Neoliberalism and the Bhutanese Educational Context

Question: Discuss about the Neoliberalism and the Bhutanese Education. Answer: Globalization seems to have reshaped how people live, consume, work, and interact but failed to influence what people learn. In the last decades, many public institutions including education have shifted ideologically and structurally due to the globalization pressure. As the international economic integration becoming a reality through the liberation of finance, investment, and trade, public education systems are slowly responding to this demand by embracing neoliberal educational reforms. Based on the findings of Harvey (2005), neoliberal education policies have illustrated the significance of marketization and privatization of social goods like the school systems. Given the current neoliberalism frameworks, processes, and assumptions, it becomes difficult to enforce the ideologies of the neoliberalism in classroom practices. Since the neoliberalism advocates for the free market economy, Lingard (2010) has affirmed that the consumers of the education systems are allowed to choose the system that offers quality. In the Bhutanese educational context, the government has provided competitive grants for learning institutions depending on the innovative proposals that focus on school improvement projects instead of the school project outcomes. Lincove (2009) affirms that the Bhutanese government believes that this model allows it to reward schools that are motivated to improve quality (p. 64). In Bhutan, the private schools like Doctor Tobgyel have performed better than the public institutions; the government has realized the need to privatize its public schools to benefit the consumers. By adopting a liberalized education system, focus on the student marks and performance of the educator. This should instil collaboration and team building instead of invest on competitiveness alone as stated by Clark (2013). Th erefore, the Bhutanese government should conduct a cost-benefit analysis of the liberalized education system before adopting it. References Clark, M. (2013). Comenius Dreaming. Educators Voice. Retrieved from https://educatorvoices.wordpress.com/2013/05/22/what-have-schools-got-todo-with-neo-liberalism/ Harvey, D. (2005). A Brief History of Neoliberalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lincove, J.A. (2009). Are Markets Good for Girls? The World Bank and Neoliberal Education Reforms in Developing Countries. The Whitehead of Diplomacy and International Relations, Winter/Spring, 49-75. Retrieved from https://blogs.shu.edu/diplomacy/files/archives/06%20Lincove.pdf Lingard, B. (2010, may 5). Policy Borrowing, Policy Learning Testing Times in Australian Schooling. Critical studies in