Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

The Regional Conferences on Higher Education (CRES) defined higher education as a human right and a social public good. This presents enormous challenges for Latin America as it is one of the most privatized regions in the world with the exponential growth of the Global Education Industry (GEI). This article will present a regional panorama to then analyze financing policies as inconspicuous privatization strategies. In particular, it will examine the introduction of mechanisms to distribute the funds based on demand financing as a new method for strengthening higher education privatization and commodification processes. This is how scholarships and credit programmes, which are presented as inclusion policies, actually result in the siphoning of public funds to the private sector, all the while being framed as an attempt at equating both sectors, which economically benefits and politically reinforce GEI. This trend was enhanced in the context of the pandemic by the construction of a discourse of "private sector financial vulnerability '', resulting in governmental measures beneficial to the private sector promoted by regional actors and international organizations. This article synthesizes results of a research project on these topics in Latin America, focusing on instrumental and multiple case studies (Chile, Peru and the Dominican Republic).

The emergency distributed education that the COVID-19 pandemic imposed on households amplified and accentuated the use of digital technologies in the teaching profession, specifically through the production of informational goods and the use of platforms. In this context, different corporations in the information sector increased their business by providing software and computer services to educational systems. This situation brought about a series of changes in the work of teachers that go far beyond didactic issues. In order to explore the potential changes in teachers' work, we conducted fieldwork consisting of a survey of Argentine teachers and professors (a self-selected sample of 205 cases), which we expanded with data from secondary sources and previous research. In a central way, we inquired about: a) production of educational resources in pandemics, types and time production, b) recognition for the work done and c) perception of changes in the teaching work. From the analysis of the testimonies, it is evident, firstly, that the pandemic has led most teachers to become information workers through the production of digital goods, the use of platforms for pedagogical mediation and the automation of certain tasks. This transformation has brought about a series of changes in teachers' work: working time, classroom management and health discomfort.  The discussion we raise here consists of warning, on the one hand, that it is imprecise and limited to refer only to digitalization in the world of work and, on the other hand, that the trends already identified in different work environments -informationalization, platformization, automation- need to be interpreted in the light of the teaching work pandemic.

One crucial feature of the Global Education Industry (GEI) is its new mix of players. Within the GEI, corporate philanthropies have emerged as influential actors. They are increasingly involved in teacher education, in particular in the continuing professional development (CPD) of teachers which not only constitutes a new market, but also a policy instrument to disseminate ideas and beliefs. In this context, corporate philanthropies preferably collaborate with the state, for instance by forging public-private partnerships. Drawing on Anheier’s (2018) comparative approach, we explore the activities of Varkey Foundation, a new edu-philanthropy, and Bosch Foundation, a more traditional corporate philanthropy, in teacher CPD. Based on documents, we will apply a comparative perspective to explicate their purposes, approaches and roles, highlighting how both strive for change and, thus, engage in CPD. To conclude, we point out several implications for education policymaking, practice and future research.

Among considerations and changes that have been proposed in the Higher Education Act (Ley de Educación Superior 21.091) of Chile, which was promulgated in May 2018, the modification of the access’ system to Higher Education is suggested. This initiative will be implemented by the Subsecretary of Higher Education that, in coordination with other organisms and technical committees that belong to Chilean Ministry of Education and University of Chile, are gradually working on the whole process. Therefore, an intermediate period starts with new requirements that are summarised in the Transition Test (Prueba de Transición), followed by the new Test of Access to Higher Education (Prueba de Acceso a la Educación Superior). Its aim consists on applying a different method for university entrance with the purpose of not just evaluating the content knowledge, but also skills acquisition. Due to the offer of more opportunities for all university candidates, it is intended achieving higher levels of equity in this process that considers population’s diversity, trying to become a fairer model. With all of this, a more inclusive system of access to Higher Education is aimed.

This paper focuses on the so-called shadow education provision of private supplementary tutoring by companies operating internationally. Some have a history of decades, while others are younger and emerged to take advantage of technological developments. Contributing to analysis of the Global Education Industry, the paper notes variations in the penetration and manifestation across world regions. In so doing, it draws on theories of isomorphism, while noting divergence as well as convergence in institutional models. The analysis includes remarks on regulatory regimes, many of which permit and even facilitate such international companies, but some of which – most obviously in China – restrict their operation. Thus, conceptually the paper analyses patterns with understanding of the forces in operation. Some of these forces are economic (pricing, marketing, etc.), but others are political (shaped particularly by government regulations), and social (shaped by different socio-economic groups within the countries in question).

INTRODUCTION. Education as a right has a prominent role in its international recognition by international human rights law and by States. However, its conditions of validity must be studied in order to avoid generalizations.  Then, the conceptual definition of the right to education might be study not only from a normative perspective, but also from the public policies implemented by the States. METHODS. This article analyzes some of the international and regional commitments that have been signed in Latin America since the 1970s, as well as statistical series, until 2015. RESULTS. Firstly, a conceptual definition of this right, based on the human rights perspective, is provided in order to analyze, from a comparative standpoint, the regional agreements. Secondly, international commitments in the Latin American region are analyzed in order to propose a particular study of the right to education and its normative scope in this context. DISCUSSION. It should be noted that, although the region has advanced in terms of regional agreements in relation to this human right, even prior to the 1990 global agenda (with a marked dissemination at the normative level), this is not evident at the level of effectiveness, in terms of schooling results.

Desde 2010, Inglaterra implementa una nueva reforma educativa bajo los principios del cuasi-mercado combinados con políticas de autonomía escolar y la rendición de cuentas. La reforma de las ‘Academies’ y ‘Free Schools’ produjo la transferencia a manos privadas de casi la mitad de las escuelas de Inglaterra (GOV.UK 2022), fomentando la competencia entre escuelas con la expectativa de que los proveedores privados generen innovación (Greany & Higham, 2018). Esta investigación de tipo exploratoria estudia tres ‘Free Schools’, un nuevo tipo de escuela del que se esperan innovaciones (DfE, 2010), analizando qué innovaciones se desarrollaron y cómo los docentes dan sentido y lidian con las demandas competencia, innovación y rendición de cuentas. Las innovaciones escolares son analizadas utilizando las categorías definidas por la OCDE (2014), mientras me apoyo en la literatura sobre implementación de políticas (Ball et al., 2012) para interpretar de las respuestas de los docentes sobre la innovación y la rendición de cuentas. Los datos incluyen documentos y sitios web de cada escuela, informes de inspección y entrevistas con doce docentes. Los resultados muestran la preponderancia de la innovación en las estrategias de marketing para atraer a los padres, pero son más limitaciones en cúanto al curriculum o las prácticas pedagógicas. Además, la autonomía de los docentes y las prácticas innovadoras están mediadas tanto por la cultura escolar como la posición de los directivos sobre las demandas de rendición de cuentas. De acuerdo con investigaciones previas sobre reformas cuasi-mercado, la rendición de cuentas con altas consecuencias actúa como una limitación central para la autonomía escolar y la innovación (Lubienski, 2009).

This paper aims at identifying the different influence strategies mobilized by the private sector to influence in the area of educational policy. While a growing body of scholarship has documented the deepening embeddedness of the corporate sector within policy-making processes, empirical research on such questions remains unsystematised and fragmentary. Furthermore, the bulk of existing evidence on corporate policy-influence strategies focuses on a limited group of Anglo-American countries and, consequently, is ill suited to capturing emerging policy dynamics globally. This article explores and systematizes a series of policy influence strategies mobilized by the private sector in the field of education, drawing on a literature review focused on pro-market educational reforms. Building on the results of this literature, this paper categorises four emerging strategies articulated by the corporate sector: knowledge mobilization, networking, engaging with grassroots, and leading by example. Each strategy is illustrated with examples from a selection of country case studies. The study finds that the private sector plays an increasingly heterogeneous range of roles in education policy, and that private organizations are diversifying the resources and forms of capital they mobilize. Thus, when it comes to influencing public policy, the private sector does not rely solely on its economic power and the more obvious forms of political capital, but increasingly relies on relatively informal connections with different actors (such as the third sector, or economic and civil society elites), and their recognition as experts and as knowledge producers, acquired through the mobilization of evidence. Finally, our results suggest that the private sector is increasingly operating as a major political actor, organically integrated into policy-making processes and spaces

¿Por qué los contratistas muestran interés por desarrollar, implementar, y analizar evaluaciones internacionales a gran escala cuando éstas no parecen generar beneficios financieros? ¿Qué hace a los contratos de ILSA (ILSA, por sus siglas en inglés) tan atractivos? Aplicando la teoría del préstamo de políticas a actores no-estatales, y analizando 35 entrevistas con personal de la OCDE, IEA y contratistas de ILSA, el artículo discute por qué los contratistas llevan a cabo contratos o donan a ILSA. Mayoritariamente, los contratistas de ILSA entrevistados manifestaron que su trabajo en ILSA es una inversión, un contrato en el punto de equilibrio o con pérdidas. Las lógicas se relacionan con intereses en desarrollos metodológicos e innovación; investigación; responsabilidad social; aprendizaje; visibilidad; prestigio; credibilidad; redes; oportunidades de negocio; y lógicas individuales. El artículo concluye que los contratistas de ILSA están usando las ILSA para avanzar sus intenciones políticas, de mercado de evaluación del aprendizaje.

With the expansion of digital capitalism and as an effect of school closures due to the pandemic, the technology-based multinational corporations GAFAM (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft) have consolidated their offer of educational services in the field of the Global Education Industry in Ibero-America. Of the group, Google has been a key player, by substantially increasing the number of users on its platforms through corporate strategies such as public-private partnerships, agreements with schools and teacher training. This article analyzes the strategies that this technological giant has promoted in a limited set of educational centers certified and "distinguished" by Google for Education, called Google Reference Schools located in Mexico and Spain. The pedagogical and political implications are analyzed. The research methodology uses the three-dimensional model of Critical Discourse Analysis applied to the reports produced by the reference schools themselves and hosted in the Google for Education directory. The results show the way in which Google is adopted in the educational centers as an option to underpin educational improvement but which also introduces forms of governance at a distance in the educational field. In the conclusions, we discuss whether placing the infrastructure of digital communication and interaction of educational centers in Iberoamerican schools in the hands of these new actors of the Global Educational Technology Industry means not only handing over power to a private actor with specific commercial and political objectives and interests, but also closing the doors to alternative ways of doing and knowing in education. As future lines of research, we consider that the analysis should be extended to other countries beyond the Ibero-American area.