As a common good, education plays a crucial role in the development of society. In fact, education is a major influence in shaping culture and thought. With that being said, private entities often insert themselves into public education systems for various reasons.

The rise of public-private partnerships in education in recent times has evidently fueled the emergence of ‘education shamans’. With no intention to disrespect shamanic culture or indigenous heritage, the shamans I’m pinpointing are pseudo-spiritual opportunists who self-describe themselves as having spiritual power. Traditionally, the role of shamans is seen as the intermediaries or a bridge between two worlds – the seen and unseen. Thus, the shaman is someone who is able to provide foresight and simultaneously manifest solutions to fix problems. Taking this analogy into consideration, ‘education shamans’ in this article are those who attempt to intensify educational issues by adding their own narratives and then go on to provide band-aid solutions. The education shamans I’m talking about are those who attempt to paint broad strokes of an education system by claiming that they have the capacity to see what lies ahead. They operate by purposefully fabricating half-baked narratives that aim to create stress and panic.

So, what does the emergence of education shaman tell us about public education systems? To begin with, the core purpose of education is to enable humans to make this world a better place. However, post-World War 2, the purpose and expansion of public education systems were directed to prepare humans for participation in the national economy. This resulted in the degradation of education as a public good, and eventually, by the 1970s and 1980s, there was a rise in neoliberal reasoning in education. At a school level, the impact of neoliberal education shifts the focus away from collaboration to improve learning for all students, instead, neoliberal practices encourage schools to compete against each other for resources. Needless to say, constant standardization and accountability mechanisms further assault cooperative and collaborative mechanisms.

At the start of the 21st century, countries saw the need to participate in the global knowledge economy and education was the tool to prepare their citizens for this. Along with rapid technological shifts, government agencies struggled to reform education as education itself is a static system that is not receptive to rapid changes. Thus, this eventually led to the growing arrangement of education consultancies providing quick-fix solutions to aid education systems in equipping students with the necessary skills in a volatile and ambiguous world. This scenario saw education shamans further inserting themselves in education systems by intentionally magnifying problems, mainly through data, statistics, and numbers. The education shamans mainly operate on a neoliberal ideology that promotes competition, privatization, and personal responsibility.

While the education shamans claim to improve education systems, their neoliberal inclination means education is further deregulated. By deregulating education, while there are more choices, subsequently this increases competition and inequality. Essentially, education shamans do not really take into consideration of inclusive education reforms, rather their strategies are to reinforce their position in national education systems. Consequently, education shamans push their own agendas in education reform, which ultimately forecloses alternative measures of educational reforms.