Second day of the International Seminar: right to education experts discuss civil society strategies at regional and national levels for global education governance
Territorializing discussions about privatization policies in the global governance of education. This was the motto of the second day of debates at the International Seminar "Global trends in education: the impact of governance structures, privatization and digitalization".
The event was organized by Andressa Pellanda, general coordinator of the National Campaign for the Right to Education, in partnership with the Institute of International Relations of the University of São Paulo (IRI-USP), the Faculty of Education of USP, the Centre for African Studies of the University of Porto (Portugal) and the Transnational Institute (TNI), which is also a supporter of the initiative.
Experts from various continents discussed civil society strategies at regional and national level to guarantee the right to education, specifying the cases of Africa, Asia, Latin America and Portuguese-speaking countries, as well as detailed analyses of Brazil, Chile and Mozambique.
Territorial clippings were presented on how technology penetrates education and how the interests of big tech multinational companies are incorporated into discourse and practice by private actors in global governance bodies, negatively impacting the right to education.
Pellanda, who conceived the seminar, which is in line with the theme of her doctoral research at IRI/USP, opened the second day of the event. Pellanda reiterated the importance of territorializing the discussions, since there is a bad habit within international relations of not taking discussions to the regional level, with attention often being paid only to the global level. "Here [at the seminar] we are going to politically defend bringing this discussion to the regional and national levels," she said.
Cristiane Lucena Carneiro, a professor at IRI-USP, introduced the first speakers. Among them was Carlota Boto, full professor and director of the Faculty of Education at the University of São Paulo (USP), who presented the UNESCO report "Reimagining our futures together: a new social contract for education" for critical appraisal. For the professor, the document proposes a new social contract for education, which aims to rebuild interrelationships: with ourselves, with the planet and with technology.
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Mediator of the first panel of the day, Luis Eduardo Murcia, professor at the University of Manchester (UK), gave a presentation on the use of technology in education. He proposed that we all question whether the discourse of edtech companies really cares about pedagogical purposes or whether their main objective is business. "[We need] social control over public contracts with edtech companies. Teachers, students, schools and families are not part of this conversation. It happens between governments and companies, and we don't know how this will affect the sustainable financing of education," he warned.
"To what extent can we assess how the penetration of technology in education can create new options for the privatization and commercialization of education?" he asks. He says that the problem is not the technology in education itself, but how its suppliers are implementing it and suggesting uses for any problem in education without analyzing contexts based on various factors, such as digital inclusion.
Challenges of digitizing education in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Portuguese-speaking countries
Rene Raya, a Filipino analyst and policy leader at ASPBAE (Asian South Pacific Association for Basic and Adult Education), opened the second panel of the event by analyzing the experiences and lessons of distance learning from the perspective of Covid-19 in the Asia-Pacific region. Raya stressed that "accelerated digitalization and the privatization of education are the wrong way forward". Raya points out that digital inclusion always needs to consider the context and territory in order to be effective and equitable.
Bringing the view from Latin America and the Caribbean, Nelsy Lizarazo, general coordinator of the Latin American Campaign for the Right to Education (CLADE), presented the network's lines of action on the issue, especially on building narratives for political advocacy and mobilization. Lizarazo pointed out that the organization's studies on privacy and transparency in the use of personal data are essential for confronting the privatization and commercialization of education in the context of the post-pandemic as the beginning of CLADE's process of positioning itself against privatization policies.
She also recalled that it was the production of knowledge about fiscal justice in Latin American countries that strengthened proposals for greater funding for education at regional and national level. "We have to take the opportunity to present the data and make alliances to strengthen and boost discussions on privatization," she warned.
Solange Akpo, capacity building manager and regional coordinator of ANCEFA (African Network Campaign for Education for All), spoke about global governance and digitalization as a new impetus for the privatization of African education. Akpo points out that several countries on the continent suffer from a lack of adequate funding for education, as well as limited access to new technologies.
"Education systems were already weak before the pandemic due to poverty, austerity policies and terrorist attacks. Systems are still facing the drastic consequences of Covid-19 and, as a result, marginalized populations, who are already excluded from education, are facing these challenges with little access to information," says Akpo.
She reiterates the lack of coherence among public decision-makers with digitalization policies, which have been presented as an instrument to strengthen education systems, even though the internet in Africa reaches only 43% of the population, and in many cases with poor connection quality.
Closing the discussions at the first table, Rui da Silva, president of the board of the Centre for African Studies at the University of Porto, spoke about the impacts of governance structures, privatization and digitalization in the context of Portuguese-speaking countries.
He drew up a map of the countries funded by the Global Partnership for Education (GPE) and the requirements for each country to receive its funding. The map shows that many countries in sub-Saharan Africa receive this funding, but are far from providing quality education to all people. He points out that multinational companies receive funding from the private sector, but in a "hidden" way.
"There is a discourse and a belief that the private sector will support GPE as a fund,
but in the financial reports we don't see this trend," says da Silva. "And then, when we look at the reports, we see that companies like Microsoft have supported GPE. But how? They supported it by providing software to the countries, without them paying. But we all know what happens when we install the applications."
Brazil, Chile and Mozambique
Isabel da Silva, executive secretary of MEPT (Movimento de Educação para Todos), from Mozambique, began the second panel of the day with an analysis of the impacts of privatization on education in her country. Isabel pointed out how this process is evidenced if states take the Abidjan Principles as a basis - one of the main international regulatory frameworks for the private sector in education, which the Campaign participated in building collectively.
According to MEPT research, 87% of schools in Africa do not have a computer room; 47% of schools do not have a computer.
Next, from a Chilean perspective, Diego Parra, a researcher at the ALERTA Centre and the Chilean Observatory of Educational Policies (OPECH) at the University of Chile, commented on the privatization process on the agenda of the new right in Chilean education. Parra gave a timeline listing the lack of guarantees for the right to education in the country's federal constitution.
"Chile is one of the few countries in the world that uses the demand subsidy mechanism," said Parra. This policy is a model of financing public schools through vouchers, i.e. resources distributed by the state to families so that they pay directly for their children's education, in public or private schools. This is a policy of privatizing education.
For Parra, the negative effects of privatization are that it favours those who have more, rather than those who need more, generating a dramatic situation of increasing educational inequalities. The voucher system has proven to be an extremely harmful policy for learning.
Daniel Cara, a professor at FE-USP and a member of the Campaign's Steering Committee, spoke about the Brazilian context, specifically about the economics of education and the trajectory of fragility in the fulfillment of educational rights on a global scale.
"The right to education comes under pressure from two international organizations: the World Bank, in 1944, which established itself as a mechanism for global financing, and at the same time, the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development). Both treat education as a priority issue and will find a fundamental structuring reference in the economic debate: the theory of human capital, which works with the idea of the fourth factor of production: the qualification of labor. In other words, it turns education - which is a right - into an economic factor," explains Cara.
He draws attention to the influence of business representatives in the management of Brazilian education, rather than teachers, researchers, students and social and class movements that really know and are fighting for the right to education. "We have to fight for an education policy managed by educators with an effective understanding of the educational sciences. Since the economy colonizes education, we need to do the opposite: we need to colonize the economy and make an economy that is at the service of the people, and not have the people at the service of the economy," he said.
At the end of each panel, the experts answered several questions from the audience. You can access the full content here.
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