Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/33531
Title: Privatizing education in the Maghreb : a path for a two-tiered education system
Other Titles: Education and the Arab 'world' : political projects, struggles, and geometries of power
Authors: Akkari, Abdeljalil
Keywords: Education -- Africa, North
Education and state -- Africa, North
Private schools -- Africa, North
Issue Date: 2010
Publisher: Routledge
Citation: Akkari, A. (2010). Privatizing education in the Maghreb : a path for a two-tiered education system. In A. E. Mazawi & R. G. Sultana (Eds.), Education and the Arab 'world' : political projects, struggles, and geometries of power (pp. 41-58). New York: Routledge.
Abstract: The development of the education systems in the Maghreb (Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco) has been heavily dominated by the public sector, in line with French colonial traditions (Lelièvre, 1999; Leon, 1991; Sraïeb, 1974).1 Since the early 1990s, however, the Maghreb has been marked by a strong tendency towards privatization of education. Privatization means an increase in the availability of private education, including a greater choice of certain families who can afford to pay for private schools or/and private tutoring in order to provide an academic advantage to their children, especially at the secondary level (Ball & Youdell, 2007; Bray, 2003). By analyzing this budding privatization of Maghrebi education systems, the present chapter focuses on the diversification of educational provision in postcolonial contexts. In this chapter I argue that in the Maghrebi context, privatization is underpinned by two tensions. On the one hand, it signals the emergence of a private marketplace in which education is perceived as a service like any other in the perspective of economic globalization. On the other hand, it reflects the growing centrality of a discourse around education as a social right of all social groups and a pillar of the welfare state. Within the context of the construction of the postcolonial state, these tensions operate a crisis of legitimacy that reconfigures the role of the state and transforms the relationships between different social groups in relation to schooling. Neoliberal reforms around the world promote the centrality of market mechanisms such as choice, competition, accountability and deregulation in order to improve educational services. These mechanisms have been implemented in a number of fields where the government plays a dominant role such as health care and education (Lubienski, 2005). The extent to which public education is suited for market-style organization is highly debatable. The very idea of “a market” is particularly contested in education (Henig, 1994; Margonis & Parker, 1995). Some analysts argue that essential aspects of public education make it unique and therefore inappropriate for direct control by market forces (Belfield & Levin, 2005). Others advocate the subordination of education to economic principles in order to improve educational provision and synchronize it with occupational outlets of graduates (Walberg & Bast, 2003). Apple (2001) pointed out that privatization reforms have been underpinned by contradictions. On the one hand, the discourse of competition, markets and choice encourages schools to be free agents. On the other hand, accountability, performance objectives, standards, national testing, and national curriculum have stressed accountability to government policies. As this policy trend is largely implicit and not well documented, the debate on privatization of education in the Maghreb countries takes place mainly in the press and revolves around three axes. First, some writers are concerned about the widespread private pre-schooling sector as a result of the development of private and Qur’anic schools and the attempt of the state to regulate it (Samira, 2008; Bouzoubaa, 1998). Others protest against the burden that private tutoring inflicts on families (Yahya, 2009). Still others are alarmed by the prevalence of private education provided by schools related to European embassies among established social classes. For them, this type of education represents a risk to national identity and to the status of Arabic as the language of instruction (Benzakour, 2007; Dakhlia, 2004; Lacoste, 2001). There are a range of educational policies that can be clearly understood as forms of privatization. They originate from both national governments across the Maghreb and from international agencies actively involved in the region. Notwithstanding, in many cases privatization remains a hidden agenda, as is the case in the development of private tutoring, which is discussed in greater detail below. As pointed out by Bray (2007), private tutoring consumes massive amounts of money and demands huge amounts of time from both students and tutors.
URI: https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar//handle/123456789/33531
ISBN: 9780415800341
Appears in Collections:Education and the Arab 'world' : political projects, struggles, and geometries of power

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