Higher education as a public and common good
- Rita Locatelli, University of Bergamo
Over the course of the last few decades, education has increasingly been referred to as a public good in education development and human rights discourse.
However, this concept appears to be challenged by the trends of privatisation and marketisation occurring in the field of education, which sees the primary responsibility of public institutions called into question by the greater diversification of actors and sources of funding.
This seminar, which is based on Dr Rita Locatelli’s doctoral thesis, will provide an opportunity to explore the application of the concept of public goods to the field of education, with a specific focus on the level of higher education, leading to a revisiting of this principle in light of current trends.
Dr Locatelli will also argue that the concept of education as a common good may represent a complementary framework for the governance of education in order to develop new social structures based on principles of cooperation and solidarity, while countering more instrumental approaches to education.
At the level of higher education, this implies the strengthening of democratic and participatory processes, with the aim of fostering the diversity of world views and knowledge systems.
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Dr Rita Locatelli holds a PhD in International Cooperation from the UNESCO Chair of the University of Bergamo, Italy. Her research centres on education policies and governance, with a focus on the role of the State in regard to the changing dynamics of global education development and the involvement of non-state actors in education. During her PhD programme, she worked at the UNESCO Education Research and Foresight Unit in Paris. As a research assistant, she contributed to the realisation of the UNESCO publication Rethinking Education: Towards a global common good?