Globalization and Education in Australia - Essay Example

CONCEPT ANALYSIS CONCEPT ANALYSIS Insert name: Insert course code: Instructor’s name: 1 September, 2010. GLOBALIZATION AND EDUCATION IN AUSTRALIA Globalization is the aspect of widening, deepening as well as speeding up of worldwide interconnectedness. It can as well be stated as the process of growing integration of capital, technology, along with information across national boundaries in such a way as to create an increasingly integrated world market, with the direct result that more and more countries as well as firms have no choice but to compete in the global economy. The main effect of globalization is the way it turns a semi-insulated world society of nation-states into an open network society, a society that exhibits a space-less space of information flows. Globalization is a socio-economic and technological process, which tends to blur or diminish geopolitical borders along with national systems even in education. There are two main elements of globalization in worldwide higher education: Globalization offers an open information environment with instant messaging as well as data transfer created by communications technologies, and as a result, higher education and knowledge are being integrated or networked on a global scale. Globalization leads to the domination of Anglo-American economic and cultural contents in various sectors, including higher education. There are two words that are interchanged; globalization and internalization, which when looked closely carry different connotations. Most universities promote and stand for internalization by ether importing students, scholars, ideas as well as modes of operation or exporting the same, abetted by governmental policies. On the other hand, globalization is more supranational: erasing and diminishing national borders in addition to the very significance of the nation state (Johnstone, 2010 p. 16). Managerialism in university Due to globalization, there has been a structural adjustment to the allied strategy so as to adopt private sector management practices in university governance. The new Managerialism resulting from globalization has led to a shift from more collegiate and quasi democratic systems of university governance to quasi-market managerial practices. The creation of the unified national system and new managerialism increased executive prerogative and shifted the locus of control away from academics and faculties to the CEO and upper level administrators. As much as universities were seen to have increased institutional autonomy, they were in turn more accountable for efficiency and outcomes. The new managerialism in universities is not a democratic and participatory model but rather is undemocratic, more bureaucratic, centralized as well as autocratic. University councils are no longer representatives of educational communities, but it establishes itself as different from academics in performance management, promotion as well as salary structures. Educational restructuring in Australian universities has had particularly harsh implications for women, given their historical location within universities as lower-level academics or general staff and students concentrated in the humanities. The Australian academic labour markets have been restructured by federal policies favouring flexibility (Stromquist and Monkman, 2000 p. 338). Corporatization and marketization of education Education is one of the major public services and has been affected by tidal wave of marketization and privatization. Unlike in the past in the welfare state, universities currently experience pressures from governments, the fundamental funders of higher education, to show maximum outputs from the fiscal inputs they are given. As a result of globalization, the higher education governance has shifted to corporate models and market-oriented approach. The term corporate model refers to the way universities turn into ‘corporations’ or ‘entrepreneurial universities’ under which the organizational structuring as well as functioning is altered in light of the popular belief that education ought to serve economic purposes. The tertiary education is changing to address client and stakeholder expectations, to respond more actively to social as well as economic change, to provide for more flexible forms of teaching along with learning, to concentrate more strongly on competence and skills across the curriculum. For universities to become more competitive, they have change the way they manage themselves. Terms of new discourse have emerged such as system outputs, mission statements, appraisal, audit, cost centers, strategic plans as well as public relations. Due to the strong global tide of managerialism, there has been an acceleration of the movement of universities and faculty towards the market, which can be clearly shown by the ideology of ‘the market knows best’, performance indicators, business practices, corporate managerialism as well as line management, commercialization of research in addition to the co-modification of knowledge. The impact of managerialism is seen when university presidents and vice chancellors regard themselves as chef executive officers while faculty deans as well as department heads become line managers. The governance of higher education is substantially affected by the economic ideology of education, whereby higher education institutions are more sensitive to the external social and economic environment. There are four main area of changes that higher education institutions are facing due to the influence of the strong market forces, accompanied by the changes in management that result from the popularity of new management: Growth in total managerial along with administrative work at institutional as well as intra-institutional level. Changes in the tasks and relative power of academics as well as administrators within universities. Increased range of tasks for non-academic administrators and increase in their numbers. Improvement of academic administration: the bureaucratization of the collegiums. There is increased pressure for school principals as well as teachers to do more paper work along with administrative tasks to convince the governing body that their schools are in good shape. Academics are becoming more like state-subsidized entrepreneurs by engaging into more market-oriented activities in the areas of research, teaching as well as school governance, while principals and teachers are being pressed to satisfy various stakeholders, mainly the students and parents, governing bodies, the government as well as the market. In an attempt to refashion education more directly to accomplish national and international economic agendas, Australia has focused on aspects of education that are seen to have a direct influence on human resource development such as the reform of higher education systems, or the modernization of vocational education and training. The Australian government is increasingly concerned with the role of education in enhancing the competitiveness of the country in both the regional as well as global market and thus very careful on promoting the idea of lifelong learning along with quality education in an effort to prepare their students for the knowledge-based economy (Mok and Chan, 2002 p. 35). MULTICTURALISM IN ASUTRALIAN EDUCATION According to an evaluation that was undertaken in Australia, it had been proposed that a review on migrant and multicultural services would b undertaken in 1986. This Review of Migrant and Multicultural programs and services were aimed at advising the government on suitable principles as well as strategies to guide the development of government policies over the next decade. Through the review, the government decided to develop novel directions for multicultural policies instead of carrying on with the programs and services established by the Galbally Report. The government then sought to stimulate institutional changes and promote good community relations on top of pursuing a strategy of offering basic resources as well as supporting for cultural expression and development (Jupp, 2001 p. 784). There has been a various number of ways in which multicultural education has changed over time in Australia. The initial narrowness of migrant education, only for migrants in addition to consisting only of English language tuition, has expanded to a variety of forms of multicultural education. These forms may differ in terms of personnel, resources as well as whether primarily school, community or resources center-based, but they are all committed to teach language and culture, on top of being committed to multiculturalism/ multicultural education for all Australian. In training areas, there are various people who have suffered discrimination. This discrimination is mainly suffered by the Aboriginal people as well as many people within the ethnic communities who are denied recognition of their cultural integrity. This results from the aspect of pluralism. Many Australians find themselves the victims of bigotry and intolerance in public life since they do not have the opportunity to maintain their home language and assert their right to make the crucial decisions concerning their own life (Foster and Stockley, 1988 p. 61). While multicultural education might have provided all kinds of ways for minority ethnic groups to maintain their cultural identities, it was not clear how it could be instrumental in providing greater equality of opportunity and access for Non-English –speaking Australians and thus the issues of inequalities were linked to the issues of prejudice, how it might contribute to reducing levels of racism in Australian society. The problem is not with the teachers but with the formulation of the liberal theory of multiculturalism itself, because it is the theory that informs the popular school-based conceptions of what kind of activities it is suitable for multicultural education to include. Multiculturalism did not face up to the issue of the existing patterns of social and economic inequalities in Australia, but its scope remained confined to celebrating cultural diversity. As a result, whether by effect or design, multiculturalism has served as an ideology, since by portraying ethnicity as a reified static category, divorced from political concerns, it has become instrumental in defusing and masking the more fundamental political issues of class and gender inequalities as well as the current patterns of social and economic disadvantage in Australia (Duignan and Macpherson, 1992 p. 145). References: Duignan P.A. and Macpherson R.J.S. (1992). Educative leadership: a practical theory for new administrators and managers. PA, Routledge. Retrieved August 31, 2010 from http://books.google.com/books?id=erW8RMcmN0C&pg=PA135&dq=relevance+and+implications+of+multiculturalism+on+Australian+education&hl=en&ei=78t9TLyTD8acOOum1IIE&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=9&ved=0CFoQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q&f=false Foster L. E. and Stockley D. (1988). Australian multiculturalism: a documentary history and critique Australia, Multilingual Matters. Retrieved August 31, 2010 from http://books.google.com/books?id=qq9rGnoKRxIC&pg=PA60&dq=relevance+and+implications+of+multiculturalism+on+Australian+education&hl=en&ei=78t9TLyTD8acOOum1IIE&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CDMQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q&f=false Johnstone D. B. (2010). Higher Education in a Global Society. Cheltenham, Edward Elgar Publishing. Retrieved August 31, 2010 from http://books.google.com/books?id=XBKXqcZgOQC&pg=PA15&dq=relevance+and+implications+of+globalization+on+Australian+education&lr=&as_brr=3&client=firefox-a&cd=11#v=onepage&q&f=false Jupp J. (2001). The Australian people: an encyclopedia of the nation, its people and their origins. NY, Cambridge University Press. Retrieved August 31, 2010 from http://books.google.com/books?id=wgoFxfSTfYAC&pg=PA784&dq=relevance+and+implications+of+multiculturalism+on+Australian+education&hl=en&ei=78t9TLyTD8acOOum1IIE&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false Mok K. and Chan K. K. D. (2002). Globalization and education: the quest for quality education in Hong Kong. Hong Kong, Hong Kong University Press. Retrieved August 31, 2010 from http://books.google.com/books?id=jcZgdVLRbaMC&pg=PA37&dq=relevance+and+implications+of+globalization+on+Australian+education&as_brr=3&client=firefoxa&cd=8#v=onepage&q&f=false Stromquist N. P. and Monkman K. (2000). Globalization and education: integration and contestation across cultures. Oxford, Rowman & Littlefield. Retrieved August 31, 2010 from http://books.google.com/books?id=ayIODazytbwC&pg=PA360&dq=relevance+and+implications+of+globalization+on+Australian+education&as_brr=3&client=firefox-a&cd=4#v=onepage&q&f=false Read More