The presentation in this study is the result of a critical inquiry into the nature, extent and direction of the current trends towards the marketisation of education which constitutes a major structural change which has substantially impacted on teachers work. The inquiry has been prompted by the conviction that these trends represent quite a fundamental change in the provision of education and in the role of teachers which is not compatible with the goals of human development. / The investigation has revealed that a Marxian critique needs to be developed for its subject matter because it is a dynamic process rather than a set of prescribed methodological principles. In this regard it is important to understand that Hegels dialectic forms the essential operating rubric of the critique but its form in Marxs schema is materialist. In this sense Marxs critique is a development of Hegels foundational dialectical principles. The finding is one of the major contributions this inquiry has brought to knowledge. / The inquiry also revealed that the current trends in educations marketisation are to be explained as arising from within the internal contradictions of the capitalist economy: 1) between the necessity to reproduce and to accumulate capital; 2) between the social relations of exploitation in the sphere of production, where surplus value is extracted from workers labour, and the social relations of competition among capitalists in the sphere of the market, where surplus value is realised as capital; and 3) between the necessity to raise production through technological change and to resolve the ensuing economic crises through enterprise restructuring. In severe crises, however, the restructuring is extended to services such as education. The latter is a major finding for the inquiry because it revealed that capital actually thrives and survives on economic crises. / Finally, the inquiry revealed that the effect of the current trends is the subjugation of education and teachers work to a similar production regime to that operating in material production. This can occur because marketisation demands that entities to be exchanged must be reduced to quantifiable units of value in order that they can be equalised, in which case regardless of their form they can be treated as indistinguishable from any other entity. In this sense marketisation for education means that it can be managed and organised like any other production process. / The result of these trends is that education becomes a capitalist mode of production in which teachers work is subsumed under the regime of technological work processes and scientific management regimes. As the inquiry shows, this development is an expression of the capitalist exchange economys expansionary drive for world domination. / These are trends which cannot be compatible with the goals of human development for it forecloses what should be and open future. Informed intervention is therefore an imperative if education is to be redirected toward humanist goals. It is towards this kind of informed action that this study is intended to make a contribution. / Thesis ([PhDEducation])--University of South Australia, 2001
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/267298 |
| Date | January 2001 |
| Creators | Raduntz, Helen. |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | copyright under review |
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