Distributing ‘learning’ for everyone, everywhere

Abstract

During the past decades, global education policies and practices have experienced a neoliberal turn, which has changed the discourse around education. Instead of being regarded as a public service, education has become loaded with expectations of effective production of the human capital and financial profits. Finland has gained reputation as an educational powerhouse, whose exceptionally good education results are explained, inter alia, as results of the egalitarian principles on which the education system is grounded. However, the internationally recognized position has encouraged also Finland to commodify its free-to-all education system and establish it as an export product. This study explores how commodification and export of the Finnish education affects the egalitarian principles that Finland uses as explanations for its educational success. By asking how Finnish education export companies negotiate the notions of equality and equity in education, it seeks to find out whether neoliberal social imaginary has redefined the egalitarian principles. A critical discourse analysis is carried out on the blog posts and interviews with four Finnish education export companies. The results present three distinct discourses, according to which there is an inevitable need for skilful, competent and self-directed individuals that can respond to the needs of the growing economy. Equity and equality are negotiated as serving this ‘truth’. They are defined as equal opportunities to access the resources that individuals can utilise to develop their skills and competencies. Although this study focuses on the discourses of Finnish education export companies, it could be viewed as an example of a larger transformation towards neoliberal equity and equality discourses.