Education England

The problem addressed in this chapter concerns the number of changes to the education system that have occurred, meaning that:

Reforms to the English education system are unsustainable and have left it “unknowable” “unmanageable” and in its current form “unfixable”. . . These problems may be invisible to policy makers. (Whalley and Greenway, Chapter 5)

British society is at a cross-roads. At the time of writing it is uncertain whether the ‘United Kingdom’ will survive because of the BREXIT divisions. Independence movements in Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland are growing. The ‘post-war’ cross-party consensus on how to run our parliamentary democracy and the shared vision of achieving a meritocratic society through free education to degree level, free healthcare at the time of need and high quality council housing for those on low incomes and legal aid to allow citizens redress through the courts, has been shattered.

The heavily cross-referenced Wikipedia entry1 on the United Kingdom’s Austerity Programme starting in 2010 makes grim reading with references to over a quarter of a million early deaths2 and with financial cutbacks principally affecting the living standards of disabled people, children, women and particularly women of colour. This is mentioned here as many teachers work in the poorer communities which have felt the burden of cutbacks acutely. Class divisions and wealth Education England inequalities are sharp and a rising tide of discontent has been provoked through policies such as tuition fees, elitism entrenched through spurious league tables of schools and universities, privatisation of council housing and policies which have led to charitable food banks becoming widespread.

There is widespread dissatisfaction with the provision of education, from 0–18 years, with concerns being expressed by all political and professional stakeholders apart from the government in office. In June 2019 the Public Accounts Committee identified the Department for Education as topping a list of “concern”. In her Annual Report to Parliament, Committee Chair, Meg Hillier MP, highlighted the “lack of grip” over the academies’ system, a lack of transparency and the DfE and Ofsted’s failure to “take up the baton” over funding squeezes. (Whalley and Greenway, Chapter 5).

The Confederation of British Industries say the curriculum is too narrow (CBI, 2010a, 2010b, 2012), Teacher recruitment goals are not met by the DFE and retention is poor; their own research shows over 20% of new teachers leave the profession within the first two years of teaching, and 33% leave within their first five years (DFE, 2019).

An education system that is described as “unknowable”, “unmanageable” and in its current form “unfixable” (Whalley and Greenway, Chapter 5) cannot be called a system. The chaos that has ensued from a plethora of radical reforms in England since 2010 has led to this book in which the intention is to support better policy making by making explicit the options that policy makers face and the potential positive and negative consequences of their choices (see Chapter 20).

In this chapter we examine a way out of the chaos in the current English education system.