Search

University Technical Colleges (UTCs) are newly established (since 2010-11) technical and vocational secondary schools in England, catering for young people aged 14-19. The schools focus strongly on delivering vocational, alongside Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM)-focused academic, qualifications. The colleges have been introduced as a new means of improving technical and vocational education and training--a sector which in England has faced problems of low quality and low esteem--and in a wider international context of STEM-trained worker shortages. University Technical Colleges have been advertised as offering state-of-the-art vocational learning, involving access for students to the latest equipment and technologies in key industrial sectors, alongside extensive project-based learning in partnership with employers. However, how have UTC students fared in these respects since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic and associated lockdowns in 2020? In this paper we report on results from a survey of 252 students across two UTCs in England, exploring the technical and vocational learning experiences of these students during the exceptional 2019-20 academic year. Findings from the survey reveal lost learning and training opportunities during the pandemic, particularly where courses with practical elements relied on specific equipment and facilities that became inaccessible during lockdown. The survey also highlights disruptions to apprenticeship arrangements, work experience plans and other engagement with employers. Students in some instances have been effectively forced to stay on in education owing to reduced apprenticeship and employment opportunities for school-leavers. We find evidence of students adapting their aspirations and career goals to the new economic circumstances.

Private supplementary tutoring (PST) is a phenomenon growing throughout the world. Looking at regions such as East Asia where it is already vast and comparing with regions where it remains modest but is rising, some authors have argued that countries must act quickly to discourage negative societal implications which arise when PST grows. One underpinning suggestion here is the notion that addressing PST may be "time-critical." Drawing on insights from political science on the nature of continuity and change, in this paper I explore the possibility that societies could become substantially 'locked in' to complex patterns of dependence on PST. I report on the case of South Korea, drawing on interviews with experts in the Korean education system. I show that parents have been incentivised progressively over time to layer 'shadow education' over public schooling, particularly in times of heightened anxiety. Governments meanwhile have faced disincentives to restrict PST and public school teachers have had to adjust to becoming perceived as offering a residual service.

The notion of selecting students based on academic achievement into different schools at certain points in their educational careers is one that has long been contested in education. In this paper I consider the role selective schooling may play in driving families' demand for private tutoring -- a phenomenon currently growing in many regions of the world. The paper explores the 'extreme case' of South Korea -- a country with some of the highest spending on private tutoring globally and also a long history of selective schooling. Drawing on interviews with experts and key stakeholders in the Korean education system, the paper reports a number of findings. Interviewees for this project were in many respects critical of a 1970s 'equalisation' of Korean schooling, though they also viewed moves back towards selection as fuelling 'shadow education'. Concern about this has driven governments to curb selective schooling for a second time in Korean history.

Discussions charting the changing role of local government in education have often focused extensively on "concrete" policy changes over time, but have provided less detail on the contribution to changing power relations of less tangible shifts. Drawing on Foucauldian notions of discourse and governmentality, in this paper, detailed rationalities of local third-sector and other "arm's length" actors in English education are explored, with a focus on their relationship to local authority (LA) school admissions teams. The paper aims to provide deeper understanding of tactical struggles for authority which happen within competitive local sociopolitical spaces. Data is utilised from a study of "Choice Advice" (CA) in 10 LAs, within a background context where arm's length agents deployed to deliver CA have been co-opted into central government marketisation regimes, but local state planning of schooling is arguably more equitable for vulnerable families than are logics advancing a marketisation of education. The research reveals: (1) discourses valourising "independence" and "distance" from local state "agendas"; (2) discourses separating the interests of "parents" and "schools", with LAs positioned as representing the latter; (3) dehumanising representations of LA officers as "faceless", obstructive and requiring regulation from "critical friends".

University Technical Colleges (UTCs) are newly established (since 2010–11) technical and vocational secondary schools in England, catering for young people aged 14–19. The schools focus strongly on delivering vocational, alongside Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM)‐focused academic, qualifications. The colleges have been introduced as a new means of improving technical and vocational education and training—a sector which in England has faced problems of low quality and low esteem—and in a wider international context of STEM‐trained worker shortages. University Technical Colleges have been advertised as offering state‐of‐the‐art vocational learning, involving access for students to the latest equipment and technologies in key industrial sectors, alongside extensive project‐based learning in partnership with employers. However, how have UTC students fared in these respects since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic and associated lockdowns in 2020? In this paper we report on results from a survey of 252 students across two UTCs in England, exploring the technical and vocational learning experiences of these students during the exceptional 2019–20 academic year. Findings from the survey reveal lost learning and training opportunities during the pandemic, particularly where courses with practical elements relied on specific equipment and facilities that became inaccessible during lockdown. The survey also highlights disruptions to apprenticeship arrangements, work experience plans and other engagement with employers. Students in some instances have been effectively forced to stay on in education owing to reduced apprenticeship and employment opportunities for school‐leavers. We find evidence of students adapting their aspirations and career goals to the new economic circumstances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Private supplementary tutoring (PST) is a phenomenon growing throughout the world. Looking at regions such as East Asia where it is already vast and comparing with regions where it remains modest but is rising, some authors have argued that countries must act quickly to discourage negative societal implications which arise when PST grows. One underpinning suggestion here is the notion that addressing PST may be time-critical. Drawing on insights from political science on the nature of continuity and change, in this paper I explore the possibility that societies could become substantially 'locked in' to complex patterns of dependence on PST. I report on the case of South Korea, drawing on interviews with experts in the Korean education system. I show that parents have been incentivised progressively over time to layer 'shadow education' over public schooling, particularly in times of heightened anxiety. Governments meanwhile have faced disincentives to restrict PST and public school teachers have had to adjust to becoming perceived as offering a residual service. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores recent UK government aspirations towards 'open policy making' (OPM). Against a backdrop of scholarly literatures on power inequalities in policy making, I consider to whom processes of policy formulation under a banner of OPM are expected to be 'opening up'. The article draws on an analysis of government documents from 2012–2018 plus some supplementary data from expert interviews. It notes aspirations towards 'opening up' policy formulation to new experts and a particular preoccupation with encouraging private sector involvement. Ideas which may boost ordinary citizens' input are also part of what 'makes up' UK Government OPM, though citizen involvement appears restricted, sitting uneasily alongside commitments to austerity influencing how 'openness' is understood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores UK attempts to boost ordinary citizens' participation in government policy formulation through 'open policy making'. Drawing primarily on an analysis of government documents dating from 2012–2018 and focusing on the case of the Department for Education in England, the article highlights elite network control of policy making which works to depress ordinary citizens' democratic input. Groups who do not fit with depoliticised, 'top down' understandings of what counts as valid citizen participation become delegitimised and excluded. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The notion of selecting students based on academic achievement into different schools at certain points in their educational careers is one that has long been contested in education. In this paper I consider the role selective schooling may play in driving families' demand for private tutoring – a phenomenon currently growing in many regions of the world. The paper explores the 'extreme case' of South Korea – a country with some of the highest spending on private tutoring globally and also a long history of selective schooling. Drawing on interviews with experts and key stakeholders in the Korean education system, the paper reports a number of findings. Interviewees for this project were in many respects critical of a 1970s 'equalisation' of Korean schooling, though they also viewed moves back towards selection as fuelling 'shadow education'. Concern about this has driven governments to curb selective schooling for a second time in Korean history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article revisits traditions of observational fieldwork inside welfare institutions which formed a core part of past social administration teaching and research in the United Kingdom. Drawing on archive materials, a historical exploration of journal contents and some supplementary interview data, it is argued that such approaches—though carried out in a less theoretically pluralist, more vocationally‐oriented time for the subject of social policy and administration—were at the same time valuable in facilitating critical perspectives on how welfare bureaucracies work. Their popularity is potentially rising once again in social policy teaching. Where cultivated alongside an appreciation of theory and where carefully integrated into university social policy departments' wider pedagogical and curricular strategies, they may be of benefit today to students and more senior scholars alike. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discussions charting the changing role of local government in education have often focused extensively on 'concrete' policy changes over time, but have provided less detail on the contribution to changing power relations of less tangible shifts. Drawing on Foucauldian notions of discourse and governmentality, in this paper, detailed rationalities of local third-sector and other 'arm's length' actors in English education are explored, with a focus on their relationship to local authority (LA) school admissions teams. The paper aims to provide deeper understanding of tactical struggles for authority which happen within competitive local sociopolitical spaces. Data is utilised from a study of 'Choice Advice' (CA) in 10 LAs, within a background context where arm's length agents deployed to deliver CA have been co-opted into central government marketisation regimes, but local state planning of schooling is arguably more equitable for vulnerable families than are logics advancing a marketisation of education. The research reveals: (1) discourses valourising 'independence' and 'distance' from local state 'agendas'; (2) discourses separating the interests of 'parents' and 'schools', with LAs positioned as representing the latter; (3) dehumanising representations of LA officers as 'faceless', obstructive and requiring regulation from 'critical friends'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]