Marketisation

• Main features

  • The marketisation of education began with the 1988 Education Reform Act, influenced by the neoliberal ideas of the New Right, and includes three main features:
  • Independence.
  • Competition.
  • Choice.
• Independence

  • Independence refers to the way schools operate similarly to businesses, in that they have control over their own affairs.
• Competition

  • Competition means that schools compete with other schools for customers (pupils).
• Choice

  • Choice or ‘parent power’ (a ‘parentocracy’) refers to the way in which parents and potential pupils (the customers) are given the opportunity to decide which school or college they attend, rather than these decisions being made by the local authority.
• Quality control system

  • These features are then supported by a quality control system that includes inspections (by Ofsted), a national curriculum approved by the government, and testing and the publication of Performance League tables to help parents identify the best and weakest schools.
• Parentocracy

  • Parentocracy isn’t a reality for many parents, and while the middle-classes have gained most from parental choice, those families from disadvantaged backgrounds might be discriminated against through hidden or covert methods.
• Negative consequences

  • Schools might attempt to maintain their position in league tables by concentrating resources on those pupils who are most likely to achieve (usually the middle-class) which increases divisions between pupils.
• Disadvantages

  • Marketisation fails to help the weaker schools improve, as they lose money to their more successful rivals.
• Control

  • There is less control over the planning and supply of school places and less control over school quality, with little regulation to prevent illegal and unfair covert admission policies.