Managers’ Opinion About Recognizing Neoliberalism in Education in Slovenia

Abstract

In this paper, we presented how schools perceive the introduction of the free market and market mechanisms through deregulation policies and privatisation schemes. We also discussed the consequences and traps of the free market. The research presents how education personnel see changes in education; and how managers versus other school workers understand the free market and what their attitude is towards public education. There are many different perspectives on the position and role of education in society, in particular whether education is a public good and should be protected at all costs or if education should be subject to monitoring and efficient organisation, as advocated by neoliberals. From this research, it is clear that school system employees believe that public education is a public good and should be protected as such. The results also show that school managers (comparing them with other school workers) are the most favorable to the claim that ‘public education is subject to monitoring and efficiently organized’ and to the claim that ‘public education is a public good and therefore has to be protected at all costs’. Education is a relatively large and important part of the public sector, and one of the key problems of modern society is how to find a way to reform positive common social goals which are not only limited to the optimisation of the education system.