Topic 5 - Educational Policy

• Educational policy


  Government strategies for education, introduced through legal changes and instructions to schools
• State education development


  • Until the 19th century, education was only provided by church or private schools
  • Industrialisation created a need for an educated and trained workforce, leading to the development of compulsory state-run education
• Tripartite system introduced in 1944

  1. Two main types of secondary school

  2. Selection by the 11+ exam

  3. Most middle-class pupils passed and went to grammar schools with academic curriculum

  4. Most working-class pupils failed and attended secondary modern schools with practical skills curriculum
• The tripartite system legitimated the resultant class inequality
• Comprehensive system introduced from 1965


  1. All pupils attended the same local comprehensive school

  2. Some areas did not go comprehensive, so the grammar-secondary modern divide still exists in many areas
• Comprehensive schools


  • Functionalists see them as meritocratic, giving pupils longer to develop
  • Marxists see them reproducing inequality through streaming and labelling, legitimating inequality through the 'myth of meritocracy'
• Julienne Ford found there was little mixing of social classes in comprehensive schools
• Marketisation


  Introducing market forces of consumer choice and competition into areas run by the state, creating an 'education market'
• Marketisation policies since 1988 Education Reform Act


  1. League tables

  2. Open enrolment

  3. Formula funding

  4. Opting out of LEA control

  5. Free schools

  6. Academies

  7. Business sponsorship
• Parentocracy


  Supporters claim these policies give parents greater choice and raise standards
• League tables


  Schools with good results can 'cream-skim' the best (mainly middle-class) pupils, leaving less successful schools with less able pupils ('silt-shifting')
• Funding formula

  Good schools get more money, can improve staffing/facilities and attract more pupils
• Parental choice


  • Middle-class privileged-skilled choosers with economic and cultural capital can take advantage
  • Working-class disconnected local choosers lack capital and have to settle for nearest school
  • Ambitious working class semi-skilled choosers frustrated by inability to get desired school
• Marketisation legitimates inequality, making it look as if all parents are equally free to choose a good school
• New Labour policies, 1997-2010


  1. Maintained marketisation policies

  2. Introduced policies to reduce inequality, including city academies, Education Action Zones, Aim Higher programmes, Education Maintenance Allowances, increased spending on state education
• All markets produce winners and losers
• New Labour's policies are contradictory, e.g. EMAs help poorer pupils stay on post-16 but they now have to pay university tuition fees
• New Labour has left the private education system untouched
• 'Choice and 'diversity' are just nice ways of saying inequality' - the education market ensures working-class pupils remain disadvantaged
• More education spending and a focus on a 'learning society' have been genuine achievements of New Labour
• Evidence on academies raising standards is mixed - some show improved results, others don't
• Conservative policies since 2010


  • Accelerated the move away from a comprehensive system run by local authorities
  • Strongly influenced by neoliberal ideas about reducing the role of the state through marketisation and privatisation
• Neoliberalism and privatisation


  Internal market within the education system and the privatisation of state education, where the state commissions private companies to provide services
• Academies

  1. All schools are encouraged to become academies funded by central government

  2. Some academies are part of privately-owned chains

  3. Removing academies from local authority control means loss of democratic accountability
• Free schools


  State-funded but set up and run by parents, teachers, religious groups or businesses
• Ball argues that we now have a fragmented patchwork instead of the comprehensive system, leading to greater inequality, and education is now more centralised with government able to require schools to become academies and allow free schools to be set up
• Since 2010 there have been major cuts in government spending, e.g. on Sure Start, school building, the EMA, plus increases in university fees, in some cases cancelling out the Pupil Premium schools receive for disadvantaged pupils
• Free schools reproduce inequality: they take fewer disadvantaged pupils and research indicates that only children from educated families benefit
• Privatisation of education


  Education ceasing to be a public good, instead turned into a commodity owned by private companies and bought and sold in an education market, becoming a source of profit for capitalists
• Many senior public sector employees, such as senior civil servants and head teachers, move into private sector education businesses, bringing 'insider knowledge' to help win contracts
• Education policy-making is becoming globalised, with nation-states becoming less important and many education companies being foreign-owned or UK edu-businesses working overseas
• The private sector sells to pupils through vending machines in schools, develops brand loyalty through logos, sponsorships and voucher schemes, but the benefits to schools are often limited
• Policies relating to ethnicity


  1. 1960s-70s: Aim was to encourage assimilation, e.g. through English as a Second Language programmes

  2. 1980s-90s: Aim switched to valuing all cultures through multi-cultural education policies such as Black studies in the mainstream curriculum

  3. More recently: Focus on social inclusion, e.g. legal duty on schools to promote racial equality, but Mirza criticises even the more recent policies as being too limited in scope
• There have been a number of important policies aimed at reducing gender inequalities in achievement and at promoting non-traditional subject choices