Against Neoliberal Assault on Education in India: A Counternarrative of Resistance.
The Indian State has been demonstrating its unwavering commitment to private capital and its neoliberal offensive. The education and health sector reflect its antipeople orientation along with other anti-working class measures such as the doing away with old pension scheme, privatisation of airports, neglect of farmers resulting in over 1.5 lakh suicides across country between 1997 and 2005 (Sainath, 2007), etc. On the education front the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in a full Planning Commission held on 13 th September 2007 showed his commitment to privatisation by stating that “we also need to recognise the role currently being played by the private sector and the policy design must factor this in” (The Hindu, 2007). A leading weekly then revealed that the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) has been trying to moot private partnership in government schools (Raman, 2008). These developments have been taking place along with number of measures that the government has been adopting (Kumar, 2008) to masquerade its real neoliberal face.
Hope Amidst Hopelessness: Life Histories of Illiterate Oraon Tribal Women in Jharkhand, India.
University of Minnesota Ph.D. dissertation. April 2012. Major: Education, Work/Community/Family Education. Advisor: Dr. Rosemarie J. Park. 1 computer file (PDF); xvi, 277 pages, appendices A-B.
Not for sale: the case against the privatisation of education
Bernard Regan’s pamphlet ought to be in the hands of all teachers and many school governors: it is a detailed exposé of the way New Labour’s ‘Trojan Horse’ policies are pushing the not-so-gradual privatisation of the state education system. He has detailed and well researched sections on the Private Finance Initiative and the Public-Private Partnership schemes now burgeoning in education as in all other areas of what was once the Welfare State. These and his careful analysis of specific examples—like the on-going struggle over Pimlico comprehensive in London—are a model for activists and lobbyists alike. The Pimlico example is instructive in that it is an instance of New Labour working closely with a Tory council to sell off public property to benefit trans-national corporate interests—and the so far successful backlash from middle class parents and governors, alongside unions, determined to defend their rights. But what most characterises Regan’s approach is his clear awareness of the ‘global dimension’ (my phrase, not his). He has an excellent appendix on the machinations of trans-national capital through its client governments in the rich world working within the World Trade Organisation. In particular, he spells out how things like  are all of a piece with what is already well advanced in the  and demonstrates the linkages between these developments and the  programme for a General Agreement on Trade in Services (). While many believe that the problem with  is all about the Bernard Regan Not for sale: the case against the privatisation of education