Impact Of Recent Government Policies On Educational Choice And Standards In Britain
Among recent government policies on education are the National Curriculum
and The 1988 Education Reform Act.
In this essay I am going to write about the Education Reform Act,
including the national curriculum, mercerization, and within this
league tables, how these new policies impact on educational choice and
standards in Britain, and The New Right and Education (The Market),
and vocational education.
The 1988 Educational Reform Act introduced many changes which reduced
local control of the education system- Based on free market
principals. These include changes such as the The National curriculum,
which is a range of compulsory subjects that must be studied by all
pupils in Britain. It also includes National testing (SATs) at each
National Curriculum Key Stage (age 7, 11, 14, 16) - aiming to raise
and monitor standards. Sociologists, say that this could be a way of
ensuring that everyone is at the same level, “training the workforce”.
Another recent government policy is the national “league tables”.
Schools and colleges are now required to publish tables of test (SATs)
and exam (GCSE/AS/A-level, GNVQ/ AVCE) results. These are designed to
give parents and students an idea of how well schools and colleges are
doing. By encouraging competition between schools and colleges, these
league tables’ aim to raise overall standards.
These “league tables” mean that parents are given the choice as
“consumers”, it also means that there is competition between schools,
and as there is this competition between schools, there will pupils in
“better” schools and when pupil numbers fall in certain schools, they
risk losing money or even being closed down.
The local management of schools (LMS) gave schools (rather than local
authority) much greater control of their budgets, staffing, school
buildings and other aspects of school life. This was designed to make
schools more responsive to local needs and the wishes of parents, and
reduced the powers of locally elected locally education authorities
(LEAs).
Schools are funded by a formula which is largely based on the number
of pupils they attract. This is called formula funding. It was thought
this would drive up standards by rewarding “successful” schools that
attracted pupils (and hence money), giving less successful schools the
incentive to improve.
Open enrolment and parental choice means that parents are not allowed
to express a preference for the school of their choice, and a school
cannot refuse a pupil a place if it has vacancies. This was designed
to raise the quality of teaching and exam results by encouraging
competition between schools. Unpopular schools run the risk of losing
pupils and therefore money. In many cases, parents don’t really have
much choice in school, as places are usually filled up by those living
in the school’s “priority area” (the area from which children are
admitted first).
OFSTED was set up to conduct regular inspections of all state schools.
Since 1997, it has also inspected LEAs, and since 2000, further
education colleges. This aimed to ensure schools, colleges and LEAs
were doing a good job, by publishing their inspection reports and
requiring action to be taken on any weaknesses identified by the
inspectors.
In April 1993, further education was made independent of LEAs, and
many polytechnics became universities. These changes aimed to create a
level playing field between post-16 educational institutions, and to
encourage them to operate on the same market principals as schools,
with competition between them for students and therefore funds.
New Right approaches have usually started from the central idea that
the only way to create an efficient system is through the “mechanism”
of the market.
A market works through having consumers and sellers. If a seller does
not produce what a consumer wants, when they want it, in the way they
want it, that consumer can go elsewhere. Competition between sellers
improves quality and efficiency.
As education in Britain for the past 130 years has been predominantly
a public service, the absence of any market mechanism has made it
inefficient and ineffective.
Applied to education, a market would force schools to compete with
each other for “consumers” (pupils/parents). Good schools survive by
improving the quality of education they offer, poor schools have to
improve or go under.
An “Education Market” raises standards, gives a better deal to pupils
and improves the economic efficiency of the country.
However, there are many criticisms of the New Right ideas, such as
middle class parents have the resources to gain extra educational
advantages for their children.
Markets create inequality. Schools with mainly working class intakes
will achieve poorer exam results, attract fewer pupils, less money,
etc and enter a cycle of decline. This does not raise, but lower, the
standards.
In rural areas there is no opportunity for a market to function, as
there are few schools for parents to choose from.
It is not proven that the lack of competition lowered standards.
The most successful become over-subscribed and therefore can begin to
select the pupils they take, effectively reducing or removing consumer
choice.
Closing “poorer” schools leads to a reduction in consumer choice.
Just because a market approach works for certain products it does not
mean it works for a public service like education.
Vocational education is on the increase, a sociological explanation
for this is that pupils have different abilities, and we need skilled
people to do vocational jobs. It also means that there is lower
unemployment if students can go to college (i.e. a tech college).
There are also links that there is lower crime/ deviance if young
people are off the streets and in college.
Conservative governments 1979-1997 and the current labor government
(97- ) have emphasized the need for more vocationalism in education
and training.
The argument for this has been that the best way to increase Britain’s
industrial performance is to improve standards in education. This has
sometimes been called “new vocationalism”.
Vocational training initiatives and qualifications include Youth
Training Scheme, Employment Training, City Technology Colleges, The
Certificate of Pre-Vocational Educational Education Initiative,
National Vocational Qualifications and General National Vocational
Qualifications.
Vocational Education in schools brings more “schools-industry” links.
Functionalists see vocational education as positive as it allows for
skills provision. Marxists see vocational education as the bourgeoisie
training the proletariats as workers- “keeping them down”. Symbolic
internationalists see it as providing more choice and benefiting the
individual.
There has been a great impact of recent government policies on
education, such as league tables making parents and pupils as more as
consumers, and ensuring that the “poorer” schools lack benefits or
face closing down. It is more likely that a parent will choose a
school/ college that have better results than that of a school/ college
with bad results. This gives them choice as a consumer. There have
been many recent government policies, therefore many sociological
explanations of the impact of these, such as functionalists, Marxists
and symbolic internationalists all having different views on
vocational education.
To conclude this essay, I am just going to state that there are many
different sociological explanations on the impact on recent government
policies on education, all mostly agreeing on the fact that these
recent changes are all in order to insure that the “future workforce”
is trained at the same standards.
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