Antoni Verger

Framing and selling global education policy: the promotion of public–private partnerships for education in low-income contexts

Public–private partnerships in education (ePPP) are acquiring increasing centrality in the agendas of international organizations and development agencies dealing with educational affairs. They are designed as an opportunity to correct inefficiencies in the public delivery of education and to mobilize new resources to increase the access to and cost-effectiveness of education in low-income contexts. This article explores the emergence of ePPP as a ‘programmatic idea’ and, in particular, the semiotic strategies by means of which this idea has been located in the global education agenda and promoted internationally among practice communities by a network of policy entrepreneurs. The analysis is supported by extensive fieldwork and by a new approach to the analysis of the framing and mobilization of new policy ideas, which incorporates literature on agenda setting, policy entrepreneurs, and policy frame analysis. The approach reveals the complex way in which policy ideas, political actors, institutions, and material factors interact to strategically put forward new policy alternatives in developing contexts.

The governance of higher education regionalisation: comparative analysis of the Bologna Process and MERCOSUR‐Educativo

The article analyses two processes of higher education regionalisation, MERCOSUR‐Educativo in Latin America and the Bologna Process in Europe, from a comparative perspective. The comparative analysis is centered on the content and the governance of both processes and, specifically, on the reasons of their uneven evolution and implementation. We support the comparison by using theories of governance and globalisation/regionalisation. We also focus on the external and non‐educational influences affecting MERCOSUR‐Educativo and the Bologna Process. In this respect, we conclude that, despite the regional scope of the two processes analysed, both are directly and indirectly affected by economic globalisation.

The Merchants of Education: Global Politics and the Uneven Education Liberalization Process within the WTO

The General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) is one of the principal treaties of the World Trade Organization (WTO). The agreement covers 12 services sectors, including education (WTO 2000). Since this agreement was created, the global governance of education scenario has become more complex because trade disciplines and commercial rules have become relevant to education regulation activities at the national and subnational levels. The system of rules of the GATS pushes for the progressive liberalization of education all over the world and for the constitution of a new international regime on trade in education. However, if we observe the actual results of the GATS negotiations, it does not seem that the “globalization project” impelled by the agreement has been totally successful. Most of the WTO member countries avoided committing education during the Uruguay round (1986–94) and, when they did, they introduced numerous limitations and exceptions. Something similar happened during the more recent Doha round (2001, ongoing in 2009). The uneven evolution of the GATS raises several questions. Specifically, the question this article tries to answer is this: Why do countries decide to participate—or not to participate—in the new multilateral “free-trade in education regime” through the adoption of liberalization commitments within the GATS? This question will be answered through an explanation based on mechanisms. In doing so, I aim to reveal the causal mechanisms of education liberalization within the GATS and to explore how the effectiveness of these mechanisms is contingent on contextual conditions and national politics. The article is composed of four sections. First, I describe the object of my research and my framework of inquiry, which is inspired by the Globally Structured Agenda for Education (GSAE) approach (Dale 2000). Second, I explore the structures that frame the liberalization process, referring specifically to the WTO rules that affect more directly negotiations in service sectors. Third, I discuss the preferences settlement of countries in GATS and

New Public Management as a Global Education Policy: Its Adoption and Re-Contextualization in a Southern European Setting.

In the education sector, new public management (NPM) has crystallized in policies such as school autonomy, professionalization of school principals, standardized evaluation and teachers’ accountability, and it has been widely disseminated by international organizations, such as the OECD, which enjoy a great prestige when it comes to frame education reforms in European countries. This article analyses the way NPM has been constructed as a global education policy, and its adoption and re-contextualization into the Spanish education context. This article shows that the reasons for adopting NPM are not so different from those prevailing in other countries where these policies have been implemented before. Counter-intuitively, although NPM is a reform programme traditionally initiated by conservative governments, in the Spanish education field, as also happened in other Central and Northern European countries, it has been adopted and regulated with social democratic governments. In all these countries, social democrats have tended to embrace NPM as an attempt to address the legitimacy crisis of the welfare state and of public services in particular. Nonetheless, in Spain, the NPM reforms have been re-contextualized and regulated in very uneven and paradoxical ways. For a combination of political, institutional and economic reasons, the final form adopted by the NPM approach is far from the model advocated by the international community and is deeply contradictory. Our arguments are based on intensive fieldwork that include, on the one hand, interviews with key education policy-makers and stakeholders and, on the other, document analysis of policy briefings, press releases and legal documents.

Learning from all? The World Bank, aid agencies and the construction of hegemony in education for development

This paper explores the nature and quality of the participation that characterises the Banks consultations with external actors and examines the extent to which the Bank is responsive to such feedback when it comes to defining its policy preferences and strategies in the education domain. It draws on a case study of the participatory process that was organised around the definition of the last World Bank Education Strategy (WBES2020) and focuses on the participation of three European aid agencies, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands, Germanys Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development and the Department for International Development of the UK. This paper acknowledges that a significant effort was made to promote the inclusiveness and transparency of the participatory process, yet it concludes that the conditions for promoting quality participation and substantive policy change were not provided. Furthermore, the way international aid agencies produce and use knowledge limits their role and influence in the context of the Banks consultations. Hence, by not contesting the Banks policy ideas substantially, the agencies contribute inadvertently to reproducing the Banks predominance in the education for development field.

All Things Being Equal

The World Bank’s new education sector strategy (World Bank Education Strategy 2020, hereafter referred to as WBES 2020) establishes the guidelines for new education priorities in low-income contexts for the coming decade. WBES 2020 attempts to move the focus of education reforms further away from an inputs rationale to a reform agenda with outputs, governance, and managerial solutions at its core. More specifically, it advocates: (a) the adoption of a systemic approach to education reform that strengthens the role of non-government players and incentives in education, (b) a more discernible focus on learning outcomes, which implies measuring school results in order to generate a knowledge base with which to inform policy-makers and families, and (c) the dissemination of innovative approaches and demand-side interventions that can contribute to improving learning outcomes effectively.

Governing Education through Public Private Partnerships

On-Line Papers – Copyright This online paper may be cited or briefly quoted in line with the usual academic conventions, and for personal use. However, this paper must not be published elsewhere (such as mailing lists, bulletin boards etc.) without the author’s explicit permission. If you copy this paper, you must: • include this copyright note. • not use the paper for commercial purposes or gain in any way. • observe the conventions of academic citation in a version of the following: Robertson, S.L. and Verger, A. (2012) Governing Education Through Public Private Partnerships, published by the Centre for Globalisation, Education and Societies, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1JA, UK at: http://susanleerobertson.com/publications/

Measuring Educational Liberalisation. A Global Analysis of GATS

In this article, we examine the process of trade liberalisation of educational services in the framework of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). Specifically, we analyse the factors that influence the undertaking of commitments on educational liberalisation by the member countries of the WTO. The text is divided into three parts. In the first, we examine in detail the methodology of GATS negotiation. Second, in order to measure the degree of liberalisation of educational services in the countries we construct an index called EduGATS. Finally, we review and analyse the commitments on liberalisation consolidated by member countries in terms of educational services. The sources of the primary data are the lists of commitments on services of the members of the WTO, interviews with delegations from member countries, documents on the position of various delegations and documents from the WTO Council for Trade in Services.

An Introduction to Public Private Partnerships and Education Governance

In the field of international development, different decades seem to usher in new champions of change: the developmental state in the 1960s and 1970s; free market forces and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the 1980s and 1990s. The new millennium has offered up a hybrid variant of public-private partnerships (PPPs)... partnership has become a mobilising term implying all manner of desirable objectives can be achieved. (Utting and Zammit 2006, p. 1)

A origem das parcerias público-privada na governança global da educação

Durante a ultima decada, a globalizacao da governanca educacional por meio de parcerias publico-privadas (PPP) tem gerado consideravel debate quanto ao seu significado, proposito, status e resultados. Este debate e particularmente aquecido no setor da educacao por causa da ampla aceitacao da educacao como atividade complexa, social e politica que deve permanecer, em grande parte, se nao totalmente, no setor publico, servindo a interesses publicos. O artigo analisa a rapida expansao das parcerias publico-privadas em educacao (PPPE) articulada a introducao de regras de mercado no setor. Neste estudo nos concentramos sobre o papel de uma rede de desenvolvimento global, fundamental na globalizacao de um tipo particular de PPPE, indicando que a ideia de PPP encaixa-se em um projeto mais amplo de reconstituicao da educacao publica no âmbito do setor de servicos, a ser governada como parte da construcao de uma sociedade de mercado.