Invasion of Educational Universe by Neo-Liberal Economic Thinking : A Civilizational Casualty?

The early 1960s witnessed attempts at a constrictive re-interpretation of the role and purpose (and hence philosophy) of education solely in terms of the ideological premises, concepts/categories and methodology of the mainstream (neoliberal) economics, with the ‘economics of education’ simultaneously being founded as a new sub-branch. In this newly founded economic discourse, education is seen as a vehicle for ‘human capital formation’, a key to the avowed sustained growth of aggregate economy as well as to the upward economic mobility of individuals/households. An increasing dominance of this relatively narrow (neo-liberal) view of education in course, and aftermath, of the Cold War has (arguably/evidently) undermined the long-standing hold of the (pre-existing) broader vision and liberal view of education wherein education is a means not only to material progress but, perhaps more importantly, to higher level of civilizational ethos and enlightenment and democratic citizenship. The present paper argues that the hegemonic dominance of the (neoliberal) economic paradigm of education, with the latter’s concomitant ‘dumbing down’ effects exacerbated, inter alias, by sprees of privatisation and marketization in educational universe, has been cognizably instrumental to a deepening debilitation of academic standard, rigour, sanctity, and related intellectual, ideational, liberal vibrancy crucial for sustenance of the perennial flow of civilizational progression