The Growing Supranational Impacts of the OECD and the EU on National Educational Policies, and the Case of Finland

Abstract

The trends of globalisation have had unavoidable impacts in steering and guiding the decisions of national policy-makers and the direction of national education policies. In the obscuring processes of supranational homogenisation of education and educational policy, supranational regimes, such as the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the European Union (EU), play a significant role. The traditional idea of meritocratic competition is challenged by globalisation and by the new standard setting of the supranational organisations, and nation-states are losing their power to define standards and to control the key features of educational selection. The process is proceeding particularly in the field of higher education, where the stakes to win reputational capital are at their highest. The message, objectives and language of those organisations are cast in the same mould. They have started to speak in the same words with the same stress, repeating the same phrases about globalisation, economic efficiency and productivity, and swearing that globalisation is inevitable in the name of progress. In this article, historical change in the educational policies of the OECD and the EU and the implication of these policies for national education policies are studied. Special emphasis is laid on the field of higher education and the national case of Finland.