Globalisation and its
impact on Funding Education
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On the role of
the private sector
in education, the research question regarding the relative advantages
and
disadvantages of private versus public schooling was often framed in
terms of:
do children in private schools have a current learning or future wage
advantage
than those in public schools? However, the overwhelming
historical evidence
is that neither in industrialised countries nor in contemporary
high-achieving
developing ones did the private sector play a predominant role in
universalising schooling. In fact World Bank (1986) had
argued strongly for
encouraging the expansion of non-government schools, suggesting, "in
(government) schools resources are not being used as efficiently as
they might
be, (a) problem reinforced by the lack of competition between schools"
[cited in Jones 1992]. The WB’s Education Sector Strategy
1999 noted that
one of the drivers of change in the education sector was that
public/private
roles were changing, the state was no longer the only provider, and
that
increasingly there were in education a spectrum of providers – private
for-profit, private not-for-profit, and community-level organisations.
…In
fact, in
- Human
Capital or Human Development? Search for a
Knowledge Paradigm for Education and Development, Santosh
Mehrotra,
Economic & Political Weekly, 22/01/2005, [J.ELDOC.N00.22jan05EPW300.html]
- RESISTING
APPROPRIATION AND
DISTORTION OF KNOWLEDGE, ANIL SADGOPAL, THE PEOPLE'S
MOVEMENT, 01/05/2004
N00, [C.ELDOC.N00.01may04tpm4.html]
Globalisation
of Education It
should surprise no one, therefore, that globalisation has both used and
adjusted with the colonial paradigm of appropriating and distorting
people's
knowledge. As this knowledge has been the basis of human development
and
welfare, the purpose of the market forces is clearly to direct people's
mindsets and creative activities to achieve its cynical objectives. Let
us
recall the Macauleyan emphasis in early nineteenth century on
controlling and
re-orienting higher education in colonial
..It may be
noted that external
aid flowed in
- RESISTING
APPROPRIATION AND
DISTORTION OF KNOWLEDGE, ANIL SADGOPAL, THE PEOPLE'S
MOVEMENT, 01/05/2004
N00, [C.ELDOC.N00.01may04tpm4.html]
The Left
parties appear to have scared
Arjun Singh off his proposal to woo foreign direct investment in
education. “After seeing the reaction of the Left, I am
having
doubts," the human resource devel-opment minister said at a
ne-ws
conference today. He indi-cated that he has not abandon-ed the idea but
is
nervous about attracting the Left's wrath. Soon after he took over,
Singh had
said, at least thrice, that he wanted to get FDI for the cash-starved
education
se-ctor. In a BBC interview, he said the ministry would like
to explore the possibility
of invi-ting foreign investment in pri-mary and higher education.
But he
had said this during the early days of the Congress-led
government, before
finance minister P. Chidambaram presented his budget with the proposal
to
increase the FDI ceiling in telecom, civil avia-tion and insurance that
sent
the Left up the warpath. Singh was then optimistic about the Left
taking a
"prag-matic" stand. He said he was "sure" they would be
amen-able to a discussion. But the row over Chidambaram's proposals has
come as
a warning. Left leaders have made it plain that there can be
no question of
allowing FDI in education. When the minister had first come up with the
pro-posal, the PFs D. Raja said: "Singh's priority must be to
increase allocation in educa-tion and not to look for FDI.
There is no
question of allow-ing foreign educational insti-tutions in the primary
sector." But experts in the National Educational Institute of Plan-ning
and Administration, a think tank, point out there al-ready exists a
policy intro-duced
by the NDA
government allowing 100 per cent FDI in education through the
"auto-matic" route. "This means a foreign institution can invest
in
- Left
stops Arjun in FDI
tracks, MONOBINA GUPTA, The Telegraph, 18/08/2004, [C.ELDOC.N20.18aug04tel1.pdf]
New Threat to
the Present
Education System It is true that globalisation has begun a new threat
of
knowledge for everyone who is empowered to siege the opportunity.
Empowerment,
here, points more at economic empowermnet than knowledge based
empowerment.
Benefits of education under globalisation flow to them who can purchase
it.
Rising unemployment and wide spread insecurity are the emerging threats
from
globalisation. Globalisation treats education as a marketable commodity
or
service. Vested interest groups of the developed countries like the
National
Committee for the International Trade in Education and a group of
support this
mainly for profit education providers in the
…Globalisation
impacts on
education in various issues like issue of privatisation, an end to
financial
feed back or assistance, Government-run education regarded as 'barrier
to
trade', The expenditure of Central and State governments on
education as
a percentage of GDP declined from 3.6% in f 1992 to 3.4% in 1996-97,
even
though the national policy on education recommended a high level of 6%.
In
absolute term the per student expenditure on primary education declined
from
Rs. 494 in 1991 to Rs. 492 in 1995-96 (P.R. Panchamukhi, 2000)...
- Era of Globalisation and Education in India, Dr.
S.K. Dash and Uttam
Kumar Panda, Third Concept, 01/06/2004,
[C.ELDOC.N20.01jun04THC1.pdf]
Trade in Education Services under GATTS
The thrust of
the argument is that any form of education
that is beyond the purview of national education system should not be
considered for negotiations. There is a need to restructure domestic
regulations. Domestic regulations must be put in place to protect the
domestic
educational institutions and to allow the entry of foreign educational
institutions only in subjects and conditions, which favour national
interests
thereby also putting an end to unrestricted entry of foreign education
providers.
-
Trade in Education Services under GATS, SUDHANSHU BHUSHAN,
Economic &
Political Weekly, 05/06/2004, [J.ELDOC.N00.05jun04EPW.pdf]
Generally speaking, the developed countries have dominated this
expansion of services
accounting for three quarters of world services output. In 1997,
service sector
output was valued at $ 6.1 trillion or 61 per cent of global output of
goods
and services. The sector constitutes more than 60 per cent of economic
activity
in all OECD countries. Correspondingly the services today constitute
over 50
per cent of economic activity in developing countries which is
significantly
more than the traditional sectors such as agriculture. The globalisation
- Globalisation
and Indian Services Sector, SUKUMAR MUKHOPADHYAY, Economic
& Political
Weekly, 05/10/2002, [J.ELDOC.N00.05oct02EPW.pdf]
The recent steps of the Govt. of Kerala belie those hopes, as they are
in
consonance with the much trumpeted national economic policy of
globalization.
In 1991 when the Union Govt. joined the WTO and introduced the policies
of
liberalization and privatization, many had contemptuously shrugged away
the
observations of the critics as mere alarmist exaggerations. Still more,
nobody
thought that the rural schools of general education would be subjected
to a
live mass burial. Now, at the second stage of globalization,
as a part of
the efforts to slash revenue expenses, the state governments are
systematically
desisting from expenditures in service sectors like health and
education. The
state of affairs in Kerala offers a good example. In order to get loans
from
the Asian Development Bank, the State Govt. seems to be meekly
surrendering to
their dictates. The ADB's report on Technical Assistance to
-
The Threat of
Globalization to the Educational
Progress of Kerala: The Beginning of Democratic Resistance Movements,
K.P.Krishnankutty, Social Action, 01/10/2002, [J.ELDOC.N00.01oct02SOA9.pdf]
International
Aid
Governments
and International funding institutions such as the World Bank, IMF and
others
have clearly failed to commit adequate resources to help achieve
reasonable
levels of education. The World Declaration on EFA urged governments to
allocate
a greater slice of the economic cake to education. But when economic
crisis
strike, education, governments and communities are distracted into
taking their
eye off the ball. Even the focus and amount of overseas aid has
changed. Assessment
by the Overseas Development Institute indicated that multilateral
commitments
to education that rose to US$ 2 billion in 1994 fell back to US $1.3
billion in
1998. Donors need to commit to increased aid and rapid debt relief,
improving
the progress of the Heavily Indebted Poor Country Initiative (HIPC2).
In fact
debt relief should add to aid flows and not undermine them and
be linked
to the national educational plans in the context of wider poverty
reduction
plans.
- RIGHT
TO EDUCATION: CHALLENGES AND ISSUES, NCAS, 01/05/2002, [C.ELDOC.N00.ED1-right-to-edn.html]
As far as the issue of funding is concerned, it is a myth that external
aid has
been helpful. Apart from leading to serious policy dilutions and
distortions,
external aid has had an adverse impact in terms of the political will
to
re-prioritise the national economy to help mobilise public resources
for UEE. Soon
after the 1986 policy, there was an upswing in the national effort to
mobilise
state resources for elementary education.
By 1989-90,
almost 4 per cent of
the GDP was spent on education, with little less than half on
elementary
education. Ironically, with the influx of external aid into
the primary
education sector in the 1990s, the investment in education (including
elementary education) declined steadily to reach as low as 3.49 per
cent of the
GDP in 1997-98, the same level as in 1985-86, just before the 1986
policy came
into being . Clearly, the political will to mobilise resources for
elementary
education weakened with the entry of external aid.
It is only
during the last two to
three years that there has been some improvement, followed by a
declining trend
again in 2001-2002, though the level of external aid was twice as much
in comparison
to 1997-98.
- Education
for too few,
ANIL SADGOPAL, 05/12/2003 [C.ELDOC.N00.05dec03frn6.htm]
…
in the early 1960s
(when WB lending to education began) it was frowned upon by its
economics
department: “…Its (CBA) operational value is very low because it fails
to
inform us about the rate of return on future investments; in the
absence of
marginal ROR calculations we still do now know how much to invest in
one
direction before the ROR on investments at the next lower place in the
scale”
[cited in Jones 1992].
Second, HC theory treats, schooling as a ‘black box’, a technical
relationship
between inputs and outputs. In this respect, it is similar to the
neoclassical
theory of production with its idea of fixed technical relationships
between
inputs and outputs, as expressed in the form of a production function.
This
completely ignores the fact that the whole structure of education –
from
pre-school, elementary and secondary school, vocational and then
schools of
higher education – is a system; it is a system of power and ideology,
which is
itself deeply rooted in society’s cultural norms [Fine et al 2001].
Anyone who
doubts this should only look at the deep segmentation of say, on the
one hand,
the Indian school system...
…The
degree to which
the state should subsidise education has, nevertheless, been subject to
contending opinions. This resulted in conflicting messages throughout
the 1980s
from IFIs about the state and education. On the one hand, education was
a
priority for development. On the other, structural adjustment loans
required
cuts in government spending and greater market reliance, including
privatisation. It is not that these loans required education and health
expenditure
reductions, but these sectors suffered a cut regardless.4
Thus in
India, in seven out of eight states examined, education expenditures
showed a
decline in the 1990s (after the onset of structural adjustment in 1991)
which
was statistically significant compared to the preceding 15-year period
[Mehrotra et al, 2005].5
WB
economists developed an economic model illustrating that, where there
is excess
demand for education, charging user fees at all levels of education
would be
advantageous from both an efficiency and equity perspective [Thobani
1983, Tan
et al 1984; World Bank 1986; Jimenez 1986, 1987; Psacharapolous 1986].
In fact,
World Bank (1986) strongly advocated user charges in
-
Human Capital or
Human Development? Search for a Knowledge Paradigm for Education and
Development, Santosh Mehrotra, Economic & Political
Weekly,
22/01/2005 [J.ELDOC.N00.22jan05EPW300.html]
As
successive Indian governments have
realised over the decades since 1947, in keeping with thoughtful
policymakers
elsewhere, the acquisition of learning and innovation can empower
societies to
leapfrog into periods of economic wealth and social cohesion. In fact,
based on
the global record of the last century alone, one could argue
convincingly that
learning in broad-based education systems must lie at the heart of any
national
transformation that succeeds and endures the global community could
help India
with financing for structural changes and sound policy advice based on
best
practice examples of successful education reforms elsewhere in Asia and
beyond.
... I am convinced that if
(The writer is Vice-President of the World Bank's Human Development
Network )
-
The challenge of
education, Jozef Ritzen, The Hindu, 17/04/2002, [C.ELDOC.N00.challenge_education.html]
The other recent decision by the previous government pertains
to the MoU
(kept secret so far) it signed with the World Bank,DfID (UK) and
European
Com-mission for a credit of mere Rs 4,710 crore over the next three
years (Rs
1,570 crore a year) for its much-hyped Sarva
Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA). This credit amounted to only 30 per
cent of the
requirement of SSA, the re-maining 70 per cent being pro-vided out of
internal
resources. Yet, the Bank got total control over the entire SSA through
audit
procedures and Joint Review Missions, dictating not just finan-cial
terms but
also educational.
A
most laudable
measure in the CMP is the proposed cess on all central taxes to finance the commitment to
elementary education.
This would make it possi-ble to do away with the external aid to SSA
from next
year on-wards and restore Parliament's supremacy in policy formulation.
-
Elementary, it's
education, Anil Sadgopal, Indian Express,
16/06/2004 [C.ELDOC.N20.16jun04ie1.pdf]
One of the current issues that CMP preferred to be silent about is
external aid
for elementary education. In recent years, the quantum of
external aid has
increased significantly from Rs 37 crore in 1993-94 to Rs 1,210 crore
in
2001-02 (budget estimates). As a proportion of total union
government’s
plan expenditure on education, aid has increased from below 5 per cent
to above
20 per cent during this period. More importantly, as a proportion of
the union
government’s plan expenditure on elementary education, it increased
from about
10 per cent to above 30 per cent. These are indeed high proportions for
a
developing country like
...It is well
recognised that aid has created new attitudes on the
criticality of foreign aid for improvement in elementary education, and
inequalities between regions and sectors (and even sub-sectors) funded
by
external aid and others, besides inflicting changes on overall policies
because
of the explicit and implicit conditionalities associated with aid.
- Education in the UPA Government Common Minimum
Programme,
JANDHYALA B G TILAK, Economic & Political Weekly, 23/10/2004, [J.ELDOC.N00.231004EPW4717.pdf]
Education
and the
Neo-Liberal Economic Agenda As the World Bank is a major funding
agency, it is important
to understand the extent to which the Bank's own orientation to
decreasing
subsidies to the social sector, and promoting market efficiency as a
model,
have influenced the philosophy of the DPEP, and through it the
orientation of
the state towards education. The Bank's rationale for investment in
primary
education is based on primarily four economic arguments: (a) that of
inducing
higher rate of returns/increased productivity by having an educated
labour
force, (b) making for more flexibility, efficiency and receptivity of
labour
market, with better quality education, (c) speeding up willingness to
purchase
and use green revolution technologies and high yielding seeds, and (d)
enhacing
women's education so as to lower fertility rates and incur less
expenditure on
illness, etc, and increasing women's participation in labour force
[World Bank
1997]. This is popularly known as the 'human capital'
perspective, in
which education is regarded as a 'productive investment'. Although not
stated
in such reductionist terms, the education policy of the government of
…
Through the DPEP, the
presence, inputs, and impact of an external
funding agency seem to have been legitimised and accepted. Similarly,
there is
also a growing willingness to allow and encourage the role of private
and
corporate sectors in alleviating some of the problems related to mass
primary
education.
This has been facilitated especially through
'adoption' programmes and signing MOUs with corporate groups, all of
which have
been encouraged and given wide publicity. These trends suggest a
movement
towards a neo-liberal economic orientation in which capital and the
market
rather than policies and the state gain hegemony; and ideas of
competition,
productivity, efficiency and profit, prevail over ideas of equity,
justice. Perhaps a bigger danger of such
'professional', moneyed
agencies working so closely with the government is that they may
substitute for
genuine democratic processes and structures.
…Even
a year after its 'release', the ' Eduvision' document, is available
only in a
draft form, not to be quoted. Supposedly written with contributions by
several
local consultants, it is largely consistent with the agenda that the
World Bank
upholds. We find in it, no serious engagement with issues of equity. There is
no mention of how the
state will address and alleviate the multiple disadvantages faced by a
large number
of children and students, and instead recommends further investments in
quality
improvements and in research and development. Nowhere does the report
state or
advise what per cent or proportion of the state's budget must be
committed to
education. That the issue of equity and appropriate policy in education
at all
levels in general continues to be dodged by the state government is
observable
in the frequent crises and tensions that the state faces with different
education sectors and agencies. These contradictions which
are glaring and
increasing, caution us to the worsening situation that may develop if
such
externally funded programmes are permitted to become the normative form
in
which state obligations to governance and provisioning of public goods
are
defined. In the absence of an overall guided and guiding policy
framework,
projects promoted by these external funding agencies, which now include
many
private corporate philanthropic ventures, seem to provide the state
with its
social welfare fig leaf. The extensive media coverage is also good
publicity
for the state and the donors. There is an urgent need for education
programmes
to derive from a policy that is built on the norms of democracy, equity
and
self-sufficiency.
-
Aided Programmes
or Guided Policies? DPEP in Karnataka, PADMA M SARANGAPANI, A
R VASAVI,
Economic & Political Weekly, 09/08/2003, [J.ELDOC.N00.09aug03EPW2.pdf]
In the 1990-91 Budget, the burden of 'adjustment' fell upon rural
development
and social services. The '91-92 Budget con-tinued the cuts oh these two
sectors
but this "burden of the adjustment" virus caught hold of rural
development and medical services too. The '92-93 Budget saw a sizeable
increase
in fund allocations for family welfare, women arid child development.
But
against all other components in this service, education had a nominal
outlay.
The IMF restrictions have affected expenditure on social services,
poverty
mitiga-tion and rural development programmes, which all affect the
educational
access.
The experience of South y\ merican and African countries
already depicted
how economic changes affect education at both levels — macro and micro.
In
It is still early to draw any conclusion but the decline in
social services
in recent budgets indicate that the 'adjustment' is falling rigidly
upon the
poorer sections.
- Burden falls On the poor, Sumir Kaul, Pioneer,
25/04/1995, [C.ELDOC.N00.25apr95pio1.pdf]
The second new parameter — that of external assistance to
Surely such a
degree of dependence on foreign aid for providing the
basic educational needs of the masses would have been quite unthinkable
even a
few years back. While one need not be hysterical about the possible
danger of
such dependence in a vital sector of society, there can be no doubt
that there
should be only humiliation in store for us if we are unable to use this
money
in a way that makes the outcomes both desirable and transparent to all.
- Learning
by degrees from below, Tapas Majumdar, Telegraph,
17/10/1994, [C.ELDOC.N00.17oct94tel1.pdf]
At this
juncture it would be worthwhile to recapture the
history of externally aided primary education projects. The
ground-work for
large-scale externally funded education programmes was laid between
1987 and
1990 – when the government reached out to donor agencies to participate
in
primary education. This process gained momentum in 1992-94 when the
government
decided to take a soft loan from the World Bank for primary education.
The DPEP
programme was originally planned under the Social Safety Net Credit
Adjustment
programme to offset lower spending in the social sectors under the
structural
adjustment programme. In 2000 the NDA government decided to
merge all
projects into an umbrella programme called Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan. This
programme was launched in 2001 with the understanding that no new
‘projects’ will
be initiated after Phase III of DPEP comes to a close in 2007.
- Is
Schooling for the Poor on the Government
Agenda?, Vimala Ramachandran, Economic and Political Weekly,
24/07/04, [J.ELDOC.N21.240704EPW3349.html]
Other Articles:
- India wants external aid to combat illiteracy, Pioneer,
15/12/1993, [C.ELDOC.N00.15dec93pio1.pdf]
- Rs 240-crore external aid for basic education, Statesman, 06/12/1993,
[C.ELDOC.N00.06dec93st1.pdf]
- WB project runs into trouble, Pioneer,
31/05/1993, [C.ELDOC.N00.31may93pio1.pdf]
- $340 mn UK grant for Indian primary education,
infochangeindia.com, 06/10/2004,
[C.ELDOC.N21.edu.html]
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Report:
1 Educational Expenditure Needs of Large Indian States: A
Normative View,
2. The
challenge to quality of education in the age of globalisation,
Prof. Anil
Sadgopal, Avehi Abacus, 01/06/2000, Avehi Abacus, globalisation of
education
education policy (good article)
- Globalisation, Education and our concerns, NAFRE,
avehi Abacus, FRE
Globalisation of Education, - Report of the 2nd Open House on
‘Fundamental
Right to Education: Whose Responsibility?’, Avehi Abacus,
12/03/2004 FRE,
SSA, Common School System, Enrolment, Government Schools (good report),
[R.N21.51]
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Books:
1. Education Denied - Costs and Remedies, Tomasevski,
Katarina, Zed
Books, 01/01/2003, B.N00.T1, 2. Education Funding - “Rupturing the
global
consensus” Part 2
2. “Globalisation:
Its
influence on Education” Dr TK John Ch 3 pg. 35-56 sn o 67
“A Response to
Dr TK John’s
Presentation” Jayesh Shah Ch 4 pg. 57-62
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Websites:
http://www.niepaonline.org/
http://www.ugc.ac.in/