۱٫ Introduction

۲٫ Market – neoliberalism as an economic doctrine

۳٫ Neoliberal perspective on (public) education

۴٫ Research – methodology and results

۵٫ Conclusion – managers opinion about neoliberalism in education

Acknowledgements

References

In this paper, we presented how schools perceive the introduction of the free market and market mechanisms through deregulation policies and privatisation schemes. We also discussed the consequences and traps of the free market. The research presents how education personnel see changes in education; and how managers versus other school workers understand the free market and what their attitude is towards public education. There are many different perspectives on the position and role of education in society, in particular whether education is a public good and should be protected at all costs or if education should be subject to monitoring and efficient organisation, as advocated by neoliberals. From this research, it is clear that school system employees believe that public education is a public good and should be protected as such. The results also show that school managers (comparing them with other school workers) are the most favorable to the claim that ‘public education is subject to monitoring and efficiently organized’ and to the claim that ‘public education is a public good and therefore has to be protected at all costs’. Education is a relatively large and important part of the public sector, and one of the key problems of modern society is how to find a way to reform positive common social goals which are not only limited to the optimisation of the education system.

Introduction

There is no general definition of managerialism, but it can be said that managerialism is an ideology based on the belief that optimization of the productivity and outcomes of all organisations can be achieved through the application of the managerial expertise, theories and techniques, this applies to both private and public organisations (Doran 2016). More or less, the decisions made by managers, also in the schools, are affected in some way by effects of neoliberalism, an ideology which sees schools as a market. The neoliberal perspective on education started to spread in the mid-1980s. Amongst other institutions promoting the new “neoliberal system” in education were the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank (WB). The pressure for a different perspective on education intensified in 1994 with the establishment of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). Davies and Bansel (2007) define neoliberalism as a means to make subjects or democratic citizens both more governable and more capable to service capital. Neoliberalism in education would mean that education, as a public service would be left to the free market. The neoliberal concept changes school into a business (Laval 2005, 26). This is also reflected in the fact that instead of discussing knowledge and behavior, we talk about competencies and knowledge for professions. Babnik et al. (2014) find that the ten most frequently written words related to organizational values are: customer, value, people, company, product, business, services, community, work, and quality. Schools are comparable to businesses. It is demanded of them to be efficient and to justify the funds they use.