Business-Managed Democracy

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There has been a major push for the private provision of educational services in many countries. Schooling is progressively being turned into a profit-making commercial venture. In the process the quality of education is being eroded. An early step in this process has been the introduction of business management structures into education, along with the elimination of many of the functions and professional services provided to schools for free by government education departments. This has opened the way for “a host of private agencies, consultants and professional firms” to fill the gap on a commercial basis.

Private provision has occurred at three levels: supplementary services such as catering and cleaning; private consumption services provided outside of school hours, such as tutoring, educational software and after school care; and core education, such as managing or operating schools.

Degrees of Privatisation

At the extreme end of the privatisation spectrum are schools that are run as businesses for profit. The extent to which for-profit schools are publicly funded varies, but in the US charter schools are almost completely funded by government. In other countries a public abhorrence of for-profit education, combined with a scepticism on the part of the business community that profits can be made from running schools, has ruled out for-profit schools.

In Australia private schools are not for-profit, nor are they totally government funded. However they get as much as 80 per cent of their funding from government.

Similarly in Canada, private schools get up to half their funding from the government.

In the UK, schools that are almost totally funded by government are being run by private sponsors and the boards they appoint. Those sponsors may be businesses. In this way UK academies and trust schools only differ from US charter schools in that they cannot be run for profit.

Some Different Types of Schools

Type	Funding	Management	Regulation
Public Schools	government	government or outsourced to private company	curriculum, testing regime, employment practices, admissions regulated
Academies (UK)	£25m+ government & £2m private	private sponsors & board mainly appointed by sponsors	can set own employment practices, admissions policy, and curriculum (in compliance with national requirements)
Trust Schools (UK)	government & unspecified private contrib.	private trust & trust appointed board	as above
Charter Schools (US)	government & private donations	private/ can be run for profit	can set own employment practices, admissions policy, and curriculum
Private Schools (Australia/ Canada)	government & private fees	private	can set own employment practices, admissions policy, and curriculum

Trade in Services

The WTO has become a promoter and enforcer of privatised educational services through the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). Although GATS allows governments to keep control of public services, if those services are not totally provided by the public sector, they are not defined as public services. So countries which have both private and public schools cannot claim school education as a public service. If education services are opened to international trade under GATS – and this is subject to negotiation between nations – then foreign providers of education must be treated the same as domestic providers, with access to the same subsidies and grants, unless an exception is granted by the WTO. Disputes are decided by a panel of trade lawyers.

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See also: Charter Schools in the US | Private Provision in the UK | School Administration | Childcare In Australia

See also: Government: Privatisation

References

 

© 2009 Sharon Beder
http://www.herinst.org/BusinessManagedDemocracy/education/privatisation/index.html