Pandemic Privatisation in Higher Education: Edtech & University Reform
enabling internationalisation through distance learning, OPM providers are increasingly targeting undergraduate education too as universities and colleges seek longer-term platform solutions. This is likely to lead to a position where greater numbers of students are taught either by outsourced faculty hired directly by, and contracted to OPM providers, or by university and college staff on precarious, temporary and fragmented contracts. OPMs anticipate the emergence of an educational ‘gig economy’ in which low-income, deprofessionalised and precariouslyemployed educators have to compete for short-term contracts to teach on outsourced and partly automated online degree programs.105 They exemplify the rise of the ‘gig academy’, universities that outsource many of their teaching and administrative functions, which have implications for diversity and equity, since women and people of color are overrepresented in contingent positions and those most vulnerable to outsourcing.106 Wealthy online learning organisations are now establishing the technical infrastructures for remote teaching and learning in HE at international scale. Often working ahead of any official national policy mandates, these market providers act as ‘shadow’ policy centres that can set the technical parameters for pedagogy during the pandemic, and as a longer-term model for post-pandemic HE recovery and transformation. They are also now servicing governmental demands for universities to offer ‘bitesized’, modularised and high ROI online study options, as well as full degree programs, that are dedicated to industry-based skills development and post-pandemic economic recovery.107 As such, the business and market model of online learning platform companies have become integral to political recovery plans for the post-pandemic economy, whilst raising the prospect of outsourcing teaching to ‘gig teachers’ and exacerbating the precarious labour conditions of university educators.
6. Student-consumer edtech Historically, many edtech providers have been institutionally focused. However, during the pandemic there has been a rapid growth of directto-consumer edtech as students reach out for learning assistance. Students, learning from home, are turning to private tutoring platforms, AI learning assistants and streaming on-demand content as consumer105 Joshi, R. 2020, 17 July. Assessing the potential for a gig economy in education. TechCrunch: https://techcrunch. com/2020/07/17/personalized-learning-online-and-the-potential-for-a-gig-economy-in-education/ 106 Flaherty, 2019, 10 October. ‘The Gig Academy’. Inside Higher Ed: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/10/10/you’veheard-gig-economy-what-about-gig-academy 107 Woolcock, N. 2020, 21 October. Bitesized study and flexible loans could help more people earn degrees. The Times: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/bitesized-study-and-flexible-loans-could-help-more-people-earn-degrees-v3lt32dcv
39
