In the global neo-liberal education policy market England has been both a major importer, especially from the United States, and an influential exporter of policy to the rest of the world. Now, in the context of the run-up to a general election in Britain, probably in May 2010, the Conservatives have unleashed a set of bold proposals for radically increased autonomy for schools. It is impossible to predict whether the Conservatives, led by David Cameron, will replace Labour under Gordon Brown as the next government. Their lead is small and there may be a hung Parliament, so it is also impossible to predict what agenda for education will emerge, but Conservative ideas are shaping the current debate in England, may continue to do so whatever the outcome of the election, and may also influence policy in other countries.

Education was a thread amongst the many issues up for debate during the European Social Forum in London. One specific seminar claimed that “Another School Is Possible”. Ealing National Union of Teachers branch has sponsored the participation of US education-activist Bob Peterson at this session, and its secretary Nick Grant interviewed him about his work.

The government of the Generalitat has just submitted a new bill to the Catalan Parliament: the LEC or Catalan Education Law. This is a major move entailing far-reaching consequences. Therefore, USTEC·STEs, ASPEPC-SPS and CGT have decided, as trades unions, to address workers and the general public in order to provide detailed information on the kind of measures this bill contemplates and to jointly evaluate the likely impact of its implementation.

We believe that this bill will not solve any of the problems currently facing public education in Catalonia. Rather to the contrary, it makes big strides towards privatisation, handing over state schools to private enterprise. This is why we are inviting you to make your disagreement public and to sign the following manifesto, be it as an organisation or as individuals.

Over the last few years, a growing body of literature referring to the process of globalization/marketisation of education in developed countries has been published. Most often, economic determinism, whether considered from an orthodox or a critical point of view, is evoked to describe the evolution of education systems.
However, even though such a tendency seems relatively new in developed countries, this has long been the case as regards Third World countries. Consequently, a critical analysis of what has been happening there in this domain can shed light on what is happening in the North.
Examples of African countries are sometimes even especially illuminating because the ‘travelling concepts and policies’ [2] can evolve there more freely than elsewhere.

“The White Paper on Education and Training: Teaching and Learning/Towards the Learning Society” (pub. by the European Commission in 1995) is a text of seminal importance because it seeks to outline an overall approach to education in the E.U. I’ll start with a crucial passage which serves as its fundamental working principle: “IV. Directions for the future: Everyone is convinced of the need for change, the proof being the demise of the major ideological disputes on the objectives of education. . . . The end of debate on educational principles: Heated debates concerning the organization of education and training systems—including debates on content and training methods --- have taken place over the last few years. Most of these debates now appear to have come to an end.’ (W.P.23).

Since the end of the 80’s, the European education systems have been submitted to an unceasing flow of criticism and reforms: decentralisation, growing autonomy of the schools, deregulation of the programs, more attention to skills and less attention to knowledge, diverse partnerships between education and industry, massive introduction of Information and Communication Technology, fast development of private, for profit education. The resemblance between the education policies of various European — and more generally, industrialised — countries is far too strong to be a matter of chance or the caprice of some education ministers or pedagogic searchers. There have to be mighty common determinants and political forces, which sustain this common education policy.

This is a longer version of the paper presented in Beijing and Dublin in 2005

The two main ideas of this paper are, firstly, that the material, economic circumstances push the education systems in advanced capitalist countries towards marketisation; and secondly that we should understand this concept of marketisation in a broad sense: marketisation means not only privatisation, transforming education into a new market; it means also adapting narrowly education to the present, very specific, demands of labour markets; and it means using education systems as an instrument to stimulate some markets, especially the ICT-markets. The paper is essentially based on the study of national reform programs in European countries and on reports published by international organizations like OECD, World Bank and the European Commission.

“Schools are important to everyone, and it has recently become a high-stakes game for that very reason. How much is that business worth ? I doubt we’ll ever be able to answer that question fully. But we’re going to continue to be very aggressive and proactive in getting our share of the school business” (Molnar, p 71). Ten years have passed since David Van Houten, vice-president of Coca-Cola Enterprises, made this frank declaration. And when you read Alex Molnar’s last book, School Commercialism, it seems that he delivered the goods.