Corporatisation, Global Banking Impact on the Australian Education System: Reflecting on Care

Trends, such as a massive increase in globalization, neoliberalization, and economic rationalization, have been supported and directed by major governments and major financial institutions, such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The pact between the World Bank and the IMF has created an economic juggernaut that is having an increasingly severe impact on world natural environments, education, social, and health-care systems. The influence of globalization and its effects within Australia have been well documented for several decades. This paper discusses how corporate-driven global economic policy, as directed by corporate instruments, in particular the IMF and the World Bank, is creating and maintaining overwhelming downward pressure on all world economies. The paper states that the brutalization of society and its consequences are examined as part of the discussion, leading to a discussion into the role of educators in engendering caring for others and self, through critical reflection, as a means to promote a healthier and more caring society. It focuses on Australia, contending that "Australia's complicity and duplicity with the IMF is both saddening and regrettable." The paper argues the case for students to learn reflective practice, or at least the processes involved, to be afforded an opportunity to be superior caring and contributing members of society. It states that continual positive questioning of self, values, and motives through critical thinking and journals in particular, can lead to increased understanding of the interconnected nature of society and other culture