Impact of globalization and Privatization in Education

 

Impact of globalization and Privatization in Education

The term "globalization" means integration of economies and societies through cross country flows of information, ideas, technologies, goods, services, capital, finance and people. It considers the recent reforms of teacher education in India and the extent to which they reflect a response to global economic pressures.

Globalization is an opportunity for those who are aware of the benefits due to their vigilance and inquisitiveness, which have proper access to the information.

Impact of globalization

Because of the commercialization, Educational sector has been more commonly

1.    The free-market philosophy has already entered the educational sphere in a big way. Commercialization of education is the order of the day. Commercial institutions offering specialized education have come up everywhere. In view of globalization, many corporate universities, both foreign and Indian, are encroaching upon our government institutions. Once these institutions turn “self-financing‟, their prices would be benchmarked against their global counterparts, which would be affordable to the same top layer of the society. As the job markets become acutely narrow, the polarization between the elite and nonelite would be clearly discernible. Meanwhile, various kinds of price barriers would be imposed to prevent the entry of the non-elite like the downtrodden and poor communities. Further, Corporatisation has transformed the education sector into an enterprise for profits. 

 

Large Industrial Organizations like Tata‟s, Reliance, Essars or the Associations like

2.    CII, FICCI & other Indian Institute start the initiatives to start Institutes of Excellence throughout India with collaborations from Institutes like Harvard School of Business, MIT in USA & London School of Economics. There are certain advantages in Recruiting Overseas Students like students will get international exposure and they will develop skills such as talking to industry, making presentations and dealing with senior managers.

3.    Many of the best students go abroad. Globalization has made

education an extraordinary business opportunity with a great impact on

employment. In the current scenario, Universities from different parts of the world want to join hands with Indian Universities and be a part of India's lucrative economic strength.

4.    The children of the poor and socially disadvantaged have been denied English medium school education. The rapid growth of the software development and electronic communications industries is one of the few achievements of Indian industry in post-independence India. Further, because of strong hold of the English language in corporate circles, the divide between rural and urban is almost complete.

 

 

Privatization:

The term privatization of Education refers to many different educational programs and policies. It is a process which can be defined as the transfer of activities, assets and responsibility from Government, Public Institutions and organizations to private individual and agencies.

Governments in transition and emerging economies should not fear the potential negative effects of privatization on employment; instead, they should recognize its positive impacts on employment and productivity. Moreover, privatization promotes exports, which in turn generates a virtuous cycle between employment, productivity, and exports. To maximize its benefits, privatization should be associated with restrictions on how involved managers can be in the ownership of privatized firms and institutional reforms should be implemented that promote trade openness, financial freedom, and anti-corruption

 

Impact of   Privatization:

Positive Impact:

 

1.    Quality of Education: In spite of the government pouring in resources for the cause of universalization of elementary education, it is a well-known fact that the quality of education or the perception of it, offered by government schools does not match that of private schools. Hence, the craze for private schools and the consequent increase in their number.

2.    Changing Social Needs: We know that our economy presently demands educated and skilled manpower. The numbers graduating from government institutions is nowhere near the numbers required. Also, with globalization, economies of the world are getting interlinked and hence, people with professional education are in demand abroad too. Such growing need of manpower could not be met by the public sector alone and this led to the need for private participation.

 

 

Negative Impact:

 

1.    Investment in Education Leading to High Returns: From a healthy growth of private institutions, mushrooming of certain types of private institutions is being witnessed. Earlier the motive to provide education was only philanthropic but now it is linked to profiteering. It is well known that investments made in educational institutions are rewarded with high returns. This is true not only in India, but all over the world and business in education involves trillions of dollars, For instance, it is a common knowledge that teacher-training institutions are being established in huge numbers by private players.

 

2.    Commercialization of Education: In many of these institutions’ teachers are compensated inadequately, hired and fired at will, those without proper qualifications are recruited and money is extorted from the students on various pretexts. Education is thus old and the students become the customers. In the recent past, provision for providing teacher education through the correspondence mode was especially misused and the process was akin to selling degrees.