“Globalization is a coup d’etat in slow motion.”

John Ralston Saul

The Implications of Globalization on School

Leaders

• Globalization is “a complex and overlapping set of forces, operating differently, at different levels, each of which was set up intentionally, though their collective outcomes were not uniform, intended, or predicted” (Dale & Robertson, p. 2).

• Globalization is “not only a passive diffusion, it is also an active, even aggressive, process of social transformation” (Astiz, p. 66).

• Global implications

• National implications

• Local implications

–Act locally, think globally.

• globalization is rather, a Europeanization or Americanization of the cultures of the world (Courchene, p. 28).

• Are we homogenizing the planet?

• governments in the West have systematically decentralized and provided greater opportunities for business to operate without regulation.

• These neo-conservative policies are being carried out throughout the world by ideology, international trade and investment treaties and agreements and international agencies such as the IMF and the World Bank (Kuehn, p. 2).

• Throughout the world countries are forming trading blocks to protect their economic interests.

• The European Union (EU), Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), Free Trade Agreement (FTA), North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the General Agreement on Tariff and Trade (GATT), the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), both under the WTO, and now the proposed Free Trade of the Americas (FTAA), including both North and South America, have implications for our way of life and the lives of others on the globe.

• Organizations such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Trade Organization (WTO), the G8, and G20, all provide political and economic endorsement of neo-conservative monetary policy.

• these organizations can directly limit the power of a democratically elected government, through limiting funding and loan restructuring to countries unless they follow the rules and regulations set down by these organizations, thereby crippling a country’s economy.

• in 1994, the IMF forced Nicaragua’s government to freeze social spending (Barbieri, p. 11).

• there are a growing number of countries that are allowing for greater private participation in educational enterprises, which then would fall under international trade rules (Kuehn, p. 2).

• The World Trade Organization and the World Bank openly endorse the privatization of the world’s educational system (Kuehn, p. 2).

• The WTO has already labelled public funding of educational institutions as a trade barrier and then may be subject to disputes, tribunals, or court challenges (Robertson, p. 11).

• the world’s expenditures on education exceeds one trillion dollars (Robertson, p. 11).

• Who does this benefit?

• Trade agreements:• national treatment• seek to widen trade to include services as

well as goods• entrenched with the principle of ‘no

return’(Robertson, p. 9)

• “Globalization has given strength and encouragement to democratizing movements in many parts of the world” (Courchene, p. 37).

• Globalization has also offered people from many nations the ability to know and understand the variety of cultures that the world has produced.

• The G8 supports:• free universal primary

education by 2015

• make progress toward gender equity by 2005

• quality of education globally should be measured by the achievement of certain learning outcomes

• The Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) in April of 2002 outlined an Action Plan on Basic Education. “CIDA believes that education is the key to poverty reduction, to sustainable development, and to peace and stability within and among countries” (CIDA, p. 1).

• Although there is a widening gap between the number of rich and the poor on the planet, the standard of living has generally increased.

• We should celebrate the fact that increasing proportions of today’s young people are mastering much larger and increasing bodies of knowledge. (Livingstone, p. 10)

• North American Free Trade Agreement and Education

• national treatment

• It was not part of NAFTA’s purpose to create a social union between the participating countries; nor was it intended to address the inequalities between them. (Dale and Robertson, p. 21)

• By opening education to the private market, it is very possible that public education may be forced to become private because it contravenes current international trade agreements.

• Charter schools, publicly funded private schools, private colleges and universities.

• “Decisions regarding donations to educational organizations are generally made by marketing divisions of corporations” (Zappia, 2000, p.2).

• “The most serious threat posed to contemporary education is the deleterious impact that market economy policies have on curriculum theory and development.” (Hyslop-Margison, p. 203)

• Decentralization can impact at the classroom level but what the policy makers want may not be what actually happens. (Astiz, p.87)

• “Decentralized policies are locally adapted to produce unexpected structures with direct consequences for the schools” (Astiz, p. 69).

• The most effective recruiting sergeant for the privatization of education is not the right wing campaign itself but the unwillingness of governments the world over to properly fund education. (Brazier, p. 10)

• there needs to be a shift in thought where education is no longer a social service, but an integral part of the development of human capital (Courchene, p. 41).

The youth of a nation are the trustees of prosperity.

Benjamin Disraeli