%0 Journal Article
%T Governing and commercialising early childhood education: Profiting from The International Early Learning and Well
%A Guy Roberts-Holmes
%J Policy Futures in Education
%@ 1478-2103
%D 2019
%R 10.1177/1478210318821761
%X This article examines why the government in England has signed the country up to taking part in the OECD¡¯s new international assessment known as The International Early Learning and Well-being Study (IELS). The article highlights the role of IELS as a technology of neoliberal governance. Looking forward it considers how IELS may open up new business opportunities and spaces for profit for businesses in England and elsewhere. At present, IELS is a fledgling product, but it may in time further add to the explanatory and governing power of the OECD to steer national policy makers towards a homogenised educational future defined by the organisation. IELS is run and managed by the National Foundation for Education Research (NFER), a national not-for-profit research organisation. The article explores how this same not-for-profit organisation also won the remarkably similar early childhood English Baseline Assessment 2 worth ¡ê9.8 million. Finally, the article examines the possibility that, in the future, if IELS were to develop, the edu-business Pearson might be interested in IELS to add to its existing interests in global data governance for profit
%K Early childhood
%K Pearson
%K IELS
%K governing
%K commercial
%U https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1478210318821761