"The Select Committee might wish to consider placing limits on the capitalisation of education and to explore GATS exemption for education with our EU partners. Both are necessary to avoid business interests corrupting educational goals, purposes and processes."
This is the summary of the paper by Glenn Rikowski, author of "The Battle in Seattle: its implications for education", submitted to the House of Lords economic affairs select committee inquiry into the global economy. Please email me if you want the complete paper Chris Keene Globalisation and Education Glenn Rikowski A paper prepared for the HOUSE OF LORDS SELECT COMMITTEE ON ECONOMIC AFFAIRS INQUIRY INTO THE GLOBAL ECONOMY Summary There are four dimensions to globalisation. The first refers to the cultural effects of the breaking down of barriers through new communications technologies and the rise of standardised, global consumer goods on the one hand, and hybridity and fluidity in cultural forms on the other. The second dimension of globalisation focuses on economic, technological and social developments that undermine the nation-state. It also alerts us to supra-national organisations such as the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank that attempt to regulate relations between states and between corporations and states. The third dimension highlights the fact that it is capital that is globalising. This is occurring through processes of extension, differentiation and intensification. The fourth dimension uncovers the core of globalisation: the value-form of labour that is the basis of the capitalisation of all areas of social life, on a truly global scale. This fundamentally characterises what 'globalisation' is. This is its core. The WTO through one of its key Agreements - the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) - has a particular 'education agenda'. This is to open up education services to corporate capital and international trade. This involves the capitalisation of education: its commodification, its role as a profit-making enterprise and its reformation on the basis of the value-form of labour. This is what globalisation means in relation to education. The UK Government has reacted to the WTO/GATS education agenda by nurturing indigenous 'edubusinesses'. It is hoped that these will be able to compete with foreign edubusinesses when a strengthened GATS operates in 2003. Furthermore, the UK Government in interested in developing the export potential of these edubusinesses. These strategies, together with the tight GATS deadline, explain the rush to open up UK education institutions to corporate capital - schools in particular. The priorities and imperatives of the GATS have to be translated nationally. A number of organisations, initiatives and policies in our education system function as the national faces of the GATS. They function to open up education to business penetration. In effect, they are GATS enablers and facilitators. In relation to schools, these national faces include Ofsted, the Private Finance Initiative, competitive tendering and outsourcing, new types of schools, and a de-regulatory framework that nurtures edubusinesses (e.g. the Education Bill). On the basis of the above analysis, the commercialisation, privatisation (indirect) and capitalisation of education are our future. This is the logic of educational development when subjected to capitalist globalisation sponsored by supra-national bodies and actively encouraged by Governments in developed nations. The Select Committee might wish to consider placing limits on the capitalisation of education and to explore GATS exemption for education with our EU partners. Both are necessary to avoid business interests corrupting educational goals, purposes and processes. 28th January 2002 -- Chris Keene, Coordinator, Anti-Globalisation Network "Defending Democracy against Corporate Rule" 90 The Parkway, Canvey Island, Essex SS8 0AE, England Tel 01268 682820 Fax 01268 514164 ------------------------------------------- Macdonald Stainsby http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/rad-green http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international "They are all Enron, we are all Argentina" --WEF protesters. ---- In the contradiction lies the hope. --Bertholt Brecht _______________________________________________ Leninist-International mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
