Education policies lasr 25 years PDF

Preview

Summary

Notes...

Description

Sociology – Jack Masterman 1) By the term ‘vocational’ education it is meant an education which equips the student with skills needed for the world of work. 4) There have been many new education policies since 1995 which and there are two overall headings which they can be attributed to, the further marketisation of the education being the first and the other being the reduce inequality. After the Education Reform Act of 1988 was introduced by the Conservatives this has been the basis for all consecutive governments especially favoured by the New Labour governments of Blair and Brown. Examples of policies they introduced which supports the essay title are that schools have to compete to attract students and the publication of exam league tables. Secondly there’s been many policies brought in to help reduce inequality within the education system, examples are EMA (now the bursary fund) to the multicultural policies from the 1980-90’s. Evidence that the main aim of the education policies with in the last 25 years has been to create an education market is strong. Marketisation refers to the process of introducing market forces of consumer choice and competition between suppliers into areas run by the state. The ERA from 1988 created the education market by reducing direct state control over education and increasing competition between schools and parental choice of schools, these have been the principles for many policies in the last 25 years. Recently there has been massive emphasis on making schools into academies and this has been greatly pushed by the former education secretary Gove who fast tracked all schools who were rated ‘outstanding’ and then ‘good’ by Ofsted. These ideas about academies have further increased the marketisation between schools in terms of competition as they, the academies; now have to promote themselves even more than before to attract pupils to their schools. However prior to even this New Labour governments made it obligatory for schools to make their exam league tables and Ofsted inspection reports public. This contributes to the ides of makertisation as school would have to strive ever more to get their students to obtain the best grades so as to make their schools more attractive to potential ‘customers’ and this would drive up education standards from the failed comprehensives. Further policies to promote this system are as follows; business sponsorship of schools, open enrolment, formula funding and schools being allowed to opt out of the LEA control. However has mentioned in the introduction it is possible to argue that in the past 25 years there has been a push from the governments to reduce the inequality in the education system in various ways. The Labour governments have done various things, such as designating some deprived areas as Education Action Zones providing them with additional resources. This links in with their policies of ‘city academies’ which set up brand new schools

in some of the most materially deprived areas of the country. An example of this was a school in Hackney now named Moss side, before the change it was one of the worst performing schools in the UK and is not up among the best. This serves to increase inequality as in the material deprived areas where most of these new academies were set up there were often some of the poorest working class kids as well as immigrants whose parents were earning a pittance. The Educational Maintenance allowance, now the bursary fund, was also brought in by the Labour government. This allocated schools extra money for students that were seen as disadvantaged in life for example if they lived in care or in poverty. The money provided by the state was intended to bridge the gap caused by material deprivation however the gap is slowly getting wider and the reason for this is because of the fact that it is not the lack of resources that is holding students back, just the lack of parental interest in their children’s education. The Aim Higher Programme was also introduced to raise the aspirations of groups are under-represented in higher education. To draw a conclusion to answer the essay title which was to assess the claim that the main aim of education policies in the last 25 years has been to create an education market this is not the case. Some policies have indeed greatly encouraged the further development of the education market which was formed by the education reform act in 1988 however it is evident that in the last 25 years the main emphasis has actually been on the reduction of inequality in the education system for both the poorest in society as well as students that have English as their second language. Timed – 30mins...