Soc essay

Using material from Item A and elsewhere, asses the view that the main aim of education policies in the past 25 years has been to create an education market (20 marks)
Item
For the last 25 years, the main aim of government education policies has been to create an education market. Marketisation policies such as league tables and open enrolment aim to create competition between schools and to increase parental choice. It was claimed that such policies would raise standards. Competition for ‘customers’ in the education market means that teachers and schools now have to work hard to get the best results for their pupils. Schools that do not produce good exam results will lose pupils and funding. However, some government policies, such as Education Maintenance Allowances (EMAs), help educationally disadvantaged social groups. Such policies are more concerned with creating equality of educational opportunity than with producing an education market.
Essay
Educational policies are laws and strategies that have been introduced by the government to advice or inform schools on how to run. They were first introduced in the 19th century, when industrialisation created the need for an educated workforce. Over the past twenty five years, the UK has seen a wide number of policies be introduced into the education system that affect how it works. Some claim that the main aim of these policies is to promote marketisation, the introduction of forces of supply and demand into the public sector. However, this is somewhat questionable when the outcomes of these polices, and others is taken into consideration.
To support the claim in question, policies that have been introduced due to the 1988 Education Reform Act can be used to clearly show that the main aim of educational policies in the last twenty five years has been to create an education market. As item A states, policies such as league tables create an open enrolment to increase competition. League tables (documents that show how well a school performs in exams) can be taken as an example to support this claim due to the fact that they drive schools to compete with each other, in order to attract more parents. Schools need to do well to become more attractive to parents, as parents want their children to get a good education from a good school. Thus, schools have a reason to achieve, because if they do not then another school will have a better league table position then they do, which will result in decreased popularity. To support this point, one can appeal to the use of the funding formula, which was introduced to give schools a need to attract parents, or customers. Schools no longer gain guaranteed funding, instead they gain money for each pupil that they enrol at their school. Thus, popular schools with a good league table position get funding and strive, while those that do not go out of business. Policies such as these two allow the claim in question to be strongly accepted, as it is hard to argue against the fact that these policies have had the main aim to create an education market. The policies reflect a New Right perspective on education, as the New Right claim state control breeds inefficiency, and people are best left to meet their own needs through a free market. This has come about due to the Education Reform Act, and thus, it is seemingly true that the main aim of education policies in the last twenty five years has been to create an education market.
However, the effects of these policies may suggest that the main aim of educational policy in the last twenty five years has not been to create an education market, but rather to increase class divisions in educational achievement. Gertwirtz studied parents who were applying to secondary schools within the London area, and found that the middle class parents had more cultural capital (values and norms that they pass on to their children), educational capital, and economic capital. They thus are in a better position to take advantage of these policies, as they understand how league tables work, what they mean, how to use appeals and so on. On the other hand, those in the working class do not understand the system, and thus are pushed into less efficient schools, as they do not take up the opportunities that are available to them. Studies such as Gertwirtz’s can be used to put forward the credible argument that instead of creating a marketised education system, which results in a parentocracy (where parents have the power to choose), it instead reinforces class divisions that channel the two classes into unequal educational opportunities. Parentocracy is a myth, it seems like all parents have an equal choice, yet their children are already determined to go to one school or another, the Education Reform Act’s emphasis on marketisation has legitimated class inequality. Marxists are likely to hold this view, as they suggest that the bourgeoisie (upper class) create ideologies that make the proletariat (lower class) accept their inferior place in society. In this instance, the upper class has legitimated class inequality through this myth of parentocracy and thus, it becomes plausible that the main aim of education policies in the last twenty five years has been to legitimate class inequalities.
On the other hand, it is still arguable that the main aim of educational policies has not been to create an education market, but rather than to legitimate class inequality, they have focused on boosting equal opportunities. As Item A states, policies such as Education Maintainance Allowances have helped disadvantaged groups. These policies were mainly introduced by Labour, who believed that competition and less inequality would make Britain more competitive in the global economy. Policies such as Education Maintenance Allowances allow children from lower class backgrounds to stay on to post-16 education, as they have an incentive and financial reward from doing so. Also, Education Action Zones have enhanced opportunities for those in deprived areas, and Labour’s proposal to raise the school leaving age to eighteen has ensured that everyone enhances their learning further. Thus, this can lead us to accept the suggestion proposed by Trowler that the main aim of education policies from Labour has been to promote a learning society. They have increased the countries access to education, and proposed for education to be improved through policies such as specialist schools and academies. Rather than create an education market, the policies have been made to create a better educated Britain.
It is also arguable that the main aim of these policies is to turn the education system into a postmodern one. Thompson notes that Labour’s policies reflect postmodern thinking. In 2002, Blair claimed that the education system needs to move away from the ‘one size fits all’ system, and instead allow it to answer the needs of local communities. This reflects postmodernist thinking as in the postmodern era, education is diverse and specialised for each and every community, with ideas such as faith schools. Thus, it can be accepted that the main aim of Labour’s policies has been to turn the education system into a postmodern one. Instead of creating an education market, the system has adapted to meet the new, postmodern society. However, critics argue that postmodernist exaggerate the extent to which this diversity exists. The National Curriculum still imposes a ‘one size fits all’ regime on students, and thus the argument that the aim of Labour policies has been to create a postmodernist education system becomes weakened. Yet, it is hard to argue against the claim that Labour has increased educational opportunities for all through policies such as Education Action Zones. Thus, while it may not have created a postmodern society, it has still not had the main aim of creating an education market.
Overall, the main aim of education policies in the last twenty five years has not been to create an education market. Instead, they have had the aim of doing a variety of other things, such as legitimate class inequality, and recently, increase educational success for disadvantaged groups. While marketisation has been introduced through these recent policies, many other policies have been put forward with different aims, leading the claim that ‘the main aim of education policies in the last twenty five years has been to create an education market’, to be a weak one.