Marketisation of Education

Marketisation is the policy of introducing market forces of supply and demand into education. When the Conservatives came in to power the felt Labour failed to create meritocracy and restructured the system. The 1988 Education Reform Act began the creation of an education market by encouraging competiotion between schools and choice of parents. Before the Education Reform Act, the system was based on The Tripartite System where different types of students would attend one of three different types of schools: Grammar, Technical or Secondary Modern based on the result of their 11+ result. Eventually, it was clear to see that the triparite system didnt focus on equality, as the poorer working-class students would automatically fail the 11+ (restricting them from going to a Grammar school which was intended for the bright and academic) and therefore their chances of success in the future was minimal. Hence, the Education Reform Act was introduced in 1988 under the Tory government introducing a range of measurement; which Ball termed it as the Marketisation of education. This involved a number of changes, such as the introduction of league tables, forcing schools to publish their exam results. The introduction of SAT’s into year 2, year 6 and year 9 at school so formal progress at all schools could be made and monitored and the introduction of the National Curriculum so schools had to teach the same things at the same time. OFSTED was also created so that schools, teachers and pupils were monitored and meeting national standards.

Formula funding is an example of a policy where its aimed at creating an education market rather than to tackle inequality. This is where a school receives the same amount of money for each pupil. This can affect a working-class child’s education because if other schools have a higher funding because they are more popular and have better exam results that child is unlikely to get a place at that school and then end up at a less-popular school which has lower exam results because of its lack of funding due to its lack of pupils.