Neoliberalism has become the dominant ideology in the UK and has had profound effects on education. Although there are many ways in which the effects of neoliberalism can be seen in educational institutions, this essay focuses on just two ways in which neoliberalism has infiltrated UK education. Firstly, it is argued that, by the commodification of further and higher education, a real risk to academic standards is being created. Secondly, neoliberalism in education creates a culture of performativity across all aspects of education which is to the detriment of effective teaching and learning.
Neoliberalism is distinguished by several key themes: the withdrawal of the welfare state; privatisation of, and consumer choice in, public services; the rule of the market; and free market competition (Furlong, 2013). Paradoxically, although the amount of public spending is reduced under neoliberalism, along with the de-regulation of markets, neoliberalism still demands a strong state by which its interests are served (Kumar and Hill, 2012). Ball (2003) argues that de-regulation processes seen within UK educational policy should really be viewed as processes of re-regulation.
As the dominant ideological paradigm in the UK started to shift from the Keynesian model of centralised state intervention (Harvey, 2005) to the neoliberal model commonly associated with ‘the rule of Thatcher’ (Radice, 2013), so the UK education system has been slowly transformed through the application of neoliberal ideals. Before neoliberalism, the purpose of education was linked to the socialisation process (Apple, 2004). Now, students are components in an economic market (Apple, 2004) which utilises them as consumers, and moulds them as future economic capital. As Kumar and Hill (2012) argue, the capital class have a business agenda for, and in, education. According to this argument, the business agenda for education is to produce social labour power for capitalist enterprises. Thus, education is devalued by being reduced solely to the means through which economic advantage can be achieved (Giroux, 2014). This is evidenced by the marginalisation of those academic disciplines associated with intellectual knowledge in favour of others which more directly meet the needs of corporations (Giroux, 2014). The business agenda in education utilises the educational market for profit-making corporations such that they can compete on the global stage through the creation of standardised testing which can be sold to educational establishments as a way of enabling the latter to also compete in global league tables. Often referred to as edu-businesses, they are examples of how profit can be made from a public service. Other examples include the academisation process in England, where corporations can sponsor failing schools, purportedly for philanthropic reasons. Thus, the responsibility for educating children is shifted from the state, but not to corporations, rather, to private individuals, since the corporation will have directors or trustees who retain a duty to the shareholders. Again, although one facet of neoliberalism is less reliance on the state for public services, the state still serves the academy market, as is evidenced by those academies which have failed, being assisted by government intervention.
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As a provider of education, it has been seen that the state is retreating (Kumar and Hill, 2012). The consequence of state withdrawal is that education is then treated as just another service which the market delivers (Lynch, 2006). Since market forces are subject to supply and demand, with market access being enabled by an individual’s economic resources, this process would appear to be antagonistic both towards improving social mobility, and toward the creation of a more egalitarian society. Particularly within the context of university education, it has been noted that there is a contradiction between pursuing a business-oriented approach, and promoting inclusion for economically-disadvantaged students (Lynch, 2006). The apparent solution to this problem in England is offered by Student Finance England, whereby students can enter into a type of buy now, pay later contract with the Student Loans Company. However, this approach leads to the commodification of further and higher education, where students become consumers and colleges and universities become competitors on the open market. Rather
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