Since the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) was created in 1995, there has been international pressure towards the liberalization of education all over the world as well as challenges to the traditional internationalization rationale in the field of education. Nevertheless, education liberalization under the GATS is also a contested process. Teachers unions, development NGOs, associations of public universities and other education stakeholders have opposed and campaigned against the GATS in different countries and at a range of levels from the local to the global.

Based...