22.1 Introduction

This chapter analyses the process of globalisation, not in the narrow context of economics, but rather in its wider sense: social and political culture, as well as all other processes aimed at enlarging all human capabilities for nation-building. Also, in this chapter globalisation is argued to be a discursively constructed grand narrative. Grand narrative or “master narrative” is a term first introduced by Jean-FrançoisLyotard (1979)to critique the nexus between knowledge, ideology and power.

This chapter first presents the opportunities and challenges that globalisation offers to Africa, and examines how public expenditure has been impacted by one aspect of globalisation—the tidal force of finance-driven reform. We then analyse the way the process of globalisation, associated with neoconservativist ideology is bound to reduce the ability of nations to collaborate and foster a human economic development partnership in national development (Zajda 2020a). The chapter suggests regulating globalisation in ways that minimise its impact on education through the use of safety nets of market creation. The concluding remarks show that globalisation has the potential to positively affect wealth creation and bring about social justice in education, but its current design has not allowed the achievement of these noble goals.

The grand narrative of economic globalisation, as a dominant ideology is a form of economic neoconservativism, an absolutist closed ideological discourse that valorises “the market” into an international capitalist marketplace of trade liberalisation, unfettered by national regulation. It is this economic rational that becomes the paramount organising principle to which all societies and education must become subject. Market forces are one source of the impetus of globalisation that is driven by transnational companies (TNCs) through their competitive search for profit internationally. The dramatic globalisation of social and economic activities that intensified during the mid 1980s is characterised by a powerful confluence of economic rationalism that is a threat to the values of democracy, social justice, and public education systems (Zajda 2020c).

Education policy was no longer a separate domain with policy determined according to educational principles, because education was no longer acknowledged as a unique social activity. The authors are sceptical about the gains that can be made by moving education closer to the market and question the social efficacy ruling the global economy only by the exigencies of market forces. Many nations in Africa have failed to share in the gains of globalisation. World Bank indicates that in developing regions, the proportion of people living on less than $1.25 a day fell ‘from 47% in 1990 to 22% in 2010’. Their exports have remained confined to a narrow range of primary commodities. Some researchers argue that poor policies and infrastructure, weak institutions and corrupt governance have marginalised these countries. Another school of thought argues that geographical and climatic disadvantage have locked some countries out of global growth (Dollar 2004). Global inequality between the richest and poorest countries has increased, doubling between the top 20 and bottom 20 nations between 1960 and 2000 (The World Bank 2000; see also World Bank 2017, 2019). The gaps between rich and poor countries, and rich and poor people within countries, have grown. The richest quarter of the world’s population saw its per capita GDP increase nearly sixfold during the century, while the poorest quarter experienced less than a threefold increase. Income inequality has clearly increased. Furthermore, many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa had small economies with high import barriers:

They were trying to develop a full range of industries in economies that did not offer sufficient degree of efficiency. The results in terms of growth and poverty reduction were not impressive. People in Africa were struggling for new models because they felt that the old model had failed (Dollar 2004).

Globalisation will have a significant impact on African nations, their economies and societies during the next decade (Geo-JaJa 2003). King and McGrath (1999) argue that African countries, in order to compete more effectively and efficiently in economic markets increasingly dictated by globalisation, will need to develop policy strategies based on the new knowledge and skills defined by global markets. These new knowledge and skills taxonomies need to be internalised by both individuals and enterprises.

Michael Apple (2002), on the other hand, in his macro-sociological analysis, very convincingly linked globalisation with decentralisation, marketisation, and privatisation of education, as characterised by the commodification of knowledge, skills, and learning activities. This economic impact of globalisation on education systems has also been examined by Zajda and Gamage 2009; Zajda 2010). The neoliberal ideology of globalisation does not only marketise education programs that were once provided by government and supported by taxes, it also agitates trade liberalisation to the benefits of transnational corporations’ penetration of local markets (Zajda 2014a). Under this socio-economic restructuring, nation states have become increasingly internationalised, in the sense that they have withdrawn from their social responsibility to provide and administer public resources to promote social justice (OECD 2019).

These new values, as reflected in the neoliberal agendas promote less state intervention in public policy and greater dependence on the market. Similarly, Arnove (1999), with reference to neo-liberal ideology, argued that economic restructuring was primarily concerned with transforming the educational systems, with the dual goals of producing financial savings as well as the thorough refocusing of epistemological bases, methods, and procedures of schooling. We believe that, in the short- and long-term, quasi-market mechanisms expose the social fissures between those with the education and those who are not able to acquire education, and allow those social fissures to flourish in an unfettered world market.

In essence, like supranational organisations imposed Structural Adjustment Programs (SAP), this phenomenon is the free market ideology of economics and international politics repackaged into language appropriate to trade and education development of the twenty-first century (Geo-JaJa and Magnum 2000). Globalisation wraps much old thinking in the guise of new ideas of equitable wealth creation. We question the policy of or belief in bringing education closer to the market place as translated into deregulation, privatisation, and commercialisation of education activities. Therefore, in response to the changing economic demands of globalisation is the establishment of a knowledge-based, ‘magnet’ economy and a ‘learning nation’. Thus, education has become increasingly conceived of as an instrument of economic policy. Those prepared to take a closer look will find the pervasive elements of neoconservatives or global capitalists’ educational thinking and practices. Indeed, it is the coexistence of these apparently contradictory strands that, in our view constitutes much of what is distinctive about current education reform and development in developing countries.

It is for the above reasons that the authors argue that globalisation has resulted in increased wealth with widening social and economic gaps between and within nations (see Milanovic 2016). In the education sector, it negates quality and equality between nations. As a result, key stakeholders are no longer the teachers, parents and governments but rather private institutions and international organisations (Ilon 2002a; Geo-JaJa and Mangum 2000), Thus, the politics of education or economic reform is no longer the dictate of the legislatures, nor is it the dictates of its most legitimate stakeholders (the people) which is shaping it.

22.2 What Is Globalisation?

The world economy has been moving steadily towards more global trade integration between countries, which has led to the birth of a large interdependent global village. In the new global village, education reform debates are infused with the imagery of globalisation (Appadurai 1996). Whether debating efficacy or efficiency, such pedagogical phrases as ‘internationalisation,’ ‘decentralisation;’ ‘harmonisation,’ and an increasing global competition dominates the discussions between different operators (Zajda 2005, 2020b). These operators or policy ideologues inform the language of education reform movements. Whatever is the language, globalisation seems not to be friendly to the rights of individuals or governments, or to those who support government action on behalf of social justice.

Globalisation – the international integration of communication and economics-has become a cliché. This phenomenon that is driven by significant technological advancement is underpinned by “instrumental economicism” – the ideology of the convergence of education reform. The conservatives’ definition of globalisation as the turning of the world economy into a single market, and in terms of education its marketisation, constant cost-cutting and facilitating closer links between it and the economy, threatens the ability of many communities and nation-states to localise quality education or increase GDP through tax revenues and trade regulations.

In commenting specifically on the policy implications of globalisation on developing nations, Robertson (1992) observed that, while affecting values, institutions, and futures, globalisation moves nations towards homogeneity, and promotes education reforms guided by market forces. In evaluating the presumed convergent consequences of globalisation, Giddens (2000, p. 30–31) accepts the premise that globalisation processes are indeed unprecedented, such that governments and societies across the globe have to adjust to a world in which there is no longer a clear distinction between international and domestic, external and internal affairs. Reflecting further, in his book titled, The Consequences of Modernity, Giddens (1994) points out that:

Globalisation is really about the transformation of space and time; I would define it as action at distance, and relate its growth over recent years to the development of means of instantaneous global communication and mass transportation (Giddens 1994, p. 22).

According to Carnoy (1995), the primary motivating force behind globalisation is still its desire to “shape the world’s education” in ways that would be most beneficial to the business interest of its own transnational companies. Carnoy (1995) also concluded that while actual provision of education is increasingly being marketised, globalisation also has continued to play a major role in curriculum development, in teacher training, in the certification and the definition of standards. The reality is as a result of its major impact on education through financial terms. In fact, marketisation of education, and the commodification of knowledge have been associated with a deepening of education quality – an accentuation of inequalities by breaking communities into small units that are virtually powerless. As can be seen, despite a general trend in increasing wealth and flow of Foreign Direct Investment (FDIs), not all countries have been able to provide adequate funding for quality and equitable education (Oxfam 2001, p. 15). In this vein, globalisation has brought the free market into education but with serious negative ramifications and significant social and economic costs.

By linking local practices to the global, globalisation culminates in an inequitable distribution of education with enormous human costs. As can be seen, the impact of globalisation is not just limited to trade; it also impacts social culture, overwhelming indigenous educational systems with a commodified and homogenised transnational education. Giddens (1999) illustrates the discourse on this simplistic finance-driven model that drags education along as a casual outcome and not as an integral part of society:

… a complex set of process, not a single one. And these operate in a contradictory or oppositional fashion. Most people think of it as simply ‘pulling away’ power from the local communities and nations into global arena. And indeed this is one of its consequences, Nations do lose some of the economic power they once had. However, it also has an opposite effect. Globalisation not only pulls upwards, it pushes downward, creating new pressures for the local economy (Giddens 1999, p. 3).

The rhetoric in the above quotation leaves no room for positive outcomes from the perspective of social justice and democratic development. King and McRath (1999) in evaluating globalisation, enterprise and knowledge confronting nations in Africa, provide a very useful research tool for the understanding of the development of learning enterprises in Africa—which like other regions, is experiencing, in different ways, and in different places, the cumulative effects of post-Fordism, the knowledge economy and globalisation. They argue that in the global culture, ‘learning-led competitiveness’ should be the goal of education for all:

at the core of the globalisation message is the argument that pockets of activity isolated from global market are rapidly diminishing. It is essential, therefore, that policy interventions and projects that seek to help the poor survive better are closer intertwined with policies for competitiveness (King and McRath 1999, p. 11).

King & McRath bring skilfully together three major areas: debates about the impact of globalisation on development in Africa, sectoral responses to globalisation in education and enterprise, and national experiences related to globalisation, education, and training in three case study countries – South Africa, Ghana and Kenya. The authors point out to the continuing centrality of international development cooperation in African development and educational outcomes, as reflected in broader policy positions and discourses at the sectoral and intersectoral level (p. 66–7), as well as the ‘the shifting balance’ between growth, structural adjustment, and poverty in globalisation and development policies. They also stress that ‘learning-led competitiveness’ can ensure that the African cultural Renaissance has real economic significance.

22.2.1 Poverty and Access to Education

The economic inequality between and within countries globally continues to grow. Milanovic (2011) argued that ‘the gap between UK and India in 2009 was in excess of 10 to 1 while it was only 5 to 1 in the mid-19th century’ (Milanovic 2011, p. 12). According to his data, ‘more than 80 percent of global income differences is due to large gaps in mean incomes between countries, and unskilled workers’ wages in rich and poor countries often differ by a factor of 10 to 1′ (Milanovic 2011. See also Milanovic 2016). According to Milanovic (2007), inequality not only has increased over the last two decades, but the economic inequality between people is very pronounced:

Over the past two decades inequality within countries has increased, and the inequality between the world’s individuals is staggering. At the turn of the twenty-first century, the richest 5 percent of people receive one-third of total global income, as much as the poorest 80 percent. While a few poor countries are catching up with the rich world, the differences between the richest and poorest individuals around the globe are huge and likely growing (Milanovic 2007).

A recent study conducted by UNESCO (the UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation) examined the correlation between poverty and the accessibility of education. Due to the high rates of children and adolescents who are out of school, or have not completed their education, the global poverty rate is the contributing factor (UNESCO 2017a; see also OECD 2018b; World Bank 2019).

According to the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS), the global number of children, adolescents and youth out of school in 2015 was 264 million. From that, 61 million are children who are of primary school age. 62 million are young adolescents and 141 million are young people of upper secondary school age.

The study also demonstrated that the majority of these out of school populations are located in poorer countries. These countries generally have lower incomes and are located in regions including Sub-Saharan Africa, Northern Africa, and elsewhere. Poverty rates also have an impact on gender disparities in education, showcasing that more females than males are likely to be out of school in low-income and lower-middle income countries. As the UNESCO study demonstrates, low levels of education and acquisition of that education can hinder economic prosperity, which would, in turn, slow down poverty reduction. According to the study, if all adults received two more years of schooling or completed secondary school, it would lift nearly 60 million people out of poverty. This could be achieved through effective education policies that address the issues of drop-out rates. Universal access to primary and secondary education is necessary to decrease the out of school rates, and therefore, decrease the poverty rate.(https://www.unaa.org.au/2017/06/28/unesco-study-reveals-correlation-between-poverty-and-education/).

Research data from the World Bank (2019) indicate that in developing regions, 10% of the world’s population live on less than US$1.90 a day, compared to 11% in 2013. Despite the progress made in reducing poverty, the number of people living in extreme poverty globally remains unacceptably high. According to OECD reports (2018a, b), economic inequality has increased:

Income inequality in OECD countries is at its highest level over the past half century. The average income of the richest 10% of the population is about nine times that of the poorest 10% across the OECD, up from seven times 25 years ago (OECD 2018b).

In the 2019 Human Development Report it was stated that the global ‘extreme poverty rate fell from 36 percent in 1990 to 9 percent in 2018’ (Human Development Report 2019, p. 35).

22.3 Neoliberal Globalisation in Africa: Convergence or Divergence

We are now in the midst of a fourth stage of outside penetration of Africa by forces that have overwhelmed Africa’s integral development. The era of integration through trade and financial flows has maximum development consequences on the region. This most repressive approach to development is fuelled by “global liberalisation”, with its most distinctive feature being the linking of people’s lives more deeply, more intensely, and more immediately than ever before with market forces (UNDP, Human Development Report1997, p. 83; 1999, p. 1), The first stage of the penetration of Africa was the period of slavery; the second stage was the era of colonialism; the third stage, termed “neo-colonialism” by Pope Paul VI, was marked by structural conditionalities and cold war antics of micro-interventions. Altogether, the picture that emerges is that of a new global economy of post-colonialism, which has resemblance to political subjugation. It is designed not to favour Africa, but primarily to benefit the North. As a result the world is witnessing the emergence of a new form of “global capitalism”, qualitatively different from the nineteenth century laissez-faire capitalism and the twentieth century managed capitalism. The 2011 Human Development Report offers important new contributions to the global dialogue demonstrating the necessary nexus between globalisation, sustainability and equity, or ‘fairness and social justice and of greater access to a better quality of life’. The Report also stresses that ‘Understanding the links between environmental sustainability and equity is critical’ if we are to retain and institutionalise human freedoms for current and future generations (UNDP, Human Development Report2011, p. ii).

22.4 Trade Term Equalisation or Marginilisation

This section reviews the region’s trade growth under the United Nations New Agenda for the Development of Africa (UN-NADAF) in the 1990s. Asymmetries and distortions in the global trading system constitute serious impediments to global wealth creation and distribution and the underdevelopment of Africa (for a detail discussion see Comprehensive Assessment of the Sustainability of these Interventions). For example, in agriculture UNCTAD reports that while 30 countries in the region experienced declines in per capita output between 1990 and 2000, in 10 countries there was less than 1% per year increase and in 12 countries increases exceeding 1% per year was registered. There can be no doubt that this unbalanced growth can be associated with worsening terms of trade, which also play a major role in the overall growth process.

In Parkins’ (1996, p. 62) interpretation, the integration of African economies into the world system is a form of “global apartheid”. In his interpretation, there has been a net transfer of wealth from the South to the North, equivalent to six “Marshall Plans”, For instance the levels of terms of trade at the end of the 1990s were 26% below that which was attained in the 1970s. It has been estimated that for each dollar of net capital transfer to the region, some 65% has been “ripped off” as capital transfers by way of interest payments, profit remittances, and more especially from debt servicing and terms of trade losses. This process of wealth accumulating at the top while risk is being allocated to the bottom has been endemic and is related to what the authors see as the direct negatives of globalisation on the region’s education budget. That such technical development is obviously socially influenced supports the notion that the process of globalisation exemplifies the erosion of local and national capacity, and capabilities for peace and nation-building.

For example, Africa’s trade that averaged 1.1% annual growth from 1975 to 1984, drastically fell to −6.8% during the period 1985 to 1989, and then slightly recovered to an annual average growth of −0.4 in 1990s. Manufactured goods export, which stood at 32.5% in 1980, drastically fell to −2.7% in 1997 (UNDP 1997, p. 82; UNCTAD 2001a, p. 47). The foregoing analyses as well as the Zedillo Report commissioned by UNCTAD, clearly indicate that Africa has yet to draw any significant benefits from increased openness and participation in the global village as suggested by international organisations such as WTO, the World Bank and others.

22.4.1 De-Humanisationt Effect of Globalisation in Africa

The impact of globalisation in nation-states may come from various sectors. It may come from international pressures to liberalise trade or to introduce uniform standards in education. The effect of these trade agreements or loan conditionalities on the economy of the region has been marked by deterioration in the rate of real growth. Regardless of the phenomenal increases in global trade, human economic development gaps across sub-regions and countries and also within countries has widened. Stunningly, the gap in per capita income between the rich and the poor countries grew fivefold between 1980 and 1990 (Pritchett 1997). What else can be deduced from the globalisation effect when a region with about 14.5% of the world population and with an annual average population growth of almost 4% carried only 1.5% of world trade and controlled only 1.3% of the world’s wealth?

The negative impact of policy on indigenous population groups was examined critically by McDowell in ‘The Impact of the National Policy on Education on Indigenous Education in Nigeria’, who explained that policy-makers do not recognise the contribution made by indigenous education and that recent changes may ‘threaten’ local communities:

Recent national educational policies do not recognise the contribution which indigenous education continues to make. The analysis also shows, however, that a too-rapid implementation of these new policies would place excessive and unrealistic demands on the schools and threaten the ability of non-school educational efforts to adjust to these changes.

22.5 Economic Consequences

According to the World Development Report, 2000/2001, of the 64 countries ranked as “low income countries”, 38 were in Africa (World Bank 2001. See also World Bank 2019). For most African countries, economic growth fell from 4.0% yearly from 1996–1973, to 0.7% yearly from 1985 to 1990, and to 0.9 from 1991 to 1994 (World Bank 1996a, p. 18). Average income per head was lower in 2000 than it was in 1980; and unemployment increased from 7.7% in 1978 to 22.8% in 1990, and subsequently reached 30% in 2000 (ILO/JASPA 1993). By 1990 public sector wages had declined by not less than 90% of what they were in 1974.

However, more recently, global value chains (GVCs) accelerated the increase of international trade after 1990 and now account for almost half of all trade. This shift resulted in an unprecedented economic convergence. Low income countries grew rapidly and began to catch up with richer countries (World Development Report2020).

Other related outcomes of globalisation are exemplified in deepening income distribution inequality, mounting debts, and deepening poverty that threatens the very existence of the region (see Klees (2016). All these trends are not the inevitable consequences of global economic integration, which have seen considerable erosion after decades of emphasis on weak small states (UNDP HDR 1999, p. 3. See also Milanovic 2016). This unbalanced growth situation is better illustrated by a quote from an African leader speaking at a G-15 meeting held on June 19, 2000:

Our societies are overwhelmed by the strident consequences of globalisation and the phenomenon of trade liberation (African Perspective 2000).

He went on to suggest that the only option opened to them has narrowed as their increasingly shrinking world imposes on them a choice of integration or the severe conditions of marginalisation and stagnation.

22.6 Education and Policy Effect

In Educational Planning in a Developing Country: the Sudan, Akrawi considers some administrative changes in policy related to the financing of education and the community role in governing schools. In the Sudan, for instance, there was a 5-year plan in 1960 for educational reorganisation, including an increase in educational spending:

The first category involves economies in the present methods of expenditure and changes of policy which would result in such economies… Among the new measures may be cited an increased share for education in the national budget. This share is now 13.5 per cent and it should be possible to raise it to 15, 18, or even 20 per cent. A second measure might be sharing to a greater extent than at present the responsibility for primary education with the local councils and municipalities….

In Uganda many primary schools were found in rural areas, and both the location of schools and poor quality of teaching were the two significant factors which made it difficult to achieve compulsory primary education:

…The immediate policy is “to ensure a minimum of four years schooling within walking distance of the home of every child who wishes to go to school”. This aim, too, has yet to be achieved.

The crisis of basic education in Africa and a new basic education policy that furthers the term nonformal education in providing education relevant to local needs.

Psacharopoulos in analysing the discrepancy between educational policy goals and outcomes argued that the reason why reforms fail is that the ‘intended policy was never implemented’ and that policies were based on ‘good will’ rather than on ‘research-proven cause-effect relationships’:

The reason most educational policies are not implemented is that they are vaguely stated and that the financing implications are not always worked out … in order to avoid past pitfalls, the following conditions should be met in formulating educational policies. A policy statement should be concrete and feasible in terms of objectives … (pp. 179–193).

By analyzing further the link between basic education, globalisation and learning-based competitiveness, especially a ‘curriculum for competitiveness’ and personal empowerment that are likely to address globalisation imperatives (King and McRath 1999; Zajda 2014a, 2018), the authors show that the notion of education for global competitiveness has reached African policy makers more recently. Despite the globalisation rhetoric affecting policy, the authors stress the need for the main actors and practitioners to address the ways enterprise development and education is implemented and how it is articulated in policy and in the classroom. In short, effective and quality-driven education policy and practice necessitates a much deeper understanding of ‘macroeconomic challenges, sectoral trends and micro-level opportunities’ (p. 113). It is here that the real challenge of unmasking the façade of globalisation as the force for widening rich-poor gap and domination by the elite strata in some African states must be taken up by the political and educational policy makers. One also needs to take into consideration the double edge sword of globalisation – potential benefits for some and increased hardship for others, in ‘already weak economies and societies’ (p. 206).

One of the problems associated with the school-industry partnership in African nations is ‘the historical absence of MSEs’ (micro and small enterprises) from national strategies in Africa (p. 161). More importantly, King and McRath (1999) believe that globalisation combined with post-Fordism forces policy-makers to ‘fundamentally reorient the way that we need to understand economic development, both North and South’ (p. 192).

It has been suggested that MSEs can be seen as potential engines of development and poverty reduction and for resolving the tensions between globalisation, development, power, class, wealth and equity issues. The key policy message is that ‘development policies need to be reconceptualised in the light of the notion of learning-led competitiveness’ (p. 202).

One of the most serious issues in globalisation and education policy nexus is the role of language in the new knowledge-driven and outcomes-based education in Africa (Brock-Utne 2003, p. 386). She refers to the 1980 UNESCO-UNICEF publication African Thoughts on the Prospects of Education for All, where the African educationist Babs Fafunwa wrote:

We impart knowledge and skills almost exclusively in foreign languages, while the majority of people, farmers, and craftsmen perform their daily tasks in Yoruba, Hausa, Wolof, Ga, Igbo, Bambara, Kiswaili, etc…the question is: Why not help them to improve their social, economic, and political activities via their mother tongue … (quoted in Brock-Utne, p. 386).

Why do we ignore the cognitive and affective role of mother tongue in schooling and why do we insist that students in Africa should learn English or French first before information technology and globalisation-driven knowledge of ‘learning-led competitiveness’ is introduced to them?

22.6.1 Social Consequences

The prognosis in this section and previous sections is that both state and market have failed Africa. Many changes have taken place in the social and economic scene in the 1990s. This section identifies the following five social manifestations of change:

  • Individualisation of social formation

  • Flexibilisation of family for flexible workers

  • Individualisation of labour in the labour process

  • Transformation of close-knit societies of yore to virtual, cyber-societies

  • De-humanisation of education and dislocated local citizens.

Globalisation’s approach, characterised by a free market ideology that exalts internal efficiency of inputs above human welfare, and the urgency of an acceleration of education privatisation and standardisations make the search for more effective ways for education development an inescapable imperative (see Zajda 2014a). According to Apple, the socio-cultural consequence of globalisation as part of the doxa of neoconservativism is the compression of symbolic universes, or what Giddens (1994) identified as the process of reflexitivity and de-traditionalisation. Representing the changing nature of the international labour market, Martin Carnoy (2000) mapped out a picture of conflict in the marketplace by asserting that:

What results is a serious social contradiction: the new workplace requires even more investment in knowledge than the past, and the family are crucial to such knowledge formation […] The new workplace created by globalization, however, contributes to greater instability in the child-centered nuclear family, degrading the very institution crucial to further economic development (Carnoy 2000, p. 110).

Furthermore, with the dismantling of the post-globalisation close-knit family coupled with the de-humanisation effect of globalisation policies, it becomes more difficult and more costly to sustain minimal levels of social protection (Geo-JaJa and Mangum 2002). These consequences, while increasing homogenisation of education, also have the effect of making the universality of education and improvement in quality impossible.

In this section, through supportive evidence, we show that, indeed, trade reform regimes in developing countries has led to lower government revenue as trade taxes are reduced or eliminated in an effort to maintain macroeconomic stability. These facts suggest that globalisation has brought about “divergence” rather than the promised “convergence” in wealth. They also demonstrate that almost without exception, globalisation requires states to reduce public spending, minimise welfare provision, and privatise as much as possible the welfare state, particularly education provision. From the above section analysis, it can be said that globalisation lifts capitalism to another “highest stage” of economic and social dislocations through: (1) public expenditure priorities on sectors with high economic returns, (2) tax reforms and trade liberalisation, and (3) most importantly, the privatisation of state enterprises.

22.7 Dominance of Intrumental Economicism in Education Reform in Africa

Several empirical studies reveal that since the 1980s, the ideology of instrumental economicism – the influence of strong market forces – has significantly dictated education reform and development in many regions, particularly in Africa (Jones 1998; IJED 2002; Geo-JaJa and Magnum 2000). The shift from a state control model to a state supervision model of education management has led to the reduction in government expenditures and marketised programs that were previously government and tax supported. Depending on how it is implemented such policies could result in the flight from the public school system by good teachers and exacerbate differences in provision of educational opportunity, based purely on ability to pay. The principal shortcoming of this model is the imminent equity risks, together with other dangers. Instrumental economicism also demands that market forces determine how education is delivered, who has access to education, and make it consistent that what happens to schools is relevant to the labour process.

In assessing the contemporary global influence of international agencies and the power of market forces, Ilon observed that the curriculum for weak nations will also take on a global flavour as job skills became similar and basic needs and problems became globalised. In a nutshell education is made subject to the prescription of economicism in all aspects. As a result of the subordination of the social and liberal purposes of education, a broad strand of research seeking to balance neoliberal and marketisation agendas on the masses and weak states in terms of education control has sprang up (Watson 1996; Jones 1998; IJED 2002; Ilon 2002a, b).

As Instrumental economicism in education reform calls for cost sharing, it produces more inequality in society as it places more burdens on families, particularly in poor households. Clearly, user-fees have undesirable attributes: they are regressive, and they exclude children from educational opportunities where compulsory attendance is not enforced. The social benefits from education and the entitlements of children to an education suggest that, ideally, governments should provide quality educational opportunities for all in free-access schools financed through general taxation. This is important since no country has achieved adequate human development for sustained economic development without substantial investment in people. No country has remained competitive without substantial allocation or resources to education, most importantly primary education.

Contrary to the dictates of instrumental economicism and the trend of cutting social expenditures justified by the requirements of global competitiveness, Chu et al. (1995), and Tanzi and Chu (1998) show that strong participation of government in education funding improves economic growth and promotes a range of social and cultural objectives. They also illustrated the significant importance of locative efficiency of education budgets to achieving distributional justice. In the perspective of Gupta and Verhoeven (2001), both size and efficiency of public expenditure on education are important determinants in improving socio-economic indicators and for human economic development. Hanushek (1996) and Bosworeth and Collins (1996) illustrate that expansion in skills, knowledge, and capacities of individuals built by the ‘right kind of education’ is critical for human economic development. However, despite the realisation of short- and long-term gains of education to human and institutional capacity building, priority assigned to education expenditure in recent decades as shares of both GDP and total government spending over the years has been low-stagnant, or drastically declining, or in some cases negative.

Demonstrated, thus far, is that when education becomes privatised and brought closer to the market, social and cultural concerns take a back seat to economic concerns, On the other hand, the impact of public expenditure cuts in education on the supply of different labour skills, and its macroeconomic and distributional consequences is huge, particularly in a competitive world economy. As Morris (1996) points out, the call for weak governments in any country has an important effect that results in education performing poorly when no well-functioning safety net mechanism that will assist groups negatively affected by any type of finance-driven reforms is set in motion. Ball (1998) in calling this the paradigm convergence of education reform refers to it as “Invocation of policies with common underlying principles, similar operational mechanism and similar first and second order effects. These first and second order effects are registered in terms of their impact on practitioners and institutional procedures, and effect on access, opportunity and outcome respectively”. Morrow and Torres (1995) refer to such reform policy as commodification; Apple (2002) and Ball (1998) term it neoliberalism and neoconservativism and economicism respectively (See also Zajda 2014b). Although there might be long-term benefits to such policy, in the short-term distributional and social justice comes into conflict with Ball’s identified first and second order effects as education designed to develop culturally valued knowledge abilities or skills may require a different consideration of efficacy. In other words schools are becoming increasingly subject to the “normative assumptions and prescriptions of economicism”.

22.7.1 How Is Economicsm Carried out in School Reforms?

As we question the demand for quality assurance, we look at how it is made possible. Globalisation turns education into a commodity and reworks knowledge in terms of skills and dispositions required by the global labour market. Globalisation also has an impact in other areas of education, ranging from teacher certification, union wage structure, and in the procurement of teaching resources. Yet, there is no mechanism for intervention on behalf of the needs of either society or of students’ deserving of or entitled to a greater share of social goods. In a nutshell, globalisation enters the education sector on an ideological horse and its effects on education are largely a product of financially-driven reform (Carnoy 1995, p. 59). The reader must also not forget that mentioned earlier were trade terms and agreements, and international organisations that tend to identify global problems and impose global solutions through conditionalities (see previous sections). The consistency of economicism with instrumental rationality leads to standardisation, normalisation and output-driven evaluative indicators. These manifestations could be attributed to such complications in internal efficiency, and the affordability of education. These bottlenecks point to a number of observations about the effect of globalisation, which is consistent with an ideology of neo-conservativism in education and human economic development (Zajda 2014a, 2020a).

22.8 Globalisation, and Standardisation Tendencies as Educational Indicators

The standardisation of education reform is predicated on a human capital theory that has failed to take into consideration the important fact that education cannot be treated as a sector that can deliver the right type and adequate human economic development without acknowledging that the state has a social responsibility to see that people are well educated. As was clearly articulated by Morris (1996), education is:

One of the social structures which needs to be provided as a basis for development or it can be perceived as a vehicle for transmitting those values and attitude supportive of development (Morris 1996, p. 99).

These statements are motifs that are visible in the argument against the neoliberal focus on education as a commodity. They are also reasons why the determination of curriculum content, skill requirements, and management of pedagogy in school by forces of globalisation and the new ways of technology delivery of knowledge are troubling. As was posited earlier, the unfettered capitalistic globalisation, coupled with the influence of its prime movers (international organisations) on education agendas has led to the marginalisation of local knowledge and local initiatives, as it rewards no new thinking about education’s role in acquiring knowledge for local integration. It is also argued that World Bank Education Sector Strategy was formulated to satisfy the labour, and provide a stock basic of education, skills and attitudes required by transnational companies whose capital and technology were well matched with lower production costs in the region (Kless 2002, 2016; Hickling-Hudson 2002). This World Bank document does not lend support to institution and local capacity building that is a necessary and sufficient condition if weak nation-states are to take advantage of their competitive edge in world trade in a globalised economy. The above rationale supports the thesis that education polices for globalisation promotes global inequalities and is becoming increasingly problematic as the pace and scope of marketisation in education intensifies.

22.9 Neoliberal Globalisation and Performative Measurements in Schools

Since 2010, the future of Africa is said to lie in its people and its education strategy. Basic education that is the key to making Africa competitive remains far from being universal and of low quality (OECD 2016). For instance, Africa is the only region where primary enrolment rates were lower in 2000 (75%) than in 1980 (81.7%), despite its high private and social returns (see graph 2). While enrolment rates rose during the 1990s, the progress of the 1980s has not been attained, and the prospect for faster progress in the decades ahead is uncertain (UNESCO 1998a, b). This greater stock of education without obvious increase in education expenditure suggests large-scale changes in the production function such as lowered quality and access, excessive repetition, and low completion rates. For instance, such internal efficiency indicators like repeaters as percent of total enrolment, percentage of cohorts reaching final grade, and public expenditure as percentage of GDP per capita, were far below those of any other region. Substantial increases in enrolment are evident except for Africa where enrolment ratios either stagnated or declined. The gross enrolment rate for primary schools, which stood at 81% in 1980, was estimated at 76.8% in 1997. Other indicators that could be relevant to the measurement of progress towards the goal of globalisation are less readily available for the region. These facts illustrates the vulnerability of household education demand as the policy of instrumental economicism leads to the replacement of intrinsic/substantive value of education with the extrinsic/instrumental value of competitiveness. The singular focus of neoliberals on performativity, rather than on social efficacy, is troubling and deceptive.

The pattern of expenditure can be examined with reference to the ratio of government expenditure on education to gross domestic product or to total government spending. Educational expenditure as a share of the GDP has been lower than then and still remained at the bottom compared to any other region. Education expenditure that averaged 5.3% of the GDP in 1980, dropped to an annual average of 2.8% between 1992 and 1994. Estimated public expenditure per pupil in Africa declined from 15% of the GNP in 1990 to 10% in 1997, compared to steady growth of 13.8 and 23% in Latin America and OECD respectively in the same year. The lower per pupil expenditure is not the result of higher enrolments but is the consequence of a sharp reduction in total spending on education. Evidence provided in UNESCO’s World Education Report, based on the analysis of 26 African countries, shows an overall decline of 33% in central government expenditure per pupil, in the period 1980–88 (UNESCO 1991, p. 37. See also UNESCO 2018). It further shows that the share of education in African countries national budgets averages about 12.8% but falls as low as 0.7% in Nigeria. This is substantially lower than the average in any other region in the world. This international comparison reinforces the conclusion that education has not been a priority for countries in the region.

There exists a considerable variation among countries in the region regarding the extent to which education expenditures as a proportion of the GDP either declined or stagnated over the years. Even countries like Botswana that have managed to maintain, though not increase, their level of education expenditures have seen per pupil expenditures decline drastically. They reflect a significantly altered government investment strategy that is suggestive of disinvestments in education that has been compensated by increases (boom) in private education at all levels. Such a steep disinvestment in education and the introduction of user payments at an early stage of privatisation and development suggests that the growth process in the region is highly fragile or tenuous. Therefore, under such conditions, achieving sustained development depends on the provision of out-side support, not only to compensate for the resource drain through terms of trade losses but also to supplement a lost social safety net. The current situation has once again become precarious, particularly for human economic development and nation-building as the education contribution to them is lowly prioritised. Thus, this trend coupled with the increase in self-financed students might also demonstrate that education is being treated as a “luxury good”.

In sum, as a result of the finance-driven reform, standards are inadequate, infrastructures are either inadequate or overcrowded, and materials are lacking. Budgetary cutbacks combined with privatisation and state disengagement, particularly at the primary levels, are affecting education practices and indicators. The gains in enrolment have been subjected to erosion due to the fact that a substantial proportion of students either drop-out or repeat classes. The incidence of poor quality at the primary level not only reflects poor educational inputs on the supply side, it also results in low internal efficiency indicators. They are also influenced on the demand side by the opportunity costs to families.

22.10 Country Case Studies

According to data provided by the World Bank, by the start of the 1980s, and the 1990s, a number of countries within the region—were at the verge of reaching universal primary education. The subsequent decades saw sharp reversals. As will be articulated in the following country case examples, one obvious reason for poor quality education is the limited tax base of regional governments, while the bulk of households cannot afford introduced user-payments. In Zambia, the 1990s saw the education sector beset with a myriad of problems: underfunding of the education sector, poor quality outcomes, and stagnating enrolment rates. In 1994 education spending declined by more than 25%. With government support in implementation of the Basic Education Sub-sector Investment Program in 1996, gross enrolment ratios were planned to increase from 84% in 1994 to 99% in 2000. In Malawi, the sharp increases in primary education enrolment rates since 1994/1995 led to a rise in the student-teacher ratio and a concomitant decline in the quality of education, all as a result of a declining national budget for education. In Ghana, and Cote d’Ivoire, primary enrolment declined after the introduction of user-payment (World Bank 1993). Primary enrolment reversed course at the abolition of user payments in Ghana, Kenya, Uganda, Malawi, and Tanzania (World Bank 1993, 1995; Oxfam 2002).

In Ethiopia, the education sector is characterised at all levels by extremely low overall participation rates (30% at primary, 13% at secondary, and less than 1% at the tertiary level). Poor quality, as a result of high dropout rates, is expected due to serious underfunding of the sector. In contrast to Ethiopia’s minimal government financing involvement, Gambia in 1990 increased public expenditure in education in real terms. This led to an increase in gross primary enrolment from 64% to 77% and in the transition rate from 35% to 70% in the 1990s. Saddled with high poverty rates and poor quality education, Tanzania has continued to spend four times as much in debt repayments than the total investment in basic education. The enrolment rate has gone down from 99% in 1981 to below 66% in 1999. Dropout rates increased from 28% in 1984 to 42% in 1990. These outcomes were the result of the national government’s transition from a welfare state to a market-oriented economic policy (1996). The withdrawal of government as a key actor in education reduced resources available to education bringing the sector under severe pressures, thus affecting the incentive to invest in education. As this policy was implemented when real income was declining drastically it made education more expensive than ever before. But with the abolition of user payments in 2001, public education systems experienced serious difficulties of copping with the large increase in education demand (African Recovery2003).

In the Cameroon, about a third of school-aged children were failing to complete even 4 years of primary education, because they either dropped out of school, or they never enrolled in school. According to UNESCO, primary education was on the decline during the 1990s. The number of students dropped by 2.3% per year and the internal efficiency of the education system was poor, because of a limited tax base to finance the educational system (UNESCO 1995). As in the case Tanzania, with the abolition of user payments in 2001, the public education system was experiencing difficulties in coping with the large increase in demand (World Bank 1999).

In sum, access to basic education has either stagnated or declined due to the cost shifting from government to households. As these countries experienced drastic reductions in government revenues, spending on education has decreased, and user payments have been introduced. As a result, the quality of education, once generally high, seems to have declined, and inequality seems to be emerging, particularly for poor households.

We expect this uphill battle to continue until supranational organisations begin to support and respect home-grown initiatives or localised education action plans that are consistent with “paradigm convergence” reforms. Clearly, the neoliberal ideological over-determination of globalisation that imposes performativity measurements, efficiency and cost-saving strategies, while valorising economic reform has a profound effect on education indicators and on education performance at many levels. These needs for reforms are manifest in the commodification, privatisation, and the introduction of user payments, since increasing numbers of Africans are being squeezed out of an education and into the underground economy and into poverty by globalisation. It is for these reasons that the authors question the advantage of bringing education closer to market forces, Therefore, we suggest that to shape the competitive capabilities of Africa, countries in the region would need to invest more, and more effectively, in human economic development that is anchored in broader and higher quality formal and informal localised education. With this understanding, education must continue to be a social responsibility, encompassing government, communities and families that require the participation and commitment of all stakeholders.

22.11 New Policy Directions for Equity in Globalisation

It is true that globalisation and markets have a logic of their own, which leads to ‘social inclusion’ for some and ‘social exclusion’ for others, as well as affluence for some and poverty for others (Zajda 2020c). It is equally true, however, that globalisation can be, and should be, reconstructed, so as to ensure that weak nation-states get a fair share and a fair opportunity in the new global economy. Whether globalisation could have “a human face” or not will depend largely on the willingness and sincerity of key players to “place human economic development above the pursuit of corporate self-interest and economic advantage”. To further generate discussion, we submit the following concrete correctives and interventions. The objective of these measures is only to foster inclusion where markets exist and to create markets with inclusion where they do not exist. The inclusion of people in the process of globalisation demands the following:

  • A basic change in mind-sets is vital for massive investment in human economic development.

  • Increased access to education, massive investment in basic social services and building capabilities that are will produce social equity and promote programs that consider human rights, education for peace and democratic values, and rights between all citizens.

  • The creation of effective institutions to mediate or counter-balance neoconservativism in education nationally and worldwide.

  • The development of economic and social infrastructures, which will facilitate capacity-building and economic and political empowerment to the masses. This requires reinventing strong states that have been long suppressed by the globalisation practices. Contrary to suggestions by the contemporary predominant paradigm, the role of an effective strong state is extremely vital, particularly in creating efficient markets and the subsidising of social activities.

  • The opening by rich countries of their markets to exports from developing countries by reducing tariff and non-tariff barriers, and removal of domestic subsidies will enable developing countries to get the full benefits of the global trading system. The objectives of these interventions are to limit the adverse effect of social exclusion, and to provide some mutual checks and balances in the sharing of the benefits of globalisation. Without these correctives and interventions, globalisation would continue to be less relevant for growth with development, especially in weak nation states.

In the face of the misdirected approach of globalisation, the challenge is not to stop the expansion of global markets, but to find the rules and the reinstatement of stronger governance to preserve and share the advantages of the global village. This is to ensure that globalisation works for people, not just for profits. The error is not the existence of globalisation but its ideological underpinnings and misuse thereof of its application. At the heart of our chapter is a twofold conclusion: firstly, an understanding of the impact of misused globalisation, and secondly, a response to this understanding in ways that will advance the positive potentials of globalisation on education and training. Globalisation as currently misapplied has altered education by squeezing power from governments and redistributing power to market forces. The common trends of decentralisation, denationalisation, marketisation, and economicisation are determined to have played a significant part in shaping education policy in developing countries, especially in Africa.

This chapter reveals that though African countries seem to follow similar global trends of bringing education closer to the market, they have not tried to align their knowledge and skill needs with their development objectives. This has led to the serious marginalisation of Africa in trade terms and growth terms, thus affecting the ability of governments to generate revenue. In almost all cases, citizens have continued to undergo disintegration in their traditional lifestyles, as well as suffering from social, political, and economic regression.

The authors suggest that the philosophy of extrinsic/instrumental value of global competitiveness should give way to the philosophy of effective intrinsic/substantive value of education in Africa, and that the concern for efficiency must be balanced with the concern for social justice, and equity, just as the concern for economic progress must be balanced with a concern for social progress that ensures legitimacy and contributes to “education for all”.

These considerations the chapter show point to a number of aberrations about the effects of bringing education into the market system. First, the effects are much more complicated than the simple prediction of supply-side economics and depend on a number of key variables, including: the level of government participation in the economy, the level of knowledge commodification, and the degree of the supply of labour in markets where Africans subsist. Second, user payments introduce a dilemma in the choice between efficiency and efficacy. Clearly user-fees were determined to be a socially inferior means of financing education in comparison to public expenditure financed by taxation. Such benefits lead the authors to argue for strong government involvement in providing quality education opportunities, particularly in regions where globalisation has indeed contributed to increasing inequity in wealth creation. Globalisation as it is now applied is a threat to these values of social equity, national sovereignty and to public education systems that reflect and support democratic values.

22.12 Conclusion

As demonstrated above, education and policy reforms in Africa confront at least two enormous challenges. The first is to fulfil the As above demonstrates, education and policy reforms in Africa confront at least two enormous challenges. The first is to fulfil the knowledge and training tasks of the twenty-first century, offering universal basic education and secondary coverage. The second is to improve the quality of learning outcomes, social equity and cultural integration. Attainment of these new tasks depends on competition between paradigm convergence of education reforms and simple convergence of education reforms. The latter, as a process of reflexitivity and a process of de-traditionalisation, is indifferent to national borders. Consequently, the identified measures propounded by neoliberal policy makers are very much alike in terminology and intentions across countries. The new educational consensus are not being shaped by its most legitimate parties, but have become more commercialised, and entrepreneurial and more driven by the needs of quick short-terms profit maximisation policies and practices. The lesson is clear. For Africa, the philosophy of neoconservativism and neolibralism is fraught with danger, as educational outcomes are now increasingly judged and measured in terms of Global North knowledge and epistemology costs and returns to investment, and international competitiveness, at the expense of more humanistic criteria. We need to focus on socially transformative globalisation policies that provide security and equipping the nation state for the future. We end this work with a call for international solidarity and the invisible heart of human economic development, not the cold hand of the colonial matrices of power market forces and its dominant neo-liberal ideology (Zajda 2020a). To conclude, we opt for a participatory development social economy, where nation-building community and human security and dignity priorities take precedence over those of geostrategic interests and the market. The lesson is clear. For Africa, the philosophy of neoconservativism is fraught with danger, as educational outcomes are now increasingly judged and measured in terms of costs and returns to investment, and international competitiveness, at the expense of more humanistic criteria. We end this work with a call for international solidarity and the invisible heart of human economic development, not the cold hand of the market forces and its dominant neo-liberal ideology. In sum, we opt for a social economy, where community and human priorities take precedence over those of the market. We demand and offer a friendly alternative vision that would challenge the de-humanising aspects of education and global markets.