Tag Archives: private eduction

Private Actors and Education for the Poor in India

Conference Paper to be presented by Geetha Nambissan

Geetha B. Nambissan is Professor of Sociology of Education at the Zakir Husain Centre for Educational Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Her research focuses on exclusion, inclusion and the education of marginal groups, the middle classes and educational advantage and the social and educational implications of private schools for the poor. 

Over the last decade, transnational and local advocacy networks have been projecting the low-cost unregulated school market in India as a cost-efficient, high-quality and equitable solution to the education of the poor and as a site for viable business options. The actors in this market include individual “edupreneurs” and, more recently, corporate groups that have entered the school business in later-developing countries. What we are witnessing is the construction of narratives of “good education” for the poor in extremely minimalistic terms, validated through “research” and disseminated by powerful networks. The attempt is to evolve globally scalable models that will deliver “high-quality” education at the lowest of costs, ensuring profits. In this paper, I map some of these trends, highlighting the manner in which private actors are attempting to change education policy in India by drawing upon neo-liberal discourses and constructing new narratives, networks and practices around schooling. I argue that these trends have serious implications for social justice in education for the poor.

Equity and Social Cohesion in Post-Apartheid South African Education

Conference Paper to be presented by Yusuf Sayed

Yusuf Sayed is the South African Research Chair in Teacher Education and the Founding Director of the Centre for International Teacher Education at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology, South Africa. His research focuses on education policy formulation and implementation as it relates to concerns of equity, social justice and transformation.

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South African Pre-School (Photo: private)

The formal end of apartheid was greeted with much optimism and many expectations. A new Government of National Unity with Nelson Mandela at its head signalled a new just and democratic social order, including social justice in and through education. Redress was assured through the deracialisation of education provision and the opening of schools, through equality in education spending and through a commitment to positive discrimination in favour of the marginalised. Whilst there have been many gains, twenty years later, formally desegregated yet class-based educational institutions, continuing disparities and inequities and poor academic achievement are key features of the contemporary educational order. Learner assessment results suggest that South Africa is characterised by a two-tier system of education, resulting in a poorly resourced public schooling sector serving the poor, while the wealthy have access to semi-private public schools and have significant management control over the running of the schools, rupturing the ideals of social cohesion encapsulated in the powerful metaphor of the “rainbow nation”. Based on a review of education policy in South Africa since 1994 (Sayed, Kanjee, & Nkomo 2013), this paper considers how this has come about, focusing specifically on a review of the changes in the governance of schools since 1994. The paper argues that for the poor in South Africa the doors of quality learning and education and social mobility remain firmly shut. In this context, this paper also considers some key strategies to advance social justice. The paper is a call to act with urgency to reform South Africa’s educational approach to make it possible to address the systemic crisis of education that especially affects South Africa’s historically disadvantaged and marginalized peoples.

Inequalities and the Production of New Cultural Forms at Government Secondary Schools in Kolkata, India

Research Project (to be discussed at the Winter Academy) by Maya Buser De.

Maya Buser De is a PhD student at the Graduate School of International and Area Studies at the Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, Seoul. She works on the reproduction of existing inequalities and the production of new cultural forms by the students at government secondary schools in the megacity of Kolkata.

Indian cities like Kolkata are changing rapidly under the influence of globalization. Economic differences in the population have become more evident, not only in terms of the urban landscape but also in the educational sector. Elite and middle class students have moved to private schools, while government schools mostly cater to students from poor and marginalized backgrounds. Nevertheless, the efforts towards the universalization of primary education have paid off in many parts of the country, even though its quality often remains a concern. On the other hand, secondary schools have not yet received much attention, neither from the authorities nor from the academic community. However, in an increasingly competitive job market they are becoming more and more important for the future of youth from unprivileged backgrounds.

Through a multisite case study, this project attempts to understand how existing inequalities of caste, class and gender are reproduced in government secondary schools in Kolkata and at the same time how students produce new cultural forms to contest and creatively engage with them. This study relies on an approach in critical education theory, with a focus on the socio-economic and cultural dimensions of power relations in and around the school, parallel to an intersectionality approach to inequalities. Moreover, it employs the concept of cultural production, derived from cultural studies, as theoretical framework to understand the agency of students in contesting inequalities in the school environment.

Social Origin and Inequality of Opportunities in Colombia: Analysis of Educational Achievement and Occupational Attainment among University Graduates

Research Project (to be discussed at the Winter Academy) by Andrea Cuenca Hernández.

Andrea Cuenca is a doctoral candidate at the Institute of Education, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. In her dissertation, she examines how socio-demographic factors, institutions and contexts influence educational achievement and occupational success.

This doctoral project analyzes the impact of social origins (SO) on educational achievement and occupational attainment of higher education (HE) graduates in Colombia. The questions addressed are: to what extent and through what mechanisms do SO determine the educational outcomes of individuals in the completion of a first university degree and the attendance of postgraduate education? To what extent and through what mechanisms do SO determine the occupation destination of graduates? And more generally, is the Colombian educational system contributing to equalize opportunities among individuals or reinforcing the inequalities associated to SO?

The research design consists of two main parts: (1) a statistical analysis of large existing datasets from the national information systems at the secondary and tertiary education levels, and; (2) of primary data collected from an online graduate survey. The first method allows capturing an overall scenario, by identifying the trajectories of university graduates (n=16,892) since the last year of school until their entrance into the world of work. The second part provides a deeper analysis on the explanatory mechanisms lying behind the reproduction of inequality of opportunities among a sample of this population (n=1,086).

Results from the first part suggest that SO have a significant impact on educational outcomes during secondary school but also at higher educational levels and in the later transition into the world of work. They point out that SO operate directly through socioeconomic status and cultural capital. The effects from the latter are particularly strong on the academic achievement at secondary education. SO also operate indirectly, through the segmentation of educational paths, on the academic quality of the institutions attended, and on income.

Two main complementary interpretations follow form these findings. On one hand, they are in accordance with the reproduction theories: highly-educated families through the parental credentials along with their economic capital, promote efficient learning environments for their children, who are more likely to reach the same educational level or higher. On the other hand, the mediation of family education between origin and destination suggest that it is also a device for social mobility. In this particular case, the quality of secondary school (strongly affected by parental credentials) is of special importance for later success at the university and the labor market. These findings emphasize the key issue of qualitative inequalities. Providing academic quality at secondary public schools is a way the Colombian educational system could break the existing link between origin and destination. At the HE level, however, while privatization has furthered participation of non-traditional students, it also has reinforced inequalities insofar as quality in private education continues to be a privilege.