FreshEd #53 - Exploring educational privatization worldwide (Toni Verger)

Today we continue our look at global education policy. Last week, I spoke with Andy Green about social cohesion, one of the two main pillars found in most, if not all, of education policies worldwide. The second pillar, as Professor Green pointed out, is education for economic development. This global policy of education has recently manifested, in many countries, through various practices and processes of educational privatization. With me today is Toni Verger to talk about the global diffusion of education privatization not as a global education policy per se but as a set of processes through which private actors participate more actively in a range of education activities that have traditionally been the responsibilities of the state. In this sense, privatization directly impacts education policy. Not only is Toni a co-editor of the Handbook of Global Education Policy but he is also a co-author of a new book entitled The Privatization of Education: A political economy of global education reform. In our talk today, Toni discusses his book on education privatization, outlining the factors driving its spread globally. Toni Verger is researcher in the Department of Sociology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. He will join Andy Green, Bob Lingard, and Karen Mundy on December 12 for a public webinar focused on global education policy. You can visit FreshEdpodcast.com for more details.