Education Policies Flashcards
Social policy
Laws or other initiatives the Government introduces which shape the future of education.
Influences of policies
Policies are influenced by political views of the particular Government, what research shows and what society’s main priorities are at any particular time.
The 1944 Education Act - The Tripartite system
Aim: To give every student an equal chance to develop their abilities to their full, whithin a free system of state education.
System:
The 11+ test - an IQ test done to seperate pupils in the following 3 schools:
- Grammar schools: academic pupils who passed the 11+ and have skills in logical thinking ad problem solving - this was 20% of the school population.
- Secondary Modern schools: For students who did not pass the 11+. Gave stdents a basic education with few opportunities to take exams. 75% of the school population.
- Technical schools: for students who didn’t pass but displayed intelligence in maths and more practicle subjects. These were vocational subjects being taught. 5% of the school population, very few schools were built.
Parity of Esteem
The idea that across all the schools, everything was of equal worth and quality - this proved to be not true.
The tripartite system - criticisms
There was no parity of esteems across the schools. Grammar schools were favoured in particular.
Upper class students had an advantage on the 11+; parents could hire tutors and the test included cultural knowledge working class students may not have had.
The majority of pupils failed the test, it was unreasonably hard, only there to pick out prodigies.
Reproduced class inequality - sold the myth of meritocracy (Marxist).
Labelling theory starts here: pupils are either labelled a sucess or a failure.
Is 11 years old too young to dictate IQ.
As it became apparant that girls were doing better in the 11+ than boys, the entry requirement for girls to secure a grammar school place was raised, therefore artificially failing girls.
Successes and failures of the 1944 educaton act - example, The Guardian article 1996
Gerald Steinburg, Labour party MP
Failed the 11+ in 1955: felt like a failure due to the ‘pass or fail’ nature of the test - ‘I can recall the feelin of failure. It took many years to get over the trauma’.
Comprehensive education policy, 1960s
The Labour Government in the 1960s decided to reorganise the education system. The compulsary 11+ was abolished in 1976, though it’s still an option to take if wanted. Catchment areas were introduced. Parents and children encouraged to attend their local secondry school. Comprehensive schools sought to be fully inclusive of all pupils, regardless of background and academic ability. To ensure all academic needs of pupils were met, setting and streaming were introduced.
Setting
For individual subjects, pupils put into distinct groups.
Streaming
A ‘band’ across all subjects, pupils grouped by broadly similar abilities.
Comprehensive education policy - Main criticism
Higher band subjects were provided better education and discipline compared to lower sets.
Due to being lumped together for all subjects, many couldn’t hone the skills thy had for particular subjects due to being in lower streams.
Anti-school subcultures could have been formed.
It has the sane system as the tripartite system, no parity of esteem under 1 roof.
Comprehensive education policy - Other criticisms
Comprehensive schools did little to ensure that academic needs of the most able students were nurtured. Many believed grammar schools to have better quality education than set 1 bands in comprehensive schools. Despite attempting to eradicate social class inequalities in education, schools continue to battle the inequality gap. Working class students continued to do worse than their middle class peers. The schools served predominantly working class or middle class catchment areas, creating social class divisions between schools. Schools in working class catchment areas are considered to be underfunded compared to those in more affluent, middle class areas.
Some argue that comprehensive schools still use a form of ‘selection’ through setting and streaming.
Comprehensive education policy - Marxist Criticisms
Disadvantages working class students and widens the social class gap through putting working class pupils primarily in low streams and middle class students in high streams. Schools usually being only ‘single class’ due to catchment areas in middle/working class areas also shows this.
The Conservative Education policy 1979-1997, Aims
Influenced by Functionalism.
Aim 1: To develop an education system that will effectively meet the needs of industry and the world of work.
Aim 2: To raise standards in the education system by ‘marketising education’ (The New Right) by opening up schools to tougher competition. Sucessful schools grow, unsucessful decline and close. Less direct government control will occur as schools adapt and catar to the ‘customers’ they serve.
Conservative education policy - Aim 1
The New Vocalisation: due to unemployment in the 70s, training schemes and introduction of vocational qualifications were introduced.
- Training schemes: Youth training schemes (YTS) began in the 80s. One-year, work based schees for school leavers. Provided hands on experience at work and opportunities for further learning.
- Vocational Qualifications: National Vocational Qualifications (NVQs) later followed by General National Vocational Qualifications (GNVQs) were introduced to give young people skills, knowledge and understanding they’d need in broad occupational areas like Health and Social care or Leisure and Toursim.
Employment Department Group and BBC Radio One adaptation - 1991: Training at the Bank
20 young people each year, may with no qualifications, are recruited from the inner-city area to train under the Bank of England’s clerical youth training scheme.
18 year old Elton Thomas in his second year came in without any qualifications - now he’s working towards achieving an NQV.
‘I’ve worked in 4 different officies and gained a variety of experience. It’s great working here.’
Conservative education policy - Aim 1 - criticisms
The main problem was a job shortage, not a skill shortage - no need for vocational skills.
Some youth training schemes were poorly run with trainees asked to make tea rather than having opportunities to learn.
A social class difference emerged as training schemes and vocational qualifications were seen to be for the less able and working class.
Vocational subjects struggled to be seen on equal footing as A-Levels.
McKenzie adaptation, 2001 - Cheap Labour
‘All it was was cheap labour… the firm I worked for actually got kids in and they were working as hard, if not harder than the men that earned the money, but they never got paid for it… it was cheap labour.’
Conservative education policy - Aim 2 - Education Reform Act (1988)
- A national curriculum was introduced to provide consistency, accountability and fairness.
- Schools would have a greater self control in how they managed themselves.
- Parents would be better placed to hold schools to account (parentocracy).
- Parents would have greater choice over what school their child attends. Catchment areas may dissolve to encourage open-enrolment.
- Formula funding: schools would be recieved a specific amount of funding per pupil that attents, influenced by the level of sucess.
Conservative education policy - Aim 2 - Applied theory into practice
Grant Maintained schools:
Withdraw from local authority control and have more freedom to run own affairs rather than being controlled by central government. Greater control over pupil intake, similar to today’s academy programme.
National curriculum:
This was introduced as part of the Education Reform Act. National testing was also introduced. This would help ensure all pupils, across all schools, recieve the same teaching and learning.
League tales:
Still in place, anyone has access. These are intended to encourage competition between schools and provide parents with a means of comparing the preformance of schools and help them decide where they want their child to go.
Chubb and Moe - New Right views on Education
Believed education systems directly run by politicians fail to take into account a community’s local need. Claimed the gov had a ‘one size fits all’ mindset. Chubb and Moe believed that the merketisation of education was the answer. Schools should be run in the same way buisnesses operate. Schools should strive to have the same qualities of a sucessful buisness to drive up standards and give pupils a much better deal through increasing competition. They proposed that the government introduce a voucher system, whereby each family would be given a ‘voucher’ in spending for education of a school of their choice. Catchment areas would dissolve and schools would ‘cash in’ vouchers to recieve funding and need to work to attract ‘customers’. The state should continue to moniter schools through OFSTED inspections, league tables and by imposing a national curriculum . All schools should should provide a daily act of Christian worship for pupils and lessons to promote a ‘culture of Britishness’ to instill core values into pupils.
Who are the New Right?
A strand of conervatism influenced by Margret Thatcher’s government of the 1980s. It advocates for economic liberism and social traditionalism. Includes some conservative politicians, conservative - leaning journalists, conservative - leaning sociologists. Functionalist sociologists tend to do the research, the New Right use it to promote their policies.
Social Traditionalism
Keeping conservative values in society.
Economic liberism
Private property and ownership for Capitalist economic freedom, not relying on the Government for benefits.
Conservative education policy - Aim 2 - criticisms
Some of these policies hint at a return to ‘selection’ that was found in the tripartite system.
Do parents really have a choice about what school their child attends? Do middle class parents have the most choice in reality?
League tables ignore other factors that help judge a school’s success, such as pupil happiness, trips, enjoyment.
The National Curriculum was considered quite restrictive in what could be taught, not allowing teacher creativity.
