“Kolambata Kiri, Apata Kekiri”: Neoliberalism and the 1981 Education Reforms

Prabha Manuratne


Polity Volume 7, Issue 2, pp. 14-22 (Download PDF)

In her examination of the neo-liberalization of education, Prabha Manuratne demonstrates how the discourse on the ‘crisis’ of education turns a class-related crisis into one about expectations, affects, and personal failure, thereby masking the deeper class antagonisms implicit in it. Manuratne’s analysis of the 1981 White Paper reforms introduced by then Minister of Education teases out the ways in which the proposals sought to amplify rather than address the deep-rooted class antagonisms that continue to shape perspectives on educational reform.

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