The new economic global order and its effects on higher education policies.

摘要

Using a historical approach, it is argued that in the new economic global order, based on extreme individualism, competition, concentration of money and a supposedly scientific-based model of production, knowledge became a privileged instrument for capital accumulation. As a consequence, knowledge and its traditional centers of production, universities, turned out to be objects of desire by rich groups.; Empowered and unfettered rich groups and their market-driven advocates are acting to restructure higher education systems, creating low level and cheaper higher education institutions to serve the majority, offering instrumental pieces of knowledge, and creating a false sense of democratizing knowledge. Indeed, private institutions were to be encouraged to carry out this educational business, exploiting cheap education as a new and lucrative commodity. At the same time, these groups argue that substantial knowledge must be developed, managed, controlled, and acquired following market rules and serving its for-profit objectives. These ideas have been carried out by means of the World Bank, which is supplanting UNESCO as the leading multilateral agency recommending education policies.; Nonetheless, it is shown that current reforms are fostering resistance and it is argued that higher education institutions, mainly public universities, must not be guided by the market imperative, but must contribute to the construction of a more sharing, cooperative, just, humane and environmentally friendly world.