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The government's White Paper, Learning to Succeed: a new framework for post-16 learning, is here evaluated. The considerable strengths of the proposals – replacement of the TECs with Learning and Skills Councils, the adoption of social partnership in the membership of the new Councils, the substantial increase in resource and a large number of specific measures – are briefly welcomed. A number of serious reservations are then discussed in detail – for example, the absence of a model of change, the over-riding concern to meet the skill needs of business, the overreliance on human capital theory and the continued dependence on exhortation as a means of increasing employers' investment in training. Findings from The Learning Society Programme are then used to question some of the central assumptions underlying the official model of progress. It is argued that endless technocratic reforms are more likely to foster conformity, compliance and control rather than emancipation, empowerment and the enhancement of learning. Finally, it is concluded that the government is rightly pursuing radical, structural reform but is failing to recognize the potential of lifelong learning as a major lever on such change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whether enough highly qualified STEM workers are being educated and trained in the UK is an important question. The answer has implications not only for educators, employers and policymakers but also for individuals who are currently engaged in, or are considering entering, education or training in this area. Set against a policy backdrop that prioritises students studying more science for longer, this paper considers long-term patterns of participation in STEM education – from school science through to graduate entry into the highly skilled STEM labour market. Using a unique dataset that extends across seven decades and comprises many hundreds of thousands of students, the paper finds that patterns of participation in most STEM subjects have varied little over the period considered; suggesting that efforts to increase the numbers of students studying science in school has had limited impact on the throughput of students who study STEM, including the pure sciences, at university level and, subsequently, on the number of graduates who would be available to undertake highly skilled work in areas for which degree-level skills are a pre-requisite. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper critiques recent developments in educational discourse through an analysis of two UK Government White Papers and three specific problems. We argue that the latter herald forms of 'biocreep'. Echoing the analysis of such phenomena in the work of Michel Foucault, this gradual extension of 'biopolitics' into the field of education is a tendency which has accelerated with the Coronavirus pandemic and raises many questions for policy analysis. First, we show how the White Papers' approach to life and its related assumptions embody an attempt to further entrench the techniques of biopolitical population management in secondary and further education settings. Second, our analysis of the two Papers shows not just a deepening discursive shift towards ways of instrumentalising educational processes, but also identifies a triple problem of political assemblage: primo, this shift relies on the assemblage of a 'problematic subject'; secondo, it simultaneously assembles the problem of value extraction; and tertio, it obscures the problem of desire or unruliness of the assemblages created. Just as discursive practices of instrumentation, administration and evacuation try to manage these assemblages, they remain unable to contain the three problems they enshrine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article deconstructs the language of the 2010 UK Coalition Government's White Paper, The Importance of Teaching. It uses analytical frameworks related to rhetoric established by Aristotle and Cicero. It explores the mechanisms of language using both critical discourse analysis and content analysis, offering quantitative data on the content of the paper and qualitative data on the literary strategies employed. It is concerned not only with how what is communicated persuades but also the ethics of persuasion; what is suggested and to what end. The article suggests a mutually reinforcing relationship between poverty of language and poverty of thought. The Coalition Government asserts an heroic stance to act radically to free victimised teachers from the burdens of bureaucracy imposed by the previous government. However, rather than radical action to make change, the findings suggest that the White Paper presents an illusory carapace of change that conceals fundamental continuity. It reassures all of the commitment of government and audiences to change while sustaining education as fundamentally unchanged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article I begin by discussing the persistent problem of relations between educational inequality and the attainment gap in schools. Because benefits accruing from an education are substantial, the 'gap' leads to large disparities in the quality of life many young people can expect to experience in the future. Curriculum knowledge has been a focus for debate in England in relation to educational equality for over 40 years. Given the contestation surrounding views about curriculum knowledge and equality I consider the thinking of two philosophers, Jacques Derrida and Emmanuel Levinas, and their work on justice, to trouble the curriculum framework and discourse of knowledge promoted through the policy text of The Importance of Teaching: The Schools White Paper (2010) and later associated policy reforms to the General Certificate of Secondary Education ( GCSE) curriculum in England. The Schools White Paper aims to make the curriculum more challenging to students by introducing tight controls in terms of the assessment framework and curriculum knowledge. I argue that, when considered through Derrida's perspective on language and meaning and Levinas' view on the ethical responsibility for the other, the reforms present obstacles to the search for a just curriculum. I look to the work of Sharon Todd and Paul Standish for a re-imagination of curriculum as or through relations in the light of Derrida's and Levinas' philosophies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fair access and widening participation currently occupy a prominent position in the UK higher education agenda, but these terms remain ambiguous. In this paper we identify two prominent strands of policy in the government's approach to access and the widening of participation and contrast these with a third, more progressive perspective. The academic strand seeks to attract 'gifted and talented' young people into an unreformed higher education system. The second strand, which we term the utilitarian approach, posits a need for reform. However, this is undertaken largely to meet the requirements of employers and the economy. In contrast, a transformative approach values diversity and focuses on creating a system of higher education that does not place the burden of change upon potential entrants. This framework is used to explore some of the implications of the government's White Paper The future of higher education. First, the purpose of higher education is discussed, with particular reference to the distinction between economic and social objectives. Second, the government's view of the structure of the higher education sector is examined, by scrutinizing the notion of institutional differentiation and the role of the access regulator. We conclude that within a more differentiated higher education sector different aspects of the access discourse will become dominant in different types of institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The private papers of Sir Philip Morris reveal how he prepared himself for the chairmanship of the 1959 Oxford Conference on Commonwealth Education with briefing from the Commonwealth Relations Office, what he brought to the meeting from his own experience, and what he learnt from the chair. British ministers and officials as hosts of the conference were ambivalent about its outcome. They could not disentangle the prospect of educational co-operation across the Commonwealth from all that was being done to set up a system for giving development assistance to the new states created by decolonisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents the summary of a lecture regarding the British government's 2003 education policy. Creation of a three-year financial settlement increasing institutional funding; Utilization of estate and equipment for teaching; Student finance and the introduction of price competition.

Comments on the article discussing the national education research strategy in Great Britain. Definition on the function of strategy in the national education research; Opposition to the proposed Education Priorities Group; Threats to the academic freedom.

The role of 'class strategies' in policy formation is sometimes unseen as plans are unrealised in practice over long periods of historical time. 'Subterranean class strategies' are an extension of existing work on class to consider 'class work' on policy in the 'long unenacted'. Using the example of emergency feeding in a national crisis, the stark difference in school meal planning for post-World War 2 emergencies when compared to the COVID-19 crisis is discussed. Through an analysis of archival records, it is shown that 'subterranean class strategies' - the devaluation of school catering expertise by the army and the private sector, the lack of co-operation of independent schools, and localisation and privatisation - diminished the role of schools in emergency feeding. The paper concludes by considering how the concept of 'subterranean class strategies' could inform work on educational think tanks, privatisation and subsumption, and intersectional areas such as race. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the White Paper "Top-Up Loans for Students," which announced that the publicly-funded student maintenance grant would be partly replaced by a loan in Great Britain. It outlines the aims of higher education policy, since the White Paper should be judged by the extent to which it contributes to their achievement. It also discusses the British grants system, whereby students are maintained at taxpayer expense to an extent which is unusual by international standards. The article criticizes the weaknesses of the White Paper and shows how its proposals could beneficially be amended.

Comments on the Green Paper on the future of higher education in Great Britain by Sir Keith Joseph, the Secretary of State for Education and Science, in 1985. Challenge to the conservative complacency of universities; Analysis of the British government's policies on education; Implications on higher education.

This paper gives a short overview of the UK government’s STEM agenda and then considers one aspect in depth – the STEM Advisory Forum. It explains how the Forum operates to draw together views from across the STEM community through online discussions and face-to-face events. Four examples are given of topics that have been dealt with by the Forum. Firstly the topic of engineering, enrichment and engagement is covered through samples of various events and discussions. A major issue covered is the number of young people taking A Level mathematics. The background to the issue is explained and how views expressed on the Forum might have had some influence upon the Government’s advanced level target and may yet impact on admissions behaviour in universities. A third short example of impact on the number of university places for STEM subjects is given and the piece finishes with an example of impact at local level in schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]