Introduction to the special issue: Education privatisation and commercialisation in the context and aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

While different forms of privatisation and commercialisation of education have existed since at least the 1990s, the global COVID-19 pandemic of 2020-2022 created opportunities for the integration of private and commercial interests in public education to be turbo-charged. In this introduction to the special issue, we place its articles featuring country case studies from Italy, Brazil, and the United Kingdom in context, providing some historical and conceptual background to the forms, impacts and pathways of privatisation and commercialisation of education. We argue, based on our reading of the three articles in this collection and of the literature more broadly, that the education crisis brought about by the global pandemic swiftly opened the doors to new private actors and new forms of public-private partnerships. Due to the enduring nature of many of the relationships established over the course of the crisis, we observe the longer-term impacts in the form of expanded and intensified reach of the global education industry and more entrenched forms of privatisation and commercialisation of education in many contexts worldwide.