The neoliberal approach to education and schooling has gradually risen in the world since the middle of the 20th century. In terms of this approach, the social and other aspects of reality, including education and schooling, are seen through the lens of economics and business only (Adams 2006:8). It tends to view education through the lens of economic growth (Maistry 2014:7). Education itself is expected to be cost-effective (Maistry 2014:63) and provide the human power for economic growth (Welch 1998:158) and hence be technologised, commodified and saleable (Welch 1998:160). In essence, schools are seen as business corporations in which the government and parents invest in knowledge as a commodity and in the future of young people. Acculturation through education has become redefined as the acquisition of social and human capital (Rustin 2016:149), and schools are seen as institutions for the sorting and grading of the human resources that the economy might need in the future (Rustin 2016:148). The purposes of education and of schooling should be in sync with
these views of the essence of education and of the place and role of schools in society; education has to serve the needs of the economy (Maistry 2014:60) and therefore should aid in the formation of an individual who can possess, that is, who can create personal wealth for himself or herself, with the capacity to earn and pay wherever necessary, a possessor of private property and capital, intent on making money and profit, and focussed on self-interest and enrichment, individuals who will be useful to the (national) economy (Welch 1998:165), can serve ‘conservative’
(i.e. neoliberal) political interests and be useful to the industrialising economy (Welch 1998:164–165). It furthermore has to provide the workforce needed for the economy (Rustin 2016:150), including a new administrative elite (Rustin 2016:149) – individuals who can compete in the open market and can effectively participate in a global economy (Adams 2006:3; Rustin 2016:150).
This approach to teaching–learning, education in a formative sense and particularly schooling, has several implications for how human beings in education (homo educandus) are seen and hence also the discipline in schools. From a tender age, children are seen and educated as competitors and clients in the world market in which corporations do their business. From a very young age, they are educated to want more than what they ‘need to have’; there are many ‘nice to haves’ in affluent societies (shops and markets) and often their parents and carers honour children’s wishes to possess even relatively useless commodities. They soon learn in schools that they have to be strongly competitive and master the secrets of entrepreneurship to be successful as well as effective and efficient in this ‘world’ (cf. the entrepreneurship days held in even primary schools). They begin seeing themselves as human capital and the knowledge and skills that they attain in school as resources or commodities to help them get ahead in life, and also ahead of all competition. The school prepares them for job competition in the open market and to be able to meet market needs. In brief, their school education (and also beyond the schools, in the wider community as well as in their parental homes) moulds them into homo economicus [market actors]
instead of homo educandus [fully educated human beings].
As homo economicus, they soon learn the ‘value’ of individualism, entrepreneurship, competition, profit-making, consumption, utility maximisation, accountability and performance.
The neoliberal approach seems to have a threefold effect on schooling and the teaching–learning process. Neoliberalism has, firstly, in many schools infused the entire atmosphere of schooling to such an extent that schools have lost sight of their basic pedagogical or formative mission and have adopted a ‘metric fetish’ policy, a policy of chasing qualifications and of measuring achievement, of measuring and cataloguing, of ‘measuring madness’, ‘governance by data, disciplining and technologies of the self, of humiliation as organising value’. In the process, schools tend to become ‘data-driven systems’ intent upon rating and ranking, and their work becomes based on a ‘materialisation of values’ (Robbins & Kovalchuk 2012:198-203). Secondly, this lack of insight into the basic formative task of educators, of those who fail to see that the youngsters have to be guided to maturity in the fullest sense of the word, leads to reactions on the part of the learners (students). As they are not being recognised as complete human beings in their own right but rather as homo economicus-in-the-making, they become disruptive, insubordinate and disturb the peace and order that the school requires for its operations, all of which can be seen as reactions to the neoliberal character and approach, to the consumerist idealism of the school. Thirdly, the disruptive actions of learners who react in such ways to the neoliberal tendencies in and of the school elicit a zero-tolerance approach and the institution of a
‘curriculum of criminalisation’ on the part of the school in response to ill-discipline and antisocial behaviour by the students. In some schools, this could take the form of organised violence against the perpetrators, even to the extent of using Taser guns against them (Robbins & Kovalchuk 2012:199, 203, 214). It could be concluded on the basis of this outline of the impact of neoliberalism on schooling and education that an ideal for the school as formulated by Rudin (1976:203) more than four decades ago has not materialised in the meantime, at least not for those schools
that identify with a neoliberal ethos. In his (Rudin 1976:203) opinion, the young in schools will be best prepared for the future
‘by a school that itself is symbolic of the healthy society and that affords authentic engagement with real events’.