Political economy of education: Implications for efficiency, equity and social justice (original) (raw)

A Revised Marxist Political Economy of National Education Markets

Policy Futures in Education, 2004

This article synthesises the social and economic dynamics of both non-market and market production in national education systems, drawing primarily on Marx's analysis of the commodity and Hirsch on positional competition. Market production has six principal aspects: a defined field of production, protocols governing entry/exit, the production of scarce and individualised commodities, monetary exchange and price-based coordination, competition between consumers, and market subjectivities/behaviours. In national systems the dominant form of education continues to be a status competition led by elite institutions that in key respects do not behave like capitalist firms. Elite universities and schools do not expand to meet demand, but remain exclusive, maximising the value of the student places they provide. Their lodestone is not revenues, but social status and power. Revenues are means to the fulfilment of status objectives. Fully commercial education is mostly conducted in lower status institutions that are subject to price cutting of quality in a 'race to the bottom'. Nevertheless, fully commercial forms of education are gaining ground in national education systems, and still more at the global level in the cross-border education of foreign students and trade in intellectual property. This article examines the various kinds of educational commodity.

Comparative Economic Perspectives on Education

Abstract Education has been viewed variously by different disciplines and different people. Earlier education occupied a sacred space and it was highly out of reach of common people and masses. With the advent of industrialization and economic progress, it became a means of skill formation. The skill aspect was later on termed as human capital component comparative to physical capital in machines and instruments. Since the days of classical economics, this added component of economic value has occupied prime importance. However, non-mainstream perspectives like the dialectical and subaltern ones make a critique of the mainstream educational system as being subservient to interests of the capitalist and other socially and economically empowered groups. Provision of education being controlled by the dominant interests, it does not become equally available to all, especially the poor and marginalized groups like minorities and historically discriminated communities. It also does neither serve to their needs nor enrich their socio-cultural endowments. Hence from an inclusive and universal perspective there is a dire need for level playing field for different systems of education, particularly the traditional indigenous systems which are cheaper and rooted in the social context. Keywords: Education, human capital, dialectical, subaltern, temporal duality, traditional systems of education.

Education policy and inequality: A political economy approach

European Journal of Political Economy, 2009

Regression results show that more unequal societies tend to spend comparatively more on higher levels of education. In a two-period model with heterogeneous agents, this paper investigates the political determinants of this bias. In the first period, public education is financed by the incumbent government by issuing bonds. Investments in basic and higher education have conflicting effects on future labour income distribution and net returns to these investments depend on the tax and transfers system being selected in the following period through the democratic process. Our idea is that public investment in basic education, by decreasing future labour income inequality, may induce future policy-makers to redistribute resources through financial rents taxation, thus making unfeasible the issuing of debt to finance basic education. This will be the more probable the greater wealth inequality is. (L. Sabani). 1 Cross-country analyses show that public spending on education accounts, on average, for more than 4.5% of GNP and more than 14% of total government expenditure (data source: various issues of UNESCO Statistical Yearbook).

The political economy of education and development

Prospects, 1984

If the price effect of opening up a developing economy may be expected to act as a disincentive for investment in human capital, the opposite is likely to be true of the income effect, especially in the presence of credit market imperfections among the poor. It is shown in this paper that this may no longer be the case in a society initially dominated by an oligarchic capitalist elite that is afraid of losing its political control in favor of an educated middle class. Although it may sometimes be in its interest to democratize by subsidizing education when the economy is closed, incentives to do so disappear when the economy is open to trade or factor flows.

The Political Economy of Education Finance: Legacies of Largess Lumbering toward an Uncertain Future

1986

This chapter of "Principles of School Business Management" analyzas three aspects of economic change that could have a profound impact on educational finance in the future. The chapter begins with an introductory review of recent economic history and its reflection in social agendas for education. The causes of the current lack of discretionary resources for school districts are traced and the consequent difficulties limiting educational reform are noted. The chapter then turns to the first of its three central topics: tax base investment cycles that take capital from a tax base, pass it through a system like the education system, and return it to the tax base in the form of human capital. The dangers of depending on regional tax bases within a global economy are examined. The second major topic is concerned with differences in the response times of political and economic allocative systems; these differences can generate potentially disastrous slippage. The chapter's third topic is delivery systems, and particularly the ability of organizational and technological changes to be assimilated by public education's bureaucracy. The implications of these challenges for educational policy are considered in the chapter's conclusion. Thirty-four references are cited. (PGD)