Neoliberalism and higher education

THE EDITOR, Madam:

Two years ago, Sir David Attenborough, a world-renowned supporter of the natural environment, expert BBC analyst, and presenter on all things nature, spoke at the opening of the World Leaders Summit on Climate Change in Glasgow. Attenborough urged world leaders to change their neoliberal economic policies to more sustainable ones in the hope that the natural world – the basis of all that we are – would recuperate to allow future generations the beautiful life that they deserve.

Why is this important to higher education? Neoliberalism is about free and open competition that defies the common restrictions/boundaries of democracy. It puts us in a mindset to believe that our lives and status are defined by our abilities to buy and sell freely.

Clearly, that has multiple implications. For every right that we enjoy, we must be prepared for the responsibilities. Climate change is one of those responsibilities.

Global competition among economic markets is the conveyor belt that has been feeding climate change, and students who are attaining and have attained higher education, if they play the game correctly, will be the most active buyers and sellers, according to neoliberal policies.

Critics of neoliberalism, like George Monbiot, a British journalist, and environmental and political activist, suggest that neoliberal supporters push the idea of being free to compete, because it absolves them of basic human responsibilities like caring for nature. “Neoliberalism is not an ally of nature,” he says ( Monbiot, 2017).

One major challenge of this “competition” in higher education, however, is that it forces students to become “customers” rather than partners in the teaching-learning process.

Students now have a greater degree of power because of their ability to pay, and this is changing the context of how higher education institutions operate.

There is also a clear difference between which classes, and in some countries, races and ethnicities that can pay.

The inverse, however, is that institutions are arguably no longer centres of knowledge but are instead businesses which compete against each other, all the while forgetting to equally develop many of the true elements of community within their students – decency, discipline, civic pride, respect for law, mental and physical health and spiritual growth.

Attenborough’s presentation highlighted a frightening fact that no country on earth is truly developed because none has been able to attain sustainable practices, as required by the Human Development Index.

Education should not be a commodity that we compete for access to. If we simply give more access to higher education and change the perception of it being a dog race, we can see greater improvements in all areas of human life nationally and internationally. That may mean returning to a time when education was a public right that government funded. A warm(ing) earth should not have to coexist with a cold world.

NORTY ANTOINE