‘Hardly Neutral Players’: Australia's role in liberalising trade in education services

Abstract

In this paper we explore the avowedly partisan stance of Australia regarding trade in education services, the government's enthusiastic approach to market liberalisation through GATS, and its response to the concerns of vocal critics including academic and student unions. Education is a major export enterprise for Australia, both onshore and offshore. Education is publicly referred to as an ‘industry’ as often as a ‘sector’, and institutions behave in an aggressively market‐oriented manner unthinkable two decades ago. While other major education exporters, including the EU, US and Canada, have showed flagging commitment to pursuing trade liberalisation in education due to opposition from the academic community and little pressure from the ‘industry’ for such an approach, Australia and New Zealand have come to represent the most ardent supporters of free trade in education. The Australian government's approach has involved making changes to its domestic education regulations to ensure they are consistent with market liberalisation, and facilitating the exploration of concerns through various international forums, including APEC, the WTO and OECD. Issues such as quality assurance, consumer protection, and public subsidies remain high on the list of matters for further debate.