On the Political Economy of Educational ‘Reforms’

The educational ‘reforms’ we are witnessing today in India are usually attributed to the changing requirements of the economic system. This is no doubt true, but in addition they are also meant to serve the needs of the new ‘Ideological State Apparatus’, to use Louis Althusser’s term, that must come into being to correspond to the change in the economic regime. The direction
of the current education ‘reforms’ is such that they serve both purposes, i.e. they are in conformity with a changed totality.

The nature of the ‘Ideological State Apparatus’, in whose formation the education system plays a major role, is determined by the nature of the state itself. The education ‘reforms’ therefore are integrally linked to the transition in the nature of the Indian state, from being a dirigiste to a neo-liberal state – a transition associated with the change that has taken place in the economic regime and, correspondingly, in the nature of class relations in the Indian society.