Government Education Policies

Government policies implement changes in schools and education systems; from minor, barely noticeable changes to major overhauls, our educational experience is significantly affected by government decisions. But to what extent has the government influenced how we have received our education?

We can use government educational policies to understand how the education system has changed over the years.

• We will be looking at:
• The role of the National Government in relation to educational policies.
• How Government policy has impacted early childhood education.
• Examples of UK Government education policies from 1944 to the current day.
• How globalisation has impacted educational policy.

What is the Role of the National Government in Education Policy and Practice?

The National Government has an ongoing responsibility to provide quality education for children in the UK. The Department of Education is a segment of the government which is solely responsible for the upkeep of education in the country.

The Department of Education may highlight issues within the education system and this prompts MPs to pass new policies to fix these issues. Over time, the government's approach to the education system has changed. More policies have been introduced and education has become a key focus for many political groups.

Let's take a look at how government educational policies have changed throughout the course of history.

Government Policy on Early Childhood Education

In the UK, before 1880 it wasn't mandatory for children to attend school. This meant that they often gained the entirety of their education from the home environment. However, in 1880 the government decided that education was needed to ensure a more competitive workforce. They made it compulsory for children to attend school up to the age of 10. This then changed to 14 in 1918.

This was the first major change in educational policy in the UK. However, there were many more to follow. The chronological list and examples below will help widen your understanding of these policies and what they involved.

List of Educational Policies in the UK

Below is a list of a few significant educational policies in the UK. Even if you may not have heard of them, they have significantly impacted your education.

• The Tripartite System (1944): Introduction of the 11+ exam, grammar schools, technical schools, and secondary moderns.

• Comprehensivisation (1965): Merging grammar and secondary moderns into comprehensive schools.

• New Vocationalism (1976): Introduction of more vocational courses and schools.

• Education Reform Act (1988): Introduction of National Curriculum, SATs, Open Enrolment, Formula funding, OFSTED Inspections, and Technology Colleges.

• Educational policies in relation to gender and ethnic differences.

• University Changes (1997): Tuition fees introduced by the government.

Examples of Educational Policies

Let's go through some of these education policies in more detail.

The Tripartite System - 1944

The government introduced secondary schools accessible to everyone in 1944. Entry was based on a test at age 11 called the 11-plus. Those who passed the test could attend grammar schools, while those who failed attended secondary modern schools.

Grammar schools offered a more academic curriculum while secondary moderns focused on practical work. Some students opted to attend technical schools focusing on a particular subject or skill. However, in reality, there were very few technical schools built.

Left-wing politicians argued that the 11-plus exam was most likely to be passed by middle-class children due to their wider access to resources. They saw this as unfair and argued for the existence of secondary schools with mixed-ability pupils.

The Labour government of 1965 introduced the first comprehensive schools to the UK. They requested the Local Education Authorities (LEA) to merge grammar and secondary modern schools to create a mixed set of students in schools.

This was an expensive process for the government and was therefore stopped by the Conservative government when they came to power. They supported grammar schools, as these produced higher academic achievements.

Comprehensivisation was consequently resumed but stopped again with each change in government until New Labour gained power in 1977. At this point, it was more of a priority to improve educational standards and provide parental choice instead. This resulted in most remaining grammar schools staying open by the time the Coalition government took power in 2010.

Fig. 1 - Comprehensivisation aimed to combine grammar and secondary modern schools.

New Vocationalism - 1976

In 1976, Labour started a nationwide discussion about the crisis of unemployment and advocated for vocational education. This resulted in vocational courses being introduced, such as:

• 1983 - TVEI (Technical and Vocational Education Initiative) funded schools to organise work experience for their students.

• Schools were further encouraged to teach more technological subjects.

• 1992 - GNVQs (General National Vocational Qualifications) were introduced in specific areas such as Business Studies, ICT, Tourism, Health and Social Care. They consisted of a large amount of practical work but were later labelled as A-levels and Applied GCSEs to gain more academic students on the courses.

Education Reform Act - 1988

The Conservatives introduced one of the most important policies in educational legislation. They aimed to prepare students for work, maintain the same curriculum nationwide and raise educational standards.

Before this Act, schools could teach any topics or subjects they thought were suitable, which led to a huge gap in knowledge when pupils joined secondary schools.

Some terms of the Education Reform Act

• SATs (Standardised Attainment Tests) were introduced in English, maths, and science between the ages of 7 and 16 to check achievement. The results of the SATs were published in league tables to motivate schools to work harder. Parents use league tables to determine which school is best for their child.

• Open Enrolment was introduced, allowing parents to send their children to schools outside their catchment area. This increased competition for students. Marketisation introduced the idea of competition between schools. The policies in the Education Reform Act increased this. Bartlett (1993) criticised marketisation with cream-skimming and silt-shifting. This refers to when schools onboard only high-ability students and offload the worst students to other schools to avoid bad results and fewer investments.

• OFSTED inspections were conducted at schools every four years.

• Technological colleges were created, which focused on IT and technology for vocational education.

• The National Curriculum was established from age 5 to 16 and was followed by state schools. It introduced English, maths, and science as three core subjects expected to attribute to 30-40% of teaching time. There were also seven foundation subjects introduced and made mandatory to teach.

• Formula funding was introduced, meaning schools received funding based on the number of students they enrolled. The schools that failed were closed due to a lack of resources, whereas the schools attracting the most pupils continued to expand.

Impact on class differences

Sociologists such as Ball and Gewirtz (1995) argue that some parents have far more choices than others based on class differences. Middle-class parents are more likely to have access to funds to transport their children to further away, more prestigious schools.

Government Policy on Inclusion in Education

Furthering from this, the idea of multicultural education was introduced around the same time as the Education Reform Act in most schools. This aimed to create equal educational opportunities for students from all backgrounds, particularly those in different ethnic groups.

The focus of multicultural education was to change the school's environment to reflect the array of diverse identities found in society. Let's take a look at these inclusion policies.

Educational programme for Black boys

We can also look at Sewell's (2005) 'Generating Genius' programme. He previously studied the educational achievement of Black boys and found that they greatly underachieved compared to their peers. To try and change this, he introduced the 'Generating Genius' scheme. The aim was to get 25 black boys from failing schools to be interested in engineering and science. He began this scheme in 2006, and at the ages of 12-13, the boys would spend some weeks of their summer working with scientists in Britain's top Universities. Sewell's results claim that the boys improved significantly, gaining GCSE results and continuing onto universities.

Racism in education

In her studies, Mirza (1992) found that teachers came into different categories when dealing with race. She uncovered that 33% of the teachers she observed were overtly racist. This affected the academic achievement of Black students. Therefore, it's important to consider how the 'Generating Genius' scheme helped boost black students' accomplishments.

Gender Equality in Education

To facilitate inclusion measures, in the early 1980s, the GiST (Girls in Science and Technology) scheme was introduced by the government. This scheme tried to encourage more gender diversity in subject choices. In particular, it was to encourage more girls to participate in sciences in schools.

Furthering from this, there was a similar idea launched known as the WiSE (Women in Science and Engineering) campaign. It aimed to encourage women and girls to pursue technical subjects such as science, technology and engineering. This was aimed at both school and college pupils and encouraged them to pursue careers in these courses.

These schemes were largely successful in helping women and girls pursue careers in predominantly male-based subjects. Francis (2000) studied girls' attitudes toward careers and found very few still aimed for traditional female jobs. She also found that as girls expected to face gender discrimination in the workplace, they were motivated to work harder and achieve higher than boys.

Higher Education Act - 1997

Many new universities were built in the 1960s. Grants made them more accessible to poorer students and many attended. Although the fees were originally paid by the government for poorer students, it cost so much that the Higher Education Act in 1997 introduced tuition fees. These have continued to increase over time.

Fig. 2 - University tuition was introduced in 1997.

Current Education Policies in the UK

Educational policies are constantly being changed in the UK. Famously, the Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition government, which was formed in 2010, brought many Educational policies into power between 2010-2015.

Coalition Government Education Policies

One of the main policies they created was the freedom of schools to become academies. This meant that schools which were rated low by OFSTED were forced to become an academy, despite any arguments against it.

According to a report published by the Department of Education (2013), this led to a huge number of academies being created.

The Coalition Government also set up Free Schools in areas where parents felt a lack of suitable choices for their child's education. These schools were funded by the government but operated as semi-independent and were able to choose their holidays, hours and curriculum to appeal to the parents in the area. They provided more choices of places to be educated.

The Globalisation of Educational Policy

Most recently, in 2014 changes were made to the National Curriculum. These changes created a more challenging curriculum to encourage a more competitive workforce. This choice was influenced by the statistics published annually by the OECD (Organisation for the Economic Co-operation and Development) in which the UK rank poorly in the global league tables.

The global league tables combine the educational achievement of pupils in each country and rank the countries accordingly. It's a good indicator of which countries have an effective education system. The change to the UK education system is an effect of globalisation. This is because it has been affected by international influence, namely, the OECD table. The increased number of relationships between countries have increased their educational competition and further improves the educational standards in the UK.