Deregulation and privatization of the school systems are the symptoms of the transition from the era of "massification" of education to the era of "merchandization". This process is generated by a new relation between education and the needs of the globalized economy. Education is charged to supply the economy with a skilled and flexible labour force, to stimulate the markets by fashioning the consumer and to become itself a new, profitable market. (Contains 1 figure and 3 notes.)