eduational policies

• Educational policy


  Plans, strategies, instructions and recommendations introduced by government
• Issues that educational policy is a response to

  • Equal opportunities
  • Selection and choice
  • Control of education
  • Marketization and privatization
• Different governments of different persuasions will have different views on what needs to be done to deal with these challenges or to improve certain issues in the UK education system and they implement policies as they see fit
• Some policies have contributed to maintaining inequality, others have sought to reduce it
• Prior to the 1870s, the vast majority of people who lived in the United Kingdom were uneducated and prior to the Industrial Revolution there were no state schools
• The state did not provide any form of education, education was available for the rich and powerful, for the landed aristocracy and the royalty who sent their children to fee paying schools
• Some churches and charities provided education for the poor, and you needed to be very lucky to live nearby to those institutions in order to receive this
• Most people probably would have learned some very basic literacy and numeracy from their parents or grandparents, but very few were able to even write their own name at this point in time
• The state spent no money on education and did not feel that it was its role to do so
• The Foster Education Act was implemented, introducing elementary education for 5 to 10 year olds


  1870
• Attendance was made compulsory until age in 1880, and the curriculum offered a very basic understanding of the four Rs: Reading, Writing, Arithmetic and Religion
• The Butler Education Act was introduced, providing free education for all between 5 and 15 years


  1940
• Tripartite system


  All students must sit a test at the age of 11 known as the 11 plus, and based on the outcome they are allocated to one of three school types: grammar schools, secondary modern schools, and technical schools
• The tripartite system aimed to promote meritocracy, but in reality the 11 plus had an inbuilt middle-class bias and girls had to gain a higher grade to pass, reproducing class and gender inequalities
• The comprehensive system was implemented, abolishing the 11 plus, grammar and secondary modern schools

  1965
• Comprehensive schools


  Schools for all students in the area, overseen by local education authorities
• Sociological perspectives on comprehensives


  • Functionalists: mixing of children from different social classes would increase social solidarity
  • Marxists: comprehensive system does not challenge streaming and labelling, denying working class students equal opportunities and reinforcing the myth of meritocracy
• The Education Reform Act was introduced, seeking to introduce a market into the education system


  1988
• Parental choice


  Giving power to parents to make decisions on their children's behalf, including publication of league tables and Ofsted reports to allow parents to choose schools
• Key policies of the Education Reform Act


  • Business sponsorship of schools
  • Open enrollment
  • Creation of specialist schools
  • Formula funding
  • Schools competing to attract pupils
• The neoliberal new right favor marketization, arguing that successful schools will thrive whilst failing schools will go out of business
• Cream skimming


  Schools selecting the best students most likely to get top grades, leaving the rest to apply elsewhere
• Silt shifting


  Schools finding ways to get rid of students they see as problems, often white working-class boys, black working-class boys, or students with learning difficulties
• This results in the reproduction of class inequality and other inequalities
• The competition-oriented education system produces more segregation between children of different social backgrounds
• The New Labour government (1997-2010) sought to introduce policies to reduce inequality, including education action zones, aim higher programs, education maintenance allowance, and increased funding for education
• However, there were criticisms that New Labour's continued commitment to marketization contradicted their efforts to tackle inequality
• The Coalition government (2010-2015) encouraged all schools to convert to academies, removed the focus on tackling inequality, and introduced free schools
• The Coalition's policies are believed to have increased inequality, although they also introduced some policies aimed at reducing it, such as free school meals and the pupil premium
• The Coalition's austerity program led to the ending of the education maintenance allowance, tripling of university tuition fees, and cuts to other education programs