THE NEW ECONOMIC GLOBAL ORDER AND ITS EFFECTS ON HIGHER EDUCATION POLICIES

AUTOR(ES)
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2001

RESUMO

Using a historical approach, this dissertation analyzes what is being called the new economic global order, or neo-liberalism, and examines its effects on higher education policies. It begins with a discussion of neoliberal economic principles, their antecedents and contradictions, and shows the various strategies through which rich groups achieved government support and became each time more wealthy, pressuring to be freed from government control and social responsibility. It is argued that in the new economic global order, based on extreme individualism, competition, concentration of money, and a supposedly scientific-based model of production, knowledge became a privileged instrument for capital accumulation. As a consequence, knowledge and its traditional centers of production, universities, turned out to be objects of desire by rich groups. Within the new economic global order, empowered and unfettered rich groups (wealthy in dividends and firms) are acting to restructure higher education systems, creating low level and cheaper higher education institutions to serve the majority, offering instrumental pieces of knowledge, and creating a false sense of the democratization of knowledge. At the same time, these same groups advocate that substantial knowledge must be developed, managed, controlled, and acquired following market rules and must serve market needs and its for-profit objectives. These new ideas to shape higher education have been introduced by the World Bank, which, along with the International Monetary Fund, was chosen by rich groups to manage the international debt crisis. Using this increased leverage coupled with a process of weakening the United Nations, the World Bank supplanted UNESCO as the leading global policymaking agency on education in general, and on higher education in particular. An analysis of policy proposals of both multilateral institutions shows clear differences, indicating how World Bank proposals are more attuned to market purposes. Moreover, examples of higher education reforms being carried out in three countries: Chile, China and Brazil, show that although reforms are following World Bank guidelines, these reforms are fostering resistance. In conclusion, it is argued that higher education institutions must take advantage of the current crisis and try to improve their significance and pertinence to society, reasserting themselves as the watchdog of society by vehemently denouncing the individualistic, excluding, competitive, annihilating features of the new economic global order that is widening the social and economic gap and distressing the world physically, emotionally, and culturally through its for-profit behavior and homogenization bias. This is a call for resistance, to not be guided by the market imperative, but to contribute to the construction of a more sharing, just, cooperative, human, and environmentally friendly world.

ASSUNTO(S)

educacao nova ordem econômica economia da educação política de ensino banco mundial política educacional economic global order unesco higher education policies ensino superior análise institucional neo-liberalism

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