Economising Education: From the Silent Revolution to Rethinking Education. A New Moment of Europeanisation of Education?

Overview & Synopsis

"Rethinking Education" (EC, 2012) suggests a new phase in European education policy. The constitution of education as a marketable service and the European (Higher) Education area as a market was pinpointed as an "implicit" agenda in the "silent revolution in education landscape" fostered by the open method of coordination and the Bologna and Copenhagen Processes. What suggests a new momentum is that: (i) education appears "programmatically" conceived as a marketable service, in the terms of a business and a European-wide and global market; (ii) a VET reform is underway based on German apprenticeship model, which brings together a version of minimal cheap education and a commercial strategy; (iii) there are signs of centralisation of European education policy on the EC and the CEU, under the European semester, and the apparent decline in importance of the Bologna and Copenhagen Processes and the Education & Training 2020 Programme. When looking at Portugal nowadays, the Europeanisation of education, fostered by economic and financial, as well as educational, European policies, and the choices of the government, presents a complex picture, with the shrinking of the welfare state, the increase in education privatisation and commercialisation, and the growing gap between national and European education welfare levels.