No. 42 (2023): The Global Education Industry: Comparative Education Analyses

The participation of the private sector in education manifests itself in numerous ways and springs from diverse causes. Private schooling is the most well-established manifestation of the education privatization phenomenon, but it is far from being the most widespread or the most profitable. In the last decades, new forms of privatization, commercialization, and profit-making in education have emerged and spread. Originally coined by James Tooley (1999) to describe private education provision in developing countries, the concept of the "global education industry" (GEI) has more recently gained salience as a way to capture and make sense of a phenomenon that goes well beyond private schooling (Verger, Lubienski, & Steiner-Khamsi 2016; do Amaral, Steiner-Khamsi, & Thompson 2019).

The education industry has expanded rapidly, both territorially and economically, in recent years. Investment advisors, such as GSV-Advisors and HolonIQ, calculated that the value of the global education market was $6.5 (USD) trillion in 2020 and that this would reach $10 trillion by 2030. Numerous product trends, innovations, rebranding, mergers and acquisitions between companies make the GEI a booming sector. However, the GEI has not only experienced a quantitative evolution but has also undergone a qualitative change. The evolution of the internet and teaching and learning technologies have widely facilitated the cross-border supply and the transnational nature of many GEI services. The GEI is thus a dynamic and rapidly changing sector, with an increasingly rich and heterogeneous portfolio of activities. The range of goods and services covered by GEI has only become more diverse with the passage of time – it includes now hardware, on-line e-learning and teaching platforms, analog and digital educational materials, test preparation and certification services, school/university management services, education-specific ERP and CRM software, learning analytics, edu-marketing services, students' recruitment services, private tutoring and supplemental education services, behavioral management applications, teacher training programs, school improvement and consultancy services, among many other. 

The GEI has also expanded its outreach, which has come to cover early childhood education and care, basic education, upper secondary, TVET, higher and continuing education, and non-formal education. Adding a further layer of complexity, the organizational profile of GEI is also notoriously diverse. As noted by Verger, Lubienski and Steiner-Khamsi (2016), the GEI field encompasses a wide range of edu-businesses in all shapes and sizes, from private school chains to consultancy firms and large education conglomerates. A process of hybridization between the public and corporate sectors has also been documented (Srivastava & Read, 2019), and there is evidence that a growing share of public schools and universities operate with a commercial rationale oriented at maximizing the the profitability of their investments (Thompson & Parreira do Amaral, 2019).

The EdTech industry is without a doubt the faction of the GEI that has expanded further in the last years, and that with better growth prospects.^[1] Technological giants such as Google, Apple, Windows, and Facebook have promoted their educational divisions and products at a global scale, but in some regions face competition from less well-known tech companies such as Tencent and Alibaba, both based in China. At the same time, better established and more conventional edu-businesses such as Pearson or McGraw Hill are also moving toward digital education. As part of their business strategies, many of these big companies are acquiring numerous startups and other small businesses in the sector (Bolea, 2020). Particularly since the boom of EdTech start-ups, market hierarchies within the GEI appear thus to become more complex and continue to evolve in unpredictable ways. Also, the irruption of EdTech has entailed the consolidation of new and intricate business models that are not always easy to decipher. An example of this are the personalized learning platforms, which allow for tailored instruction informed by assessment tools and related algorithms. In some cases, companies offering these products turn a profit by selling users’ data to third parties, or through advertising (Hogan, Sellar, & Lingard, 2016; Williamson & Hogan, 2020).

As many have observed, the current salience enjoyed by EdTech and the GEI in general owes much to the massive school closures and general disruption triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, which have forced the adoption of online learning and other technology-focused crisis responses in numerous educational settings (Williamson & Hogan, 2020). Nonetheless, and while the COVID-19 crisis has proven a turning point, it needs to be understood as part of a broader trend that came from many years before the pandemic (Grek & Landri, 2021). These include economic factors, such as financial globalization and the growth of market forces (Verger et al., 2016), but also political factors that have turned many education systems into ‘business friendly’ environments conducive to the flourishing of GEI. Several advocacy networks including edu-businesses. philanthropic organizations and policy entrepreneurs, are very active in supporting the expansion of different factions of the GEI, the business strategy of specific corporations or, more broadly speaking, market-oriented reforms (Au & Lubienski 2016; Fontdevila, Verger & Avelar 2019). The expansion of the GEI reflects also broader contemporary trends in education – including increasing performance pressures for educational institutions and students; the datafication of educational governance; the integration of information and communication technologies for learning and assessment with instructional improvement strategies; or the increasing educational demand in most developing economies. Finally, the GEI has also benefited from rapid technological change, which constantly requires the re-skilling and up-skilling of the labor force.

The emergence of the GEI has generated important educational debates. Those in favor of strengthening the participation of private interests in education see advantages to the rise of the GEI, such as educational expansion at a lower cost, the promotion of innovation in education and the possibility of individualizing education. On-line learning platforms are expected to contribute to bring supplementary education to socially disadvantaged households cost-efficiently, or support students with learning or sensorial disabilities. Especially in developing countries, EdTech solutions are increasingly seen as a cost-effective way to promote individualized learning in contexts where high student-teacher ratios prevail (Rodríguez-Segura, 2021). There are also those that consider EdTech solutions as a tool to hold teachers accountable and strengthen the control of educational delivery (Adelman et al., 2015).

Conversely, other scholars consider that the professional autonomy of teachers could be undermined by the prescriptive and algorithm-based learning materials of the EdTech industry (Williamson & Hogan, 2020). Behind the apparent educational innovation associated with ICT products and learning platforms, strongly standardized pedagogical proposals and old-world behaviorist logics are frequently hidden. Critiques often refer to the challenges triggered by the emergence of the GEI in terms of democracy and accountability. To them, an increasing participation of large transnational corporations in the governance and delivery of education could entail the undermining of democratic control of public education, and runs the risk of subverting the orientation of education as a public good (Komljenovic & Robertson, 2016). Finally, there are those that highlight the data ownership and privacy issues of the GEI products, especially when teaching, learning or assessment services collect users’ data massively and do not provide sufficient data protection guarantees. Part of these data might be highly sensitive and violate students’ privacy by, for instance, allowing their surveillance, harming their reputation, or being used for predictive sorting purposes (Nemorin, 2017; Wyatt-Smith, Lingard, & Heck 2019).

With this complex and unpredictable scenario in mind, this special issue will welcome research papers that address the phenomenon of the Global Education Industry from multiple angles. We will particularly welcome submissions that address the following topics and questions:

• The emergence and recontextualization of the GEI in specific territories: How does GEI’s penetration and manifestation vary across different world regions, education regulatory regimes or state-market complexes? How do the drivers or enabling factors behind the expansion of GEI differ?
• Unpacking the GEI landscape: How is the GEI structured and how has its composition and structure evolved over recent years? What are the new and changing patterns of cooperation, competition, hierarchization and hybridization with the public sector?
• In-depth analysis of specific GEI segments (such as EdTech, textbook publishers, school improvement products and services, assessment and certification industry, private tutoring), educational levels, or prominent or emerging players.
• Analyzing COVID-19 as a facilitator of GEI: Which has been the impact of the pandemic in the outreach of GEI, and its entrenchment with national education systems (especially in relation to processes of educational digitalization, but not only)? And, how has GEI itself been transformed/re-structured by the pandemic? (e.g., emergence of new players, change in market position, product portfolio diversification)
• The policy role of GEI actors, networks, and coalitions: How have GEI actors become influential in the formal and informal political and policy making spheres? Which influence and advocacy strategies do they deploy and to what end?
• Analyzing the effects of GEI penetration in terms of education quality and equity: Which are the impacts of GEI products in terms of segmentation, social stratification of schools and educational inequalities? Under which circumstances, and for whom, is the expansion of the GEI, including new forms of digitalized teaching and learning, more likely to translate into increased education quality or enhanced learning experience?
• Implications of the GEI in terms of teacher professional autonomy, democratic governance, and data privacy: How are schools, teachers and students coping with the GEI?
• Governance, regulation and monitoring strategies; “publification” and partnership attempts: How are governments coping with the GEI?

Monographic Coordinators: Antoni Verger (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona); Clara Fontdevila (University of Glasgow) y Mauro Moschetti (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona)

Important dates:

You have time to submit your 200-words abstract until February 21 2022. Abstracts can be written in Spanish, English, or Portuguese. A decision on accepted papers will be communicated to authors on March 1st 2022. Full papers (first draft) are expected by July 21st 2022. The special issue will be published in January 2023.

References

Adelman, M., M. P. Blimpo, D. Evans, A. Simbou, and N. Yarrow. 2015. “Can Information Technology Improve School Effectiveness in Haiti? Evidence from a Field Experiment.” Working Paper, Washington, DC: World Bank.

Au, W., & Lubienski, C. (2016). The role of the Gates Foundation and the philanthropic sector in shaping the emerging education market. Lessons from the US on privatization of schools and education governance. In A.  Verger, C. Lubienski, & G. Steiner-Khamsi (Eds.), World Yearbook of Education 2016: The Global Education Industry (pp. 28–43). New York: Routledge.

Ball, S. (2012). Global Education Inc: New policy networks and the neo-liberal imaginary. London: Routledge.

Bolea, P. (2020). The Ed-Tech industry after the pandemic. GEPS Working Paper.

do Amaral, M. P., Steiner-Khamsi, G., & Thompson, C. (Eds.). (2019). Researching the global education industry: Commodification, the market and business involvement. Springer.

Fontdevila, C., Verger, A., & Avelar, M. (2021). The business of policy: a review of the corporate sector’s emerging strategies in the promotion of education reform. Critical studies in education, 62(2), 131-146.

Grek,  S.,  &  Landri,  P.  (2021).  Editorial:  Education  in  Europe and the COVID-19 Pandemic. European Educational  Research  Journal, 20(4),  393–402

Hogan, A., Sellar, S., & Lingard, B. (2016). Commercialising comparison: Pearson puts the TLC in soft capitalism. Journal of Education Policy, 31(3), 243-258.

Komljenovic, J., & Robertson, S. (2016). The dynamics of ‘market-making’ in higher education. Journal of Education Policy, 31(5), 622–636.

Nemorin, S. (2017). Post-panoptic pedagogies: The changing nature of school surveillance in the digital age. Surveillance and Society, 15(2), 239-253.

Srivastava, P., & Read, R. (2019). Philanthropic and impact investors: private sector engagement, hybridity and the problem of definition. In N. Ridge & A. Terway (Eds.), Philanthropy in Education (pp. 15-36). Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing.

Rodriguez-Segura, D. (2021). EdTech in Developing Countries: A Review of the Evidence. The World Bank Research Observer. https://doi.org/10.1093/wbro/lkab011

Thompson, C., & Parreira do Amaral, M. (2019). Introduction: Researching the Global Education Industry. In M. Parreira do Amaral, G. Steiner-Khamsi & C. Thompson (Eds.), Researching the global education industry: Commodification, the market and business involvement (pp. 1–21). Springer.

Tooley, J. (1999) The Global Education Industry. Lessons from Private Education in Developing Countries. Washington DC: International Finance Corporation.

Verger, A., Lubienski, C., & Steiner-Khamsi, G. (2016). The emergence and structuring of the global education industry: Towards an analytical framework. In A. Verger, C. Lubienski, & G. Steiner-Khamsi (Eds.), World Yearbook of Education 2016: The Global Education Industry (pp. 3–24). New York: Routledge.

Williamson, B. & Hogan, A. (2020). Commercialisation and privatisation in/of education in the context of Covid-19. Brussels: Education International

Wyatt-Smith, C., Lingard, B., & Heck, E. (2019). Digital learning assessments and big data: Implications for teacher professionalism. UNESCO Education Research and Foresight Working Papers, 25.

Yanguas, M. L. (2020). Technology and educational choices: Evidence from a one-laptop-per-child program. Economics of Education Review, 76, 101984.

^[1] See https://www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/4986759/global-online-education-market-forecasts-from