Commodification and financialization of the educational private-mercantile sector in Brazil: features of the Brazilian education crisis

Abstract

The article examines the new education commodification expressions in the context of the current Brazilian crisis, a process shaped by national and international financial elites’ public fund resources appropriation. The investigation is based on the realization that the reforms implemented in the country after the coup of 2016, such as the “expenses cap” amendment, labor and welfare reforms, among other measures that are ongoing, consist in the movement of adjustment to the Brazilian capitalism accumulation pattern, determined by the financial rents and the resurgence of distinct and associated forms of work overexploitation. The mapping of new features of higher and basic education commodification process provides the empirical basis. The document research that was carried out identified the movement of the main educational public traded companies in the country, supported by State actions and by the betting on new organizational arrangements. Current legislation and bibliography analysis have been carried out about the matter of financialization and commercialization of education. The results prove that to explore new market niches to ensure earnings growth, the financialized market sector invests in distance education, in the dissemination of systems and learning platforms, consultancies, public-private partnerships, and the turning to basic education. This process occurs simultaneously to the dismantling measures of public universities and of the agencies that integrate the system of science, technology, and innovation of the country. The crisis, therefore, is deliberately imposed on public education and must be interpreted in the context of the contradictions analyzed during this work.