Professor Stephen Ball of the Institute of Education, a leading authority on the steady march of ‘edu-business’, describes it as a ‘ratchet process’ in which each new government circular or Education Act has opened up a fresh business opportunity. As Ball told me when I interviewed him for my recent book School Wars: The Battle for Britain’s Education ↑ , there have been 35 such moments since 1988, each one encouraging the private sector to take over, and sell back to schools, a range of services, from meals to building improvements, to the examination system and inspection services. Over time, a plethora of bidders has become consolidated into a few, established, providers. The result is that, while during the 1990s there were 120 different companies involved in the inspection of schools, this had shrunk to seven by 2003. It has now dwindled to just three.
As Ball shrewdly observes, the term ‘privatisation’ does not do justice to the complex interconnection being formed between state and market. We are seeing a general “corporatisation” of schooling itself - covering everything from the importing of private sector management techniques to the dominance of entrepreneurial and aspirational narratives and values within the classroom.
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