVICES
Further to paragraphs 25 through 27 of the Hong Kong Ministerial Declaration, and in accordance with paragraphs 7 and 11 (b) of Annex C of the Hong Kong Ministerial Declaration, the Mission of New Zealand is pleased to present the delegation of
with a collective request in private education services on behalf of the following interested Members: Australia, Chinese Taipei, Malaysia and the United States.
This request identifies specific objectives for private education liberalization, while recognizing the flexibilities provided for individual developing country Members in accordance with Article XIX.2 of the GATS. The aforementioned interested Members are also deemed to be recipients of this request...
ATTACHMENT 1
How to commit private education services while protecting policy sensitivities
(i)Private, not public education
The requesting members recognise that education does, and should, enjoy a special status in society. We recognise that most members provide some form of public, or state education, and that for various reasons, some members do not wish to make commitments in this area.
For this reason, the requesting members only request that members make commitments in private education, which by its nature, is already open to foreign investment in many members. For this reason, many members are therefore comfortable, in principle, with making commitments in private education services, as it simply entails maintaining existing levels of market access and national treatment.
(ii) The problem: the futile search for a universal definition of “public” and “private”
However, the requesting members recognise that many members have been reluctant to make such commitments because of the perceived difficulty in crafting a commitment in private education only. The perceived need to use the terms “private” and “public” to define what is “private” or “public” has created particular concern for some members.
However, it is not necessary to define or even use the terms ‘private’ or ‘public’ in order for a member to avoid committing what it considers to be public education.
(iii) The solution: treat education like any other sector that has both public and private dimensions and describe, using domestic structures, what you do and do not wish to commit
The requesting members certainly do not suggest any such definition for use in a schedule.
This would be unworkable: we recognise that what is considered “public education” and “private” differs between members. Therefore, the co-sponsors simply suggest that members treat education like any other service in which they do not wish to commit the full sector, and use the sectoral column to describe, based on their own country’s circumstances, that part of education services they wish to commit. There is no need to attempt to find a universally accepted definition of public and private and to use these terms to make a commitment. For example, one Member has simply excluded educational institutions that have government equity or which receive government assistance, as not falling within the scope of private education...
http://www.citizen.org/documents/Plurilateral_451_2_78798%5B1%5D.pdf
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