1 Explaining Globalisation as a Meta-Ideology

The topic of globalisation and education reform has assumed immense importance in the discourse and policies of many bodies and agencies across the international arena. An increasing number of countries and governments have concluded that globalisation, education and policy research approach to learning and teaching should be instituted and deployed as one of the main lines of attack on some of the major problems needing to be addressed in the future. The policy documents and statements of the UNESCO, OECD, the European Parliament, the Nordic Council of Ministers and the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation Forum (APEC) reveal a commitment to globalisation and education reforms. There are other regional alliances that are grappling differently with issues of anti-globalisation trends of Brexit, in the Global South and in developing and underdeveloped nations also.

Globalisation is one of the most complex and contested concepts (Guillén 2000; Stiglitz 2006; Norris 2015). As a dominant ideology, globalisation was associated with neoliberalism and technocratic solutions to economic reforms (Saunders 2010; Zajda 2015). Saval (2017) argues that it is not only the globalisation discourse that has changed, but ‘globalisation itself has changed, developing into a more chaotic and unequal system than many economists predicted and that overall benefits of globalisation have been largely concentrated in a handful of Asian countries’ (Saval 2017).

Carnoy (1999) and Friedman (2018), on the other hand, stress the informational dimension, as a result of the quantum-like growth in the Information Communication Technologies (ICT) of the global economy. Globalisation, according to Friedman (2018), went from ‘connected to hyper-connected and from interconnected to interdependent’ (Friedman 2018). Norris argues the strongest evidence for hyper-connection, or a perfect storm of IT innovations, where ‘each is gathering speed, while interacting with and amplifying each other: mobile devices, cloud computing, Internet of Things, social networks, and Big Data and analytics’. At the World Economic Forum in Davos, in January 2018, Moyo, otherwise a well-known supporter of free trade, suggested that ‘there have been significant losses from globalisation’ (Moyo 2018).

Globalisation, according to Ampuja (2015), is now the ‘most important keyword’ of the global triumph of neoliberal capitalism. He argues that these concepts have become ‘dominant in the social sciences, to the point of establishing a new theoretical orthodoxy that we can define as globalisation theory’ (Ampuja 2015: 18). Consequently, globalisation has also acquired, argues Duan, a new meta-ideology that carries strong elements of Western ideologies:

…. principally individualism, the uniqueness of the individual, and so on, which are among the elements that neo-liberalism and modern communitarianism share, and this common denominator may be called the global hegemonic meta-ideology. Among other things, this meta-ideology largely consists of market ideas and ideas derived from human and citizen rights. Ideological adaptations towards this meta-ideology are taking place.

Apart from the multifaceted nature of globalisation that invites contesting and competing ideological interpretations, numerous paradigms and theoretical models have also been used, ranging from structuralism to post-structuralism, to explain the phenomenon of globalisation (Held et al. 1999; Hicks and Holden 2007; Steger 2009; Rizvi 2017; Zajda 2018). When, for instance, a writer or a seminar speaker uses the word ‘globalisation’ in a pedagogical and educational policy context, one wonders what assumptions, be they economic, political, social and ideological, have been taken for granted, and at their face value, uncritically, as a given, and in this case, as a globocratic (like technocratic) phenomenon.

The politics of globalisation, particularly the hydra of ideologies, which are inscribed in the discourse of globalisation need to be analysed critically, to avoid superficial and one-dimensional interpretation of the term (see Zajda 2014a, b). We need to debate new transformative concepts of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 2030, the Fourth Industrial Revolution and Knowledge Democracy (2017) that are emerging, and going beyond ‘reforms’ and OECD model, given that the future globalisation and educational imperatives will be based on the 17 SDGs, as the key thrust ahead. Furthermore, recent research findings on globalisation, education and policy, demonstrate that continued access to quality education and training for all citizens, both locally and globally, is perceived to be an investment in the future, a pre-condition for economic advance, democracy, social cohesion, social justice, equality, personal growth and peace. Yet, the on-going globalisation of schooling and higher education curricula, together with the accompanying global standards of excellence, globalisation of academic assessment (OECD 2018; PISA 2018; The World Bank 2018), have resulted in global academic achievement syndrome and global academic elitism and league tables. Together, they define and position distinction, privilege, excellence and exclusivity.

2 The Impact of Globalisation on Education Policy and Reforms

There is no doubt that economic, political, cultural and social dimensions of globalisation have a profound effect on education and society, both locally and globally. The on-going economic restructuring among nation-states and the current education hegemonies shaping dominant discourses as to how education policy and curriculum need to be reformed, in response to the ubiquitous global monitoring of educational quality and standards, are some of the outcomes of the globalisation process (PISA 2018; OECD 2018; The World Bank 2018). In critiquing globalisation and its impact on education, we need to know how its ‘ideological packaging’ affects education practices around the world (Carnoy and Rhoten 2002; see also Zajda 2018). As Carnoy and Rhoten (2002) wrote, there was a need to assess a possible nexus between globalisation, ideology, education reforms and their impact on schooling:

In assessing globalization’s true relationship to educational change, we need to know how globalization and its ideological packaging affect the overall delivery of schooling, from transnational paradigms, to national policies, to local practices. (Carnoy and Rhoten 2002: 3)

Recent changes in the world economy have resulted in at least four macro-social policy responses of the higher education sector globally to the market forces and competitiveness:

  • Competitiveness-driven reforms (reforms due to shifting demands for skills, commodities and markets)

  • Finance-driven reforms (reforms in public/private sectors, budgets, company income, cuts in educational spending)

  • Market force–driven reforms for dominance globally

  • Equity-driven reforms (reforms to improve the quality of education and its role as source of upward social mobility) to increase equality of economic opportunity

2.1 Globalisation and Competitiveness-Driven Reforms

Globalisation, marketisation and competitiveness-driven reforms both locally and globally were productivity-centred, involving privatisation, decentralisation, standards and improved management.

2.2 Globalisation and Finance-Driven Reforms

Globalisation resulted in increased competitiveness among nations and adjustment to a new globally dictated structural reality—structural adjustment. The main goal is to reduce public spending on education. In competitiveness-driven reforms, the goal is to improve the productivity of labour and efficiency of resource use.

2.3 Market Force–Driven Reforms for Dominance Globally

Globalisation resulted in competition for global dominance among nations. It has created economic leagues tables, favouring the few major economies and promoting academic elitism.

2.4 Equity-Driven Reforms

The main goal of equity-driven reforms in education and society is to increase economic capital and economic opportunity for all. Because educational attainment is a crucial factor in determining earnings and social positions, equalising access to high-quality education can play a significant role here. Globalisation-driven higher education reforms tend to ‘push governments away from equity-driven reforms’ (Carnoy 1999: 46). This is due to two reasons. Firstly, globalisation tends to increase the pay-off to high-level skills relative to lower-level skills, reducing the nexus between equity and competitiveness-driven reforms. Secondly, finance-driven reforms dominate education and policy reforms in the global economy and consequently increase inequity in education.

3 The Ascent of a Neoliberalism in Education Policy Reforms

The ascent of a neoliberal and neoconservative higher education policy, which has redefined education and training as an investment in human capital and human resource development, has dominated higher education reforms globally since the 1980s. The literature relating to human capital theory demonstrates that education consistently emerges as the prime human capital investment. Human capital refers to ‘the productive capacities of human beings as income producing agents in the economy’. Human capital research has found that education and training raises the productivity of workers by imparting useful knowledge and skills; improves a worker’s socio-economic status, career opportunities and income (Carnoy 1999; Saha 2005; Zajda 2015); and plays a significant role in driving overall economic performance. Neoliberal dimensions of globalisation and market-driven economic imperatives have impacted on higher education reforms in four ways: competitiveness-driven reforms, finance-driven reforms, equity-driven reforms and quality-driven reforms. Global competitiveness was and continues to be a significant goal on higher education policy agenda. Accountability, efficiency, academic capitalism, the quality of education and market oriented, and ‘entrepreneurial’ university model represents a neoliberal ideology, which focuses primarily on the market-driven imperatives of economic globalisation. The latest higher education reforms focus more on economic competitiveness, academic elitism, quality and standards, rather than on addressing access and equity, in order to solve serious educational inequalities in the higher education sector.

In general, neoliberalism in higher education policy reforms focuses on ‘meeting the needs of the market, technical education and job training, and revenue generation’ (Saunders 2010: 54).

The continual dominance of human capital theory as a social, economic, educational and vocational paradigm is problematic. On the one hand, with its focus on human beings as income-producing agents in the economy, it seems to offer promising economic returns, by raising the productivity of workers and the imparting of useful knowledge and skills. One could argue that there are both winners and losers in this approach. The goal of economies is to maximise efficiency, quality and profit-driven industries. When the production costs increase due to costs associated with labour, industries, in order to maintain their competitive dominance, shift to other more favourable markets in other regions, where wages and production costs are considerably lower. Thus, many skilled workers and highly qualified professionals become redundant. Global competitiveness reflects the reality of the market forces.

Human capital theory, while focusing on the productive capacities of human beings as income-producing agents in the economy, does not consider other agents and forces, namely the capitalist nature of societies, the profit-driven culture, market forces and the ubiquitous nature of global competition for economic dominance. Above all, the human capital discourse ignores ‘the value of education outside of work’ (Klees 2016: 658).

While human capital theory continues to exercise its dominance and power in education policy research, it is not infallible. Klees (2016) analyses and critiques the theoretical weakness and the conceptual failure of human capital theory and the logic of rates of return (Klees 2016: 645). Research data on the impact of the quantity of education on earnings and on GNP, argues Klees, tend to be ‘completely arbitrary’:

…different choices in estimating the impact of education on GNP yield different measures of impact, so their reported results are completely arbitrary and certainly not something policy makers should take seriously. Like measuring the impact of education on earnings, measuring the impact of education on GNP has unfortunately commanded the attention of educators and policy makers for over 50 years, yet, in reality, has been a dead end, providing no reliable or even approximate information to help a sensible allocation of societal resources.

Globally, neoliberalism in higher education policy reforms has been characteristic of capitalist societies since the 1980s. It resulted in ‘education and training, public debates regarding standards and changed funding regimes’. Hence, the politics of higher education reforms reflect this new emerging paradigm of accountability, ‘globalisation and academic capitalism’ (Delanty 2001: 120), performance indicators and ‘standards-driven policy change’ (Zajda 2010: xv).

Carnoy (1999) was also critical of the role of neoliberal ideology in education reforms, with its imperatives of accountability, competition, performance and efficiency, rather than equity and social justice:

…it should be noted that, because of the present context of globalization, in and through which neoliberal concepts tend to guide economic and social reform, those education policies which are taken up by key international actors and which go global are ones which reflect and which help to advance principles of competition, efficiency and accountability – rather than equity or social justice, for example. (Carnoy 1999)

Globalisation, policy and the politics of higher education reforms globally suggest ubiquitous economic and political dimensions of neoliberalism and re-invented cultural imperialism (see Carnoy 1977; McLaren and Farahmandpur 2005; Saunders 2010). As the UNESCO’s humanistic model for education, so influential in the 1960s, was weakening, ‘the economic and techno-determinist paradigm of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) was gaining in prominence’ (Zajda 2015).

Such hegemonic shifts in ideology and policy were likely to have significant economic and cultural implications for higher education reforms and policy implementations globally. Forces of globalisation, manifesting themselves as a neoliberal and bourgeois hegemony, tended to legitimate an ‘exploitative system’ (McLaren and Farahmandpur 2005) and have contributed to the on-going neoliberal globalisation of the higher education sector (Rizvi 2017). This is characterised by a relentless drive towards performance, global standards of excellence and quality, globalisation of academic assessment (OECD 2018; PISA 2018) and ‘global academic achievement syndrome’ (Zajda 2015). Global academic achievement syndrome signifies both ascribed and achieved status and the positioning of distinction, privilege, excellence and exclusivity in education at all levels. In higher education policy documents in the OECD, the World Bank and elsewhere, policy reforms appear to be presented as a given and as a necessary response to economic globalisation and global competitiveness (Rust and Kim 2015).

The impact of globalisation on education policy and reforms around the world has become a strategically significant issue, for it expresses one of the most ubiquitous, yet poorly understood phenomena of modernity and associated politico-economic and cultural transformations. There is sufficient evidence to suggest that forces of globalisation have contributed to a new dimension of socio-economic stratification, which offers immense gains to the very few of the economic elite in developed nations and in the emerging economies, especially in Brazil, the Russian Federation, India, China, and South Africa (BRICS). At the same time, it creates a growing and visible socio-economic divide between the rich and the poor globally, thus planting seeds of discontent and conflict for the future.

4 Global Trends in Education and Academic Achievement

Since the 1980s, globalisation, marketisation and quality/efficiency-driven reforms around the world have resulted in structural, ideological and qualitative changes in education and policy. They include an increasing focus on the UNESCO’s concepts of knowledge society, the lifelong learning for all (a ‘cradle-to-grave’ vision of learning) representing the lifelong learning paradigm and the knowledge economy and the global culture. In their quest for excellence, quality and accountability in education, governments increasingly turn to international and comparative education data analysis. They all agree that the major goal of education is to enhance the individual’s social and economic prospects. This can only be achieved by providing quality education for all. Students’ academic achievement is now regularly monitored and measured within the ‘internationally agreed framework’ of the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). This was done in response to the growing demand for international comparisons of educational outcomes (see Zajda 2015). To measure levels of academic performance in the global culture, the OECD, in co-operation with UNESCO, is using World Education Indicators (WEI) programme, covering a broad range of comparative indicators, which report on the resource invested in education and their returns to individuals.

The 2016 OECD report addresses the importance of achieving equality of outcomes through ensuring equity—defined as a ‘fair allocation of resources’, giving importance to school inputs. This has become a dominant ideology in educational standards. The report refers to factors which affect educational outcomes, including attending a school with positive student–teacher relations, certified teachers and a strong infrastructure. Furthermore, the significance of inclusive school systems—those that support diversity among all learners—was highlighted earlier in the Education at a Glance (2011), which stated that: ‘school systems with greater levels of inclusion have better overall outcomes and less inequality’. School systems tend to be inclusive when experienced teachers and material resources are evenly distributed among schools:

…In some school systems, inequality is entrenched through the mechanisms in which students are allocated to schools, including tracks that channel students into different schools based on their prior achievement or ability, private schools and special programmes in the public sector. (OEDC 2011: 455)

4.1 Comparative View of Academic Achievement

The OECD’s PISA international survey presents an encyclopaedic view of the comparative review of education systems in OECD member countries and in other countries. PISA 2018 was the programme’s recent survey. It assessed the competencies of 15-year olds in reading, mathematics and science (with a focus on mathematics) in 65 countries and economies (covering almost two-thirds of the world). At least half of the indicators relate to the output and outcomes of education, and one-third focus on equity issues (gender differences, special education needs, inequalities in literacy skills and income). Only a minority of countries seem to be well on the way of making literacy for all a reality. For the rest, illiteracy, as confirmed by the OECD study, was at the time, largely an unfinished agenda (OECD 2016, Education Policy Analysis: 67; see also OECD 2018).

The major focus of the OECD survey was on quality of learning outcomes and the policies that shape these outcomes. It also contained the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), the performance indicators which examined equity issues and outcomes—with reference to gender, SES and other variables. The performance indicators were grouped according to educational outcomes for individual countries. The OECD international survey concludes with a set of policy questions that are likely to shape the ‘What Future for Our Schools?’ policy debate. These encompass cultural and political dimensions (public attitudes to education, the degree of consensus or conflict over goals and outcomes), accountability, and diversity vs. uniformity, resourcing (to avoid widening inequalities in resources per student, as demonstrated by current trends in some of the OECD’s countries), teacher professionalism and schools as centres of lifelong learning.

4.2 Schools for the Future

One could conclude with six scenarios for tomorrow’s schools (Education Policy Analysis). The first two scenarios are based on current trends, one continuing the existing institutionalised systems, the other responding to globalisation and marketisation and facilitating market-oriented schooling. The next two scenarios address ‘re-schooling’ issues, with schools developing stronger community links and becoming flexible learning organisations. The last two scenarios of ‘de-schooling’ futures suggest a radical transformation of schools—as non-formal learning networks, supported by both ICTs and a network society, and a possible withering away, or ‘meltdown’ of school systems (Education Policy Analysis: 119).

Education policy issues raised earlier by Michael Barber in his keynote address ‘The Evidence of Things Not Seen: Reconceptualising Public Education’ at the OECD/Netherlands Rotterdam International Conference on Schooling for Tomorrow (see CERI website at www.oecd.org/cer) include the five strategic challenges and four deliverable goals for tomorrow’s schools:

Strategic challenges

  • Reconceptualising teaching

  • Creating high autonomy/high performance

  • Building capacity and managing knowledge

  • Establishing new partnerships

  • Reinventing the role of government

Deliverable goals

  • Achieving universally high standards

  • Narrowing the achievement gap

  • Unlocking individualisation

  • Promoting education with character

The questions that arise from the strategic challenges and deliverable goals framework, and which are useful in delineating the policy challenges and the goals pursued, centre on the issue of equality or egalitarianism (rather than meritocracy) in education. Specifically, one can refer to the different cultural and political environments, which affect the nature of schooling (see Zajda 2010). Diversity and uniformity, with reference to equality of opportunity needs to be considered. Important equity questions are raised by centralisation/decentralisation, diversity/uniformity and curriculum standardisation issues, the unresolved ideological dilemmas embedded in educational policy content and analysis.

4.3 Educational Policy Goals and Outcomes

In analysing the discrepancy between educational policy goals and outcomes, Psacharopoulos argued that the reason why reforms fail is that the ‘intended policy was never implemented’ and that policies were ‘vaguely stated’, financial implications were not worked out, and policies were based on good will rather than on ‘research-proven cause-effect relationships’ (p. 179). Similar conclusions were reached by the authors of Education Policy Analysis (2016), who note that the reasons why reforms fail is that policy-makers are ‘flying blind’ when it comes to policy outcomes (lack of reliable data on the progress made). In their view, it is virtually impossible to measure how well different areas of policy work together as systems of the intended reform program. There are large and critical gaps in comparative data (the cost of learning and the volume and nature of learning activities and outcomes outside the formal education sector). There is also a need to refine comparative data, especially performance indicators, as current outcomes reflect ‘biases as to the goals and objectives’ of lifelong learning (OECD 2016: 69).

5 International Studies of Educational Achievement

Psacharopoulos, and like more recently Klees (2016), questioned the validity and reliability of international comparisons of education policies, standards and academic achievement. In examining the changing nature of comparative education, he offers a more pragmatic educational evaluation of policy, which is based on deconstructing international comparisons. He comments on the controversy surrounding the validity of international achievement comparisons (IEA and IAEP studies on achievement in different countries), unmasks an erroneous use of the achievement indicators (including the use of gross enrolment ratios, which neglect the age dimension of those attending school, rather than net enrolment ratios), and suggests various new approaches to comparative data analysis:

Comparative education research has changed a great deal since Sadler’s times. The questions then might have been at what age should one teach Greek and Latin? Or how English schools could learn from the teaching nature in Philadelphia schools? Today’s questions are:

What are the welfare effects of different educational policies? … What are determinants of educational outputs? ….

In critiquing globalisation and its impact on education reforms there is also a need to focus on such issues as:

  • The ambivalent nexus between globalisation, democracy and education—where, on the one hand, democratisation and progressive education is equated with equality, inclusion, equity, tolerance and human rights, and the other hand, globalisation is perceived by some critics to be a totalising force that is widening the gap between the rich and the poor, and bringing domination, power and control by corporate elites.

  • The influence of identity politics, gender, race, ethnicity, religion and class politics on education policy research and reforms.

  • The significance of discourse, which defines and shapes education policy, reforms and action.

  • The focus on the main actors (who participates and how and under what conditions?) who act as bridges in the local-national-global window of globalisation.

  • The contradictions of cultural homogenisation and cultural heterogenisation or the on-going dialectic between globalism and localism, and between modernity and tradition and their impact on education and policy-making process.

  • Interactions between diverse education policies and reforms and multidimensional typology of globalisation.

  • The significance of the politics of globalisation and development in education policy—their effects on cross-cultural perceptions of such constructs as active citizenship, the nation-state, national identity, language(s), multiculturalism and pluralist democracy.

  • The OECD model of the knowledge society and associated strategic challenge’ and deliverable goals.

  • UNESCO-driven lifelong learning paradigm and its relevance to education policy-makers globally.

  • Different models of policy planning, and equity questions that are raised by centralisation/decentralisation, diversity/uniformity and curriculum standardisation issues.

  • The ‘crisis’ of educational quality, the debate over standards and excellence.

  • Education reform trajectories are likely to result in a better understanding of the globalisation process and its impact on educational institutions.

Some critics (see Robertson et al. 2002) have argued that the policies of the Organisation for Economic and Cooperative Development (OECD), UNESCO, the World Trade Organisation (WTO), and the General Agreement on Trade and Services (GATS) operate as powerful forces, which, as supranational organisations, shape and influence education and policy around the world. It has been argued recently that understanding the complex process of change and shifts in dominant ideologies in education and policy through the WTO-GATS process—as the key political and economic actors and ‘subjects of globalisation’—can also help to understand the nexus between power, ideology and control in education and society:

Examining the politics of rescaling and the emergence of the WTO as a global actor enables us to see how education systems are both offered as a new service to trade in the global economy and pressured into responding to the logic of free trade globally…the WTO becomes a site where powerful countries are able to dominate and shape the rules of the game, and in a global economy some countries increasingly view opening their education systems to the global marketplace as a means of attracting foreign investment. (Robertson et al. 2002: 495)

The above critique of globalisation, policy and education suggests new economic and cognitive forms of cultural imperialism. Such hegemonic shifts in ideology and policy may have significant economic and cultural implications on national education systems and policy implementations. For instance, in view of GATS constrains, and the continuing domination of multinational educational corporations and organisations in a global marketplace, the ‘basis of a national policy for knowledge production may be eroded in a free-market context of a knowledge-driven economy’ (Robertson et al. 2002: 494). This erosion signifies the corresponding weakening of the traditional role of the university, being the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake (intrinsic):

…the heart of the academic dogma is the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake. Knowledge and the processes of coming to know are good in themselves, and the university, above all institutions, is – or used to be – devoted to them. To investigate, to find out, to organise and contemplate knowledge, these are what the university is about….

Globalisation and the competitive market forces have generated a massive growth in the knowledge industries that are having profound effects on society and educational institutions. In the global culture, the university, as other educational institutions, is now expected to invest its capital in the knowledge market. It increasingly acts as an entrepreneurial institution. Such a managerial and entrepreneurial re-orientation would have been seen in the past as antithetical to the traditional ethos of the university of providing knowledge for its own sake. Delanty (2001) notes that ‘with business schools and techno science on the rise, entrepreneurial values are enjoying a new legitimacy …the critical voice of the university is more likely to be stifled than strengthened as a result of globalisation’ (Delanty 2001: 115). It can be said that globalisation may have an adverse impact on the higher education sector, and education in general. One of the effects of globalisation is that the university is compelled to embrace the corporate ethos of the efficiency and profit-driven managerialism. As such, the new entrepreneurial university in the global culture succumbs to the economic gains offered by the neoliberal ideology.

From the macro-social perspective, it can be argued that in the domains of language, policy, education and national identity, nation-states are likely to lose their power and capacity to affect their future directions, as the struggle for knowledge domination, production and dissemination becomes a new form of cultural domination and a knowledge-driven social stratification. Furthermore, the evolving and constantly changing notions of national identity, language, border politics and citizenship, which are relevant to education policy, need to be critiqued within the local–regional–national arena, which is also contested by globalisation. Current education policy research reflects a rapidly changing world, where citizens and consumers are experiencing a growing sense of uncertainty and alienation. Jarvis (2002) comments on the need to ‘rediscover’ one’s social identity in active citizenship:

Democratic processes are being overturned and there is an increasing need to rediscover active citizenship in which men and women can work together for the common good, especially for those who are excluded as a result of the mechanisms of the global culture.

The above reflects both growing alienation and a Durkheimian sense of anomie in the world invaded by forces of globalisation, cultural imperialism and global hegemonies that dictate the new economic, political and social regimes of truth. These newly constructed imperatives in educational policy could well operate as global master narratives, playing a hegemonic role within the framework of economic, political and cultural hybrids of globalisation (Zajda 2014a).

6 Standard-Driven and Outcome-Defined Policy Change

One of the effects of forces of globalisation is that educational organisations, having modelled its goals and strategies on the entrepreneurial business model, are compelled to embrace the corporate ethos of the efficiency, accountability and profit-driven managerialism. Hence, the politics of education reforms in the twenty-first century reflect this new emerging paradigm of standard-driven and outcome-defined policy change (Zajda 2015, 2016a, b). Some policy analysts have criticised the ubiquitous and excessive nature of standardisation in education imposed by the EFA framework (Carnoy 1999; Burbules and Torres 2000; Zajda 2018):

Whether one focuses on their positive or negative effects, at the bottom line, there was an agreement that the policies and practices of educational development had converged along the consensus built at the multilateral forum. (Carnoy 1999)

Globalisation and the competitive market forces have generated a massive growth in the knowledge industries that are having profound effects on society and educational institutions. In the global culture, the university, as other educational institutions, is now expected to invest its capital in the knowledge market. It increasingly acts as an entrepreneurial institution. Such a managerial and entrepreneurial re-orientation would have been seen in the past as antithetical to the traditional ethos of the university of providing knowledge for its own sake (see also Zajda 2015). It can be said that globalisation may have an adverse impact on education. One of the effects of globalisation on education in all spheres is that it is compelled to embrace the corporate ethos of the efficiency and profit-driven managerialism. This is particularly evident in higher education. The new entrepreneurial university in the global culture succumbs to the economic gains offered by the neoliberal ideology (Zajda 2014b).

The emerging challenges for education and policy reforms include a drive towards improving academic achievement in secondary schools. Our key findings indicate that current trends in most BRICS countries’ treatment of governance in education rely on the discourses of accountability, performance and output-driven schooling and that they are characterised by the new high-stakes testing through the final year tests in secondary schools. The drive for global competitiveness means that recent education policy reforms in secondary education tend to be standard- and (global) accountability-driven. BRICS governments’ and MoEs’ push for high academic achievement in secondary schools has been influenced by the emerging standardising regimes of global educational governance such as the OECD PISA assessment.

7 Globalisation, Marketisation and Quality/Efficiency-Driven Reforms

Globalisation, marketisation and quality/efficiency-driven reforms around the world since the 1980s have resulted in structural and qualitative changes in education and policy, including an increasing focus on the ‘lifelong learning for all’, or a ‘cradle-to-grave’ vision of learning and the ‘knowledge economy’ in the global culture. Governments, in their quest for excellence, quality and accountability in education, increasingly turn to international and comparative education data analysis. All of them agree that the major goal of education is to enhance the individual’s social and economic prospects. This can only be achieved by providing quality education for all. Students’ academic achievement is now regularly monitored and measured within the ‘internationally agreed framework’ of the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). This was done in response to the growing demand for international comparisons of educational outcomes (OECD, Education policy outlook 2015: making reforms happen; Global education monitoring report 2017). Yet, not all schools are successful in addressing the new academic standard imperatives, due to a number of factors, both internal and external. Cohen (2011), for instance, attributes failure of education reforms in the USA due to fragmented school governance and the lack of coherent educational infrastructure.

To measure levels of academic performance in the global culture, the OECD, in co-operation with UNESCO, is using World Education Indicators (WEI) programme, covering a broad range of comparative indicators, which report on the resource invested in education and their returns to individuals (OECD 2016Education at a Glance—OECD Indicators; see also OECD 2018).

Since the 1980s, higher education policy and reforms globally have been influenced by the grand narratives of globalisation, neoliberalism, human capital and economic rationalism (Sabour 2005; Zajda 2018). Higher education policy reforms in the 1980s represented a drive towards economic rationalism, where the increasingly traditional role of the university was replaced by a market-oriented and entrepreneurial university. It has led to entrepreneurial university awards. For instance, the University of Huddersfield has been awarded the prestigious Times Higher Education Entrepreneurial University of the Year award for 2013. The neoliberal university, as noted by Saunders and others, emphasises the ‘role of the faculty not as educators, researchers, or members of a larger community, but as entrepreneurs’ (Saunders 2010: 60). Accordingly, the current redefinition of academics into ‘entrepreneurs is widespread and is consistent with neo-liberal ideology as is the commodification, commercialization, and marketization of the fruits of faculty labour’ (Saunders 2010: 60).

8 Globalisation and Social Inequality

The need to address economic and social inequalities was discussed by Dervis (2007), who argued that globalisation has changed the world economy by creating ‘winners’ and ‘losers’:

Globalization has fundamentally altered the world economy, creating winners and losers. Reducing inequalities both within and between countries and building a more inclusive globalization is the most important development challenge of our time … Addressing these inequalities is our era’s most important development challenge, and underscores why inclusive development is central to the mission of the UN and UNDP. (Dervis 2007)

Globalisation and social inequality were critiqued by Christine Lagarde (2018), the head of the International Monetary Fund, when she suggested the need to ‘more redistribution’, a radical economic policy change for the IMF (Lagarde 2018). Saval (2017), using data from Milanović’s (Milanovic 2016) book, indicates that in relative terms, the greatest benefits of globalisation have accrued to a rising ‘emerging middle class’, based preponderantly in China:

But the cons are there, too: in absolute terms, the largest gains have gone to what is commonly called ‘the 1%’ – half of whom are based in the US. Economist Richard Baldwin has shown in his recent book, The Great Convergence, that nearly all of the gains from globalisation have been concentrated in six countries. (Saval 2017)

Klees (2016), in his informed critique of the human capital discourse, and its use in the logic of rates of return, or the impact of the quantity of education on earnings, demonstrates that human capital theory and its connection between education and productivity is defined and driven by the ideology of meritocratic capitalism, and neoliberal ideology, where its ‘rewards are more or less deserved’ (Klees 2016: 259). Consequently, it has been fashionable since the 1980s, to use the human capital and skill discourses to ‘blame individuals’, rather than social structures and organisation, for lack of education and job opportunities:

…for their lack of ‘investment’ in human capital, for their not attending school, for their dropping out of school, for their not studying the ‘right’ fields, for their lack of entrepreneurship. (Klees 2016: 259)

The very ideology of capitalism, conveniently legitimated by human capital theory, could never solve social inequality and poverty, because greater economic equality, employment and social justice are not the goals of capitalism. Capitalism, driven by the profit-maximisation incentive, makes social inequality, lack of full employment and endemic poverty inevitable (Bardhan 2005; Franzini and Pianta 2015; Klees 2016).

Rizvi (2017) also suggests that the current discourse of educational reforms, driven by a neoliberal ideology, has resulted in the intensification of ‘social inequalities’ (Rizvi 2017: 10). He argues that globalisation while bringing ‘great benefits to most communities’, at the same time reinforces inequalities:

Global mobility of people, ideas and media has brought great benefits to most communities, but clearly in ways that are uneven and unequal. (Rizvi 2017: 12)

One of the effects of globalisation is that the higher education sector, having modelled its goals and strategies on the market-oriented and entrepreneurial business model, which reflects neoliberal ideology, is compelled to embrace the ‘corporate ethos of the efficiency, accountability and profit-driven managerialism’ (Zajda 2014b). This necessarily produces both socially and economically stratified societies and education systems.

The dimensions of inequality and implications for social justice are due to the impact of privatisation/marketisation, and the rising inequity in the availability of funds among local education/regional authorities, because of differentiated economic and social differences between rich and poor regions. Regional inequalities in educational funding have an adverse effect on access to quality education. Some poorer rural regions are socially, economically and educationally disadvantaged, with little access to high-quality education. Current government policy of supporting best-performing schools, based on National examination results in secondary schools, will continue to have an ‘adverse effect on access to quality education for all in those regions’ (Dervin and Zajda 2018: 7).

From a critical theory perspective, globalisation has contributed to a new form of entrenched social stratification between the rich and poor economies (Milanovic 2016). The dimensions of social inequality are essentially due to the impact of capitalist economy, privatisation/marketisation and the rising inequity in the availability of funds among local education/regional authorities, because of differentiated economic and social differences between rich and poor regions. Regional inequalities in educational funding have an adverse effect on access to quality education. Some poorer rural regions are socially, economically and educationally disadvantaged, with little access to high-quality education. Current government policy of supporting best-performing schools, based on national examination results in secondary schools, will continue to have an ‘adverse effect on access to quality education for all in those regions’ (Dervin and Zajda 2018: 7).

The above critique of globalisation, policy and education reforms suggests new economic, social and political dimensions of cultural imperialism (see Zajda 2015). Such hegemonic shifts in ideology affecting policy are likely to have significant economic and cultural implications for national education systems, reforms and policy implementations.

9 Conclusion

Recent policy documents in the education sector, the UNESCO, OECD, and the World Bank reflect the following themes: The emergence of an awareness of the importance of the knowledge society and the learning society; an acceptance of the need for a new philosophy of education and training, the necessity of ensuring that the foundations for global education are set in place for all citizens during the compulsory and post-compulsory years of schooling; and recognising that emphasis upon globalisation, education and policy reform may challenge the existing patterns of social stratification of inequality, power and privilege (Apple 2004; Franzini and Pianta 2015; Global education monitoring report 2017; OECD 2018; UNESCO 2017a, b, c; World Bank 2017, 2018; Zajda 2018).

The above analysis of education policy reforms, and the resultant social stratifications in the global culture, demonstrates a complex nexus between globalisation, ideology and education reforms—where, on the one hand, democratisation and progressive pedagogy are equated with equality, inclusion, equity, tolerance and human rights, while on the other hand, globalisation is perceived, by some critics at least, to be a totalising force that is widening the socio-economic status (SES) gap and cultural and economic capital between the rich and the poor, and bringing power, domination and control by corporate bodies and powerful organisations (Milanovic 2016). Hence, we need to continue exploring critically the new challenges confronting the global village, in the provision of authentic democracy, social justice and cross-cultural values that genuinely promote a transformative pedagogy (Zajda 2015). We need to focus on the crucial issues at the centre of current and on-going education reforms, namely equity, social justice and human rights, if genuine culture of learning and transformation, characterised by wisdom, compassion, equality and intercultural understanding, is to become a reality, rather than a policy rhetoric (Daun 2015; Zajda and Ozdowski 2017).