Neoliberalism and practices of early childhood education in Asia

Abstract

Introduction

This editorial is begun with a question once asked by Vintimilla (2014: 80): ‘Why bother discussing neoliberalism in early childhood education?’ While the answer to that is not straightforward, it is undoubted that neoliberalism has penetrated early childhood education.

Neoliberal policies according to Harvey (2007) are characterized by state deregulations, privatization and the state’s withdrawal from many aspects of a social stipulation. Neoliberalism is often predicated on premises that the government is not responsible for the social welfare of its citizens (Bockman, 2013; Peters, 2012). As a result, in a neoliberal society, individualism is held (Hursh, 2005). People are seen to be solely responsible for the success and failure of their life.

In the field of early childhood education, neoliberalism, as I will describe in this paper, is circulated through various discourses. One of the most dominant discourses is economic discourse, but, as this special edition shows, neoliberalism is also traveling towards another discourse, such as individualism. The language of neoliberalism is so pervasive that people often tend to take it for granted. It is the aim of this special edition to unpack and problematize the narrative so that people can see its controlling effect.

Neoliberalism in early childhood education

Neoliberalism is predicated on classical liberal philosophy (Smith et al., 2016). As a political and economic force, neoliberalism was perpetuated after the end of the Cold War between The United States and Russia (Harvey, 2007). The end of the Cold War undoubtedly gave birth to the United States as the ultimate hegemonic country in the world. The United States, together with its financial institutions’ think tank, developed the Washington Consensus, a list of 10 recommended reforms initially used to overcome economic crisis in Latin America in 1989 (Williamson, 2004). The consensus, later on, was promoted to other countries in Africa, Latin America and Asia. It is without any doubt that the consensus has become a vehicle in which a neoliberal agenda continues to be disseminated.

Institutions such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and European Union are unquestionably becoming major instruments to propagate neoliberal ideas (Beeson and Islam, 2005). While initially the World Bank was established in the United States to overcome economic crisis after the Second World War, it is now acting as a ‘broker’ between countries in the north and the south (Penn, 2002).

Almost all countries in Asia depend on the loan from the World Bank. The loan from the World Bank is often used to improve social provision in each country, including in the field of education. The loan is created in such a way that it makes countries in Asia highly dependent on the donors. Through its loan, the World Bank and other donor institutions can exercise their influence over the government (Rosser, 2015). Normally when the loan is provided, the government must agree to undertake economic as well social reform according to the standard set by the World Bank and other donor agencies.

International donor agencies often push their reform through education. Education according to neoliberalism is seen as a tool to improve a country’s economy (Rosser, 2015). Within this approach, education is seen as a form of investment that will bring a higher return to the society; a perspective that is likely to be influenced by human capital discourse. Within human capital discourse, it is believed that there is a strong correlation between human capital and the economic growth of a nation (Hoffman et al., 2006).

Neoliberalism through the World Bank then penetrates practices of early childhood education in Asia. The World Bank is predicated to have spent more than US$1000m worldwide on early childhood education programs (Penn, 2002). In Indonesia, for example, since 2001, the World Bank has been working closely with the Indonesian government in the field of early childhood education (Adriany & Saefullah, 2015). The Indonesian government has received more than US$21.5m in loans for improving early childhood education in the country (World Bank, 2007). One of the groundbreaking programs of the World Bank in Indonesia was the ‘one village, one early childhood education’ program. Using the loan given by the World Bank, the Indonesian government opened early childhood education in many rural areas. While the objective of this program is to reduce the gap between children in rural and urban areas, in reality, this project perpetuates differences between children whose villages receive funds from the World Bank and those whose villages do not receive any financial assistance. On a global scale, as Penn (2002) argues, programs delivered by the World Bank are often perpetuating the difference between children in the north and the south, where the Global South children are becoming victims of policy.

Apparently, Indonesia is not the only country that receives assistance from the World Bank. Other Asian countries, such as Bangladesh, Vietnam and Bhutan, are also recipients as the international donors aim to improve early childhood education in their countries (UNICEF, 2016). As a result, countries in the south continue to be dependent on the World Bank.

Neoliberalism is also amplified in early childhood education through the intervention played by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) (Smith et al., 2016). The OECD promotes the human capital discourse through its emphasis on the knowledge economy. It adopts a technical approach that values ‘objectivity, universality, predictability and what can be measured’ (Moss et al., 2016: 346). The OECD has expanded and imposed its values on countries in Asia. Since 2012, it has attempted to develop an international testing system that aims to document and reduce children’s complex development into numerical data that can be compared and contrasted between different countries. They assert that this is the best and perhaps most correct way to help countries improve their early childhood education program in the future (Moss et al., 2016). Since 2015, the United Nations have launched the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), in which goal number four pays particular attention to preschool education. SDGs aim to eradicate poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity and equality for all (United Nations, n.d.); and to ensure that each country has successfully achieved these goals, the country needs to provide data presented in numbers to demonstrate these.

In Asian countries, neoliberalism is often propagated through democracy discourse. Democracy provides a space for a country’s citizens to voice their opinion, yet it is also a paradox of democracy that democracy requires less intervention of the state. This gives rise to a privatization of early childhood education throughout the world (Urban, 2016). In countries like Indonesia and Korea, the rise of democratic society allows privatization of early childhood education to grow (Jahng, 2013; Newberry, 2010). Many private kindergartens are established, with some of them linked to international kindergarten or international standards of education. Within privatization, the governments allow the market of early childhood education to compete and the consumers (parents) to use their democratic right to choose the most suitable early childhood education for their children (Finn et al, 2010; Press and Woodrow, 2005). While this practice appears to provide greater autonomy to the school, because it allows the market to compete, it leaves schools in the rural and poor area to be further marginalized because of their inability to compete as the result of their limited economic and social capital.

Neoliberalism, discourse and a production of subjectivity

Neoliberalism is no longer merely a political and economic approach. It has become, in the words of Smith et al. (2016: 127), ‘a regime of truth’ that controls and constitutes our mind. A regime of truth privileges one truth over another. One discourse will be honored, and another discourse will be marginalized or silenced. Here, the notion of truth does not equate to the notion of right. In fact, it indicates that some discourses have more political strength than others (MacNaughton, 2000). As Foucault (1980: 131) argues:

Each society has its regime of truth, its “general politics” of truth: that is, the type of discourse which it accepts and makes functions as true; the mechanisms and instances which enable one to distinguish true and false statements, the means by which each is sanctioned; the techniques and procedures accorded value in the acquisition of truth: the status of those who are charged with saying what counts as true

Many educator and policy makers believe that neoliberalism is the only way to have a high quality early childhood education. As Harvey (2007: 3) argues, neoliberalism

has pervasive effects on ways of thought to the point where it has become incorporated into the common-sense way many of us interpret, live in, and understand the world. It is undoubted that neoliberalism has become a mode of governance. It controls and governs our subjectivity through various discourses

The term ‘discourse’ itself can be defined as any regulated system of statement that delimits what can be said but at the same time allows the space for making a new statement (Henriques et al., 1998). Discourses are multiple and offer subject positions for an individual to take up (Gavey, 1997). Here, a discourse will produce one’s subjectivity. In fact, it can be defined as anything that can carry meaning and the means by which people become produced (Aslop et al., 2002). Humans are always constituted and reconstituted through the discursive practices they have access to in their daily lives.

Since discourses are multiple, discourses are often competing and contradictory. As a result, some discourses will dominate, and others will be disregarded. A discourse that has dominating effects becomes what Foucault (1972: 8) labeled as ‘a regulated practice that accounts for some statements.’ Here, discourse is very much related to the notion of power. Blaise (2009: 455) defines a discourse as ‘a body of ideas, concepts or beliefs that become established and accepted as the “truth”.’

In early childhood education, neoliberalism can produce new subjectivity. The neoliberalism in early childhood education is upheld by child-centered discourse. Within the discourse, children are constructed as active individuals who can construct their knowledge. In this sense, child-centeredness resonates with neoliberalism where rationality, individualism and free choice are celebrated (Burman, 2008; Ryan and Grieshaber, 2005; Walkerdine, 1998). While this idea appears to be harmless, the focus on individualism makes us forget that what an individual can do is subjected to sociological factors.

The neoliberal policy also affects teachers. Osgood (2006) illuminates that within neoliberalism, the discourse of professionalism is upheld. Teachers in Asia are subject to a certification process. The government reduces the meaning of professionalism to simply ‘an outcome-focused approach to teaching’ (Duhn, 2010: 49), with little if any room at all for early childhood education teachers to resist it. Brown (2015) also argues that with the emphasis on an economic model, teachers in early childhood education are expected to produce pupils that conform to economic enterprise values.

Neoliberalism and practices of early childhood education in Asia

This special issue aims to explore the complexity of policy in early childhood education in Asia. It particularly attempts to provide space for debates on local and international policies that shape current practice in early childhood education. Each of the articles in this special issue tries to demonstrate how early childhood education in Asia becomes a space where neoliberalism continues to be negotiated and resisted. An article written by Gupta demonstrates how neoliberalism affects current practices of early childhood education in India, China, Singapore, Sri Lanka and the Maldives. Using postcolonial theories, Gupta shows how neoliberalism promoted by world financial institutions has made a greater emphasis on issues such as standardization, teachers’ qualification and the need to use testing in early childhood education. Gupta’s article also illuminates how neoliberalism has shaped early childhood education in these five countries by using two main discourses, the market economy and developmentally appropriate practices.

To understand the pervasiveness of neoliberalism, one needs to take into consideration historical and sociological factors that allow neoliberalism to emerge and sustain. This is explained by an article written by Lightfoot. In her article, Lightfoot attempts to trace the historical background of neoliberalism from its origins in the United States and the United Kingdom. She argues that neoliberalism came as the result of the Second World War, where countries in the north, the USA and the UK in particular, feel a need to help underdeveloped countries in the south by providing loans that were used mainly to improve their educational system. While countries in Asia, such as Hong Kong and Taiwan, seem to benefit from this loan, Lightfoot questions the neo-colonial influences of such practices. She believes these approaches have perpetuated the legacy of colonialism in Asia. She also is troubled by the fact that neoliberalism is rooted in human capital discourse that sees education as merely a tool to improve a nation’s economy. While this may not be completely wrong, this can, as Lightfoot claims, prevent us from seeing other meanings of education.

Neoliberalism, as I have mentioned above, also affects teachers, and because teachers in early childhood education are mostly women, it is undoubted that neoliberalism has a great impact on them too. There are two articles in this special edition that specifically address how women continue to become victims of these neoliberal policies. An article written based on an ethnographic study in Indonesia conducted by Marpinjun and Newberry yields the extent to which early childhood education has exploited women’s labor. This is because caring is an essential element in early childhood education and, at the same time, caring is often construed as women’s nature. Therefore, many women volunteer to become early childhood education teachers and do not receive adequate payment. Another article, based on a study in Indonesia carried out by Yulindrasari and Ujianti, explores teachers’ experiences with regard to their understanding of the notion of professionalism. With the government law on teachers’ professionalism, teachers are expected to comply with some administrative works and let the caring part of the profession go unrecognized by the system. Using Osgood’s (2006) concept of ‘regulatory gaze’, Yulindrasari and Ujianti unpack how teachers’ professionalism discourse in Indonesia can control teachers’ behavior. Within this gaze, teachers have no room to resist, and thus they continue to be constructed as powerless since they cannot challenge the system.

The penetration of neoliberalism into early childhood education practices in Asia is also made evident by the emerging of privatization and internationalization of early childhood education. Adriany takes up this issue as in her articles she unpacks the process of internationalization of early childhood education in Indonesia. Using postcolonial approaches, she highlights internationalization as a form of colonialization in education. International school, as Adriany argues, becomes a site where neoliberalism continues to be promoted. All the international schools in her research indicate how they are situated within human capital discourse. Parents choose international schools because they believe it is a form of investment for their children. They believe the children’s enrollment in international schools will allow their children to compete better in the market in the future.

Neoliberalism is circulated through various means, including government policy documents. The article written by Octarra and Hendriati, in which they examine 30 government policies in Indonesia, reveals the pervasiveness of human capital discourse in the documents. It is undoubted that human capital discourse has become a regime of truth in early childhood education.

Another article, by Lee, also reconnoiters how neoliberalism is disseminated in the policy documents. Lee analyses international text policies to understand the logic behind human capital discourse. She then turns to early childhood education policy texts in selected East Asia countries, such as Taiwan, Hong Kong and Korea, to understand how human capital discourse shapes political imaginary in early childhood education. Her analysis suggests that neoliberalism has reduced the meaning of early childhood education into merely an economics image and, thus, overlooks other issues such as social justice.

Neoliberalism is also interwoven with another discourse, namely religious discourse. Aksoy in her paper demonstrates how neoliberalism attempts to gain support from the public by illuminating conservative religious identity. Neoliberalism therefore remains unchallenged because it does not appear to contest people’s belief. Using Turkey as a case of analysis in her paper, she not only shows how neoliberalism operates through various vehicles but also helps us to expand our understanding of what constitutes as Asia.

This special edition tries to question and contest neoliberalism as ‘a grand narrative of our time’ (Moss, 2014: 60). Though all the papers in this edition reveal the pervasiveness of economic languages, such as human capital discourse within neoliberalism, the special edition also suggests that neoliberalism is not confined only to economic and political consequences. Going back to the question that opens this editorial, we need to discuss neoliberalism in early childhood education because, as Vintimilla (2014: 80) claims, it has become ‘rationality, one which expands its normative ideology and values to other spheres of our lives through specific discourses and practices.’

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Orcid ID

Vina Adriany

Vina Adriany is currently teaching at the Department of Early Childhood Education, Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia, Indonesia. Her research interest rounds on the issues of gender in early childhood education, the impact of neoliberalism in early childhood education, and social justice in early childhood education. She can be contacted at vina@upi.edu

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