The Changing Nature of the Australian Education Policy Field; The Rise of Edu-Business

This paper reviews existing literature to identify the changing nature of the Australian education policy field. Through this analysis, it is argued that an international paradigm of testing, propagated by comparative performance data, disseminated by multinational agencies and non-government organisations, is leading to a global audit culture, where a resultant performative ethos is changing notions of traditional state-centred education service provision. This analysis of literature provides a contextual background to explicate the rise of edu-business. Through the use of some examples of edu-businesses currently operating in the Australian education market--found through a stylised approach of network ethnography--it is suggested that there is a pressing need for further in-depth research that investigates the currently opaque and blurred relationship between edu-businesses, schools and governments. Such research will ultimately hope to contribute to the education community's understanding of how increasing trends of privatisation are influencing the "public" processes of education.