Educational policies

• What are the three aims of educational policies?

  • Economic efficiency- developing skills to improve the labour force
  • Raising educational standards- Uk education needs to compete in a global market
  • Creating equality of educational opportunity- ensuring students to get the best educational opportunities
• 1988 education reform act (national curriculum)

  • Improved equality as all schools had to teach the same core curriculum
  • Evaluation: not suitable for all as it suits the academic pupil more
• 1965 comprehensivisation act

  • Got rid of the 11+ exams making it so all students would get ’parity of esteem’ and ‘equality‘ within education
  • Evaluation: comprehensives are large schools so lack individual attention
• Pupil premium

  • Additional funding for those students from a poor socio-economic background (compensatory education)
  • Evaluation: Kerr and West argue there are too many other factors outside of school that impact achievement not just money
• 4 aspects of educational equality (Gillborn and Youdell):

  • Equality of access- every child should have oppurtunities to access educational provision
  • Equality of circumstance- children should all start school with a similar socio economic background
  • Equality of participation: All children should have chance to participate equally in the processes that make school life
  • Equality of outcome: All students have the same chance of achievement in education regardless of socio-economic background
• 3 types of selection

  • Selection by ability (entrance tests)
  • Selection by aptitude (talents)
  • Selection by faith (chance)
• Arguments in favour of selection

  • Allows ‘high flyers‘ to benefit
  • Specialised and focused teaching can take place

  Arguments against selection:

  • Late developers don’t benefit
  • Mixed ability fosters social cohesion
  • Reduced risk of labelling and therefore SPF
• Open enrolment policies and parental choice

  • OEP means that parents can apply to any state school in any area, and if the school is undersubscribed they must take the child
  • However oversubscribed schools fill up quick so many parents don’t get their first choice
• Over subscription policies:

  Give priority into schools to- children in care, pupil premium, siblings, catchment area, faith
• Covert selection (tough and brooks)

  • Argue that schools can cherry pick students in discrete ways as to appear the process is equal
  • Schools tend to discourage parents of poorer background from applying through high uniform prices, making literature hard to understand, not advertising in poor areas
  • Faith schools usually require a letter from spiritual leaders to ensure commitment from students to faith and school ethos
• Marketisation

  Means the process of where by services (education) are moved towards operating like a business based on supply and demand
• Privatisation in education

  Changing the internal processes of a school to be more like a business, e.g treating parents/students like consumers
• Privatisation of education

  Opening up aspects of education to private businesses such as staff training, school finances and management and exams
• Parentocracy

  When a childs educational achievement has more to do with parental wealth and wishes than students ability, parents are able to have more choice over where to send their children
• The features of marketisation

  • Independance- allowing schools to run themselves
  • Competition- making schools compete for students
  • Choice- giving parents and children more choice on where they go to school
• Elements of quality control :

  • Ofsted inspections
  • Publication of performance tables
  • National curriculum
• Policies promoting marketisation

  • Conservative government 1979-1997: brought in league tables, local management of schools, funding formula, open enrolment, ofsted, national curriculum, national testing
  • Labour government 1997-2010: brought in business sponsered activities, specialist schools, maximum class sizes for 5-7 year olds, building schools, education action zones, business sponsored academies
  • Coalition government 2010-2015: brought in pupil premium, reform of national curriculum/ exam systems, harder performance targets for schools
• Evaluation of Marketisation and raising standards policies:

  • Myth parentocracy: M/C have more cultural capital, covert selection process, catchment areas, higher education, higher income
  • Educational triage: pupils are separated into groups based on predicted achievement, middle achievers are more likely to be given more resources to reach grades needed for league tables
  • Funding formular: schools will dumb down teaching and standards to retain students as they may leave if work is too hard, therefore by retaining the students they retain their funding
• Evaluation of privatisation of education


  positives- more efficient, more choice for parents, profit making may induce companies to support failing schools

  negatives- takes the money from the education system, businesses may go bust, less equality