GATS goes
to school
Leaked documents provide
insight into world trade in services |
|
Christopher Ziguras.
New Internationalist,
no.349, September 2002, p.7 |
|
|
Government negotiations to open up trade in
educational services are scheduled to begin next
month, during a two-year renegotiation of the 1995
World Trade Organization's General Agreement on Trade
in Services (GATS). GATS binds all WTO member
countries to allow access to foreign-service providers
wanting to operate within their borders. Education is
one of 12 service sectors it covers.
So far the trade-liberalization push in education has
come, perhaps unsurprisingly, from exporting countries
- the US, Australia and New Zealand - who have called
on other countries to open up their borders to private
providers from abroad. The most vocal criticism of
freer educational trade has also been coming from the
North, but from educational institutions, academic
associations and trade unions who see GATS as a way
for governments to promote the growth of private
education at a time when funds for public providers
are becoming more scarce. There is also widespread
concern that trade agreements treat education as a
commodity rather than a vehicle to transmit culture,
language and knowledge for the public good. GATS
supporters respond that - like it or not - the market
for education exists and that they are simply trying
to establish transparent rules for how the market
should operate.
International education delivers mixed results for
developing countries. On the one hand, it means that
many of their overseas-qualified students return home
each year with international connections and big
ideas. However, these students take large sums of
currency out of the country with them to pay fees and
living expenses while they study. Consequently, most
developing countries have a large trade deficit in
education, as growing numbers of students go overseas
each year to study, mainly in the US, Britain, France,
Germany and Australia.
At the same time, developing countries in which there
is an undersupply of places in educational
institutions are increasingly being targeted by
British and Australian transnational education
providers - institutions which run courses in multiple
countries using branch campuses, distance education or
partnering with local institutions. This is the
fastest-growing form of trade in education. By making
it easier to offer courses transnationally, exporters
can use the excess educational capacity of the North
to increase capacity in the South.
The problem for importing countries is how to ensure
that foreign institutions act equitably, offering
programmes that are in the broader national interest
rather than only benefiting an international corporate
elite, and developing a curriculum that responds to
the needs of local students rather than producing a
homogenized curriculum for global consumption.
Documents being exchanged between governments under
GATS negotiations are already being (and will continue
to be) leaked. This will at least provide some
transparency and an opportunity to help ensure that
international trade serves public as well as private
interests.
Christopher Ziguras.
New Internationalist,
no.349, September 2002, p.7
© New
Internationalist |
|
