Commercialization of Higher Education: A Review

Abstract

Commercialization is the concept from the point view of market and gaining profit and it has has been taking place around the world since the beginning of 1999. Under the GATS regime, education was included, and has since been viewed as a tradable commodity. Almost all the countries of the world succumbed to International Monetary Fund (IMF) - World Bank agenda of providing a platform for business in higher education as a solution to solve the crisis in higher education in the era of financial constraints. Since then, higher education has been vigorously commercialized in both developed and developing countries of the world and has become a government-supported service through extensive privatization and regulation. An important consequence of the commercialization of higher education is that students see themselves as customers and education as a product. This is a didactic view of education, as its value is not contained in itself, but in what it can be used to achieve. When education becomes commercialised, the whole purpose of creating organic intellectuals with independent and non-parasitic thinking gets defeated. This paper argues why education cannot be treated as a commodity and is something that should remain outside the purview of market ideology.