Professional Knowledge and Educational Restructuring in Europe
Developing a Conceptual Framework for Understanding
– The creation of quasi markets for consolidating the processes of privatisation
– Authorities forming agencies for contracting out services to private suppliers
– Costs of administration shifted from costs of public ownership and control to costs of managing and monitoring outsourced delivery
– Increased costs from franchise effects (un/under-employment) on public employees
– The increased objectification of labour and increases in the value form of labour
– A dissemination of a view of learners and care recipients as economically rational, self-interested individuals and the reconstruction of supply in line with this vision
– A redefinition of democracy in terms of consumer choice
– An increased objectification of teachers and nurses, learners and patients, care and curricula and (increasingly) professional education and educators as factors of production
– The creation of a labour buffer (surplus army of labour) in the education and care sectors at the same time as (at least in some education sectors) posts are increasingly difficult to fill and notoriously difficult to maintain continuity in
– Increased class differences in terms of education and care supply and consumption: i.e. in terms of who provides care and to/for whom
– Increased inequalities in service work conditions
– Increases in quick training programmes to maximise economic gains
– Increases in judgement of performances according to consumer values
– Standardisation of instruction and assessment
– Sacrifice of the critical mission of professional education/training to practical and technical training in economic interests
