Abstract des Vortrags auf der LearnTec Karlsruhe, Februar 2003
E-Learning content – Either commodity or educational asset?
The present GATS-negotiations - with massive corporate pressure for the global privatization of university education - make this question anything but absurd. Private corporations, which already control about 20 % of the two trillion € spent on education worldwide, clearly want to extend their market share.
Already by 2010 the Infotainment giants expect as high profits from their educational offerings - distributed via a global education system of TV channels, CD-ROMs, DVDs, cable systems and the Internet - as from their entertainment products.
And this market will grow dramatically. The UN Development Agency estimates a greater number of people looking for education during the next thirty years than all students between the beginning of human civilization and the present taken together. The struggle over this gigantic market will not only dwarf other economic conflicts but, in the present political climate, also immensely favor the interests of the corporate giants against those of public education.