Page 20 - Šolsko polje, XXIX, 2018, no. 1-2: The Language of Neoliberal Education, ed. Mitja Sardoč
P. 20
šolsko polje, letnik xxix, številka 1–2
skills to effective use, creating a better match between people’s skills and
job requirements. (OECD, 2012: p. 51–53)
Here, once again, we may see that OECD’s rhetorical apparatus
works through two related passages: a) in the first one, OECD presents
its own vision of education as a request emerging from countries around
the world, rather than its own vision of education; and b) in the second
passage, to close the loop, such a vision is transformed in an unavoidable
necessity. We may notice such a rhetorical mechanism in the first state-
ment of the passage quoted above: OECD’s role is merely one of help-
ing countries “[to] understand more about how to invest in skills to help
transform better skills into better jobs, economic growth and social inclu-
sion.” As a corollary, I wish to add that, if at the individual level, it is rea-
sonable to suppose that “better jobs” depend on “better skills”—although
a question can be made about the fact that which jobs are better depends
on one’s aims and aspirations—it is difficult to understand how OECD
makes such an automatic passage from economic growth to social inclu-
sion. That economic growth automatically produces social inclusion is not
a given–again, such a position seems to be consistent to neoliberal ideolo-
gy (Brown, 2015; Hill, 2004).
The second rhetorical passage OECD makes, namely, that of turn-
ing its vision of education into the one and only vision possible, is accom-
plished in the second part of the passage. Here, we may notice that “acti-
vat[ing] skills supply, encouraging people to offer their skills and to retain
skilled people on the labour market […], creating a better match between
people’s skills and job requirements”, are well-known neoliberal rules.
Schooling, otherwise stated, does no exhaust its mandate with furnish-
ing the “right skills”. Schools also have a much broader ethical, affective,
and social role. However, even when limiting schools’ role to such “right
skills”, it should be highlighted that schools should have a role in deter-
mining which the “right skills” are, and which the method for teaching
and assessing them shoud be. Otherwise, we run the risk of transforming
schools in mere executors of OECD’s politics. In other words, too much
of what schooling is about is being left behind by OECD’s picture.
OECD’s rhetorical strategy becomes even more evident in a 2014
publication, PISA 2012 Results: What Students Know and Can Do, where
the twofold hindering of its own position as a performative one, and of its
own view as the only view in town, is clearly at work. Given the relevance
of the issue, it is worth quoting the passage at length:
Equipping citizens with the skills necessary to achieve their full poten-
tial, participate in an increasingly interconnected global economy, and
18
skills to effective use, creating a better match between people’s skills and
job requirements. (OECD, 2012: p. 51–53)
Here, once again, we may see that OECD’s rhetorical apparatus
works through two related passages: a) in the first one, OECD presents
its own vision of education as a request emerging from countries around
the world, rather than its own vision of education; and b) in the second
passage, to close the loop, such a vision is transformed in an unavoidable
necessity. We may notice such a rhetorical mechanism in the first state-
ment of the passage quoted above: OECD’s role is merely one of help-
ing countries “[to] understand more about how to invest in skills to help
transform better skills into better jobs, economic growth and social inclu-
sion.” As a corollary, I wish to add that, if at the individual level, it is rea-
sonable to suppose that “better jobs” depend on “better skills”—although
a question can be made about the fact that which jobs are better depends
on one’s aims and aspirations—it is difficult to understand how OECD
makes such an automatic passage from economic growth to social inclu-
sion. That economic growth automatically produces social inclusion is not
a given–again, such a position seems to be consistent to neoliberal ideolo-
gy (Brown, 2015; Hill, 2004).
The second rhetorical passage OECD makes, namely, that of turn-
ing its vision of education into the one and only vision possible, is accom-
plished in the second part of the passage. Here, we may notice that “acti-
vat[ing] skills supply, encouraging people to offer their skills and to retain
skilled people on the labour market […], creating a better match between
people’s skills and job requirements”, are well-known neoliberal rules.
Schooling, otherwise stated, does no exhaust its mandate with furnish-
ing the “right skills”. Schools also have a much broader ethical, affective,
and social role. However, even when limiting schools’ role to such “right
skills”, it should be highlighted that schools should have a role in deter-
mining which the “right skills” are, and which the method for teaching
and assessing them shoud be. Otherwise, we run the risk of transforming
schools in mere executors of OECD’s politics. In other words, too much
of what schooling is about is being left behind by OECD’s picture.
OECD’s rhetorical strategy becomes even more evident in a 2014
publication, PISA 2012 Results: What Students Know and Can Do, where
the twofold hindering of its own position as a performative one, and of its
own view as the only view in town, is clearly at work. Given the relevance
of the issue, it is worth quoting the passage at length:
Equipping citizens with the skills necessary to achieve their full poten-
tial, participate in an increasingly interconnected global economy, and
18
