The “Strategic Agenda” of the Dutch Ministry of Education, approved in July 2011 by the government, is to pursue more marketization
of education and stimulate intensive cooperation between education and
business. Is this so bad? Do we have to discuss this again? Are there
alternatives?
Yes, yes and yes.


This article appears in Krantje Boord #9 Oktober 2011

The “strategic agenda for higher education” – a long-term vision on Dutch higher education - was written under state secretary of Education Halbe Zijlstra. It’s approval in July 2011 by the government and the national council of higher education institutions gives Zijlstra a mandate to translate the Strategic Agenda into concrete legal reforms, which will probably be presented to parliament little by little.


The philosophy behind the Strategic Agenda is pretty obvious: higher
education is to be subjected to market forces. The agenda includes plans
to


  1. differentiate tuition fees, thus allowing schools to charge fees above the legal maximum,
  2. allow selection – and thus exclusion – of students by schools,
  3. abolish the student finance for the Master-phase,
  4. stimulate a specialization of schools – thus abolishing certain
    disciplines – according to their core business, and the involvement of
    businesses in carrying out this specialization and
  5. the further attraction of private capital into (now semi-) public schools.

It all sounds very plausible: let markets rule education, submit
schools to the rules of competition, supply and demand, and you will see
they’ll become more efficient, innovative and dynamic (there’s no
shortage of buzzwords). But there’s one huge flaw of markets, recognized
by all economists, which is that they don’t take into account “social
costs and benefits”. Let’s name a few of these costs and benefits
related to education, which are ignored by Zijlstra’s Strategic Agenda.
There’s no need for us to formulate these ourselves, as there is already
a huge amount of literature on the topic.


The Indian economist, Jandhyala B. G. Tilak, argued that allowing
tuition fees to rise will inevitably lead to “the exclusion  of the poor
from the consumption of education [which] will result in a loss of
overall equity as well as efficiency in the economy.” The benefits of
having a sufficiently “educated citizenry” are simply too big to ignore;
from higher productivity, to better democracy, equity and lower crime
rates. The benefits are often non-measurable, but definitely exist,
Tilak explains. When access to education is left to the market, too few
people will enter education as it becomes too expensive for them.


Other social costs arise when education becomes dependent on
corporate sponsors – a tendency encouraged by the Strategic Agenda.
Firstly, corporate funding of research leads to a sort of “knowledge
capitalism” which treats knowledge as a commodity and restricts the
dissemination of it, explains Tilak. Indeed, corporate sponsors tend to
patent knowledge or even prohibit the publication of research results
when it’s in their private interest to keep it from the public – or it’s
competitors. What’s more, even when new discoveries are made, they
often don’t reach the public because of what law professor Michael
Heller called the tragedy of the anticommons; to bring a new product,
for instance a new medicine, to the market often requires the impossible
task of negotiating with dozens of patent holders. Another problem is
that corporations want results from researchers tomorrow, not in twenty
years. Unfortunately, the most significant scientific breakthroughs are
believed to stem from long-term research which no private sector will
ever finance.


Secondly, ‘the market’ will not sponsor students’ education without
asking something in return. The private sector prioritizes education
which prepares students for the labour market and raises their future
productivity. However, as economist Ha-Joon Chang says, “education is
valuable, but its main value is not in raising productivity. It lies in
its ability to help us develop our potentials and live a more fulfilling
and independent life”. This value of education is  obviously
undervalued by the market.


Fortunately, there are many alternatives to the Strategic Agenda. We
could learn from the German students who managed to abolish tuition fees
in certain states through persistent campaigns. Laws and funding
schemes can be designed to disseminate knowledge publicly, instead of
allowing private ownership and control over it. Students can try to
regain their lost influence over the governance of their schools.
Zijlstra’s Strategic Agenda is just a political one, and politics can
always be resisted.

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A message from Kritische Studenten Utrecht