Education policy in the UK is characterised by change, churn and disruption as successive governments somewhat inevitably recognise ‘problems’ in education to be ‘fixed’ with different policy reforms (Ball, 2021). This is the case for all four nations of the UK. Although arguably England has been the most radical in terms of its policy agenda, there are similarities in the four settings such as class inequality, limited social mobility and a stress on high-stakes outcomes. However, there are differences too, such as in schools where those differences can be found in the curriculum and assessment practices. For example, England’s schools have a strong focus on traditional subject knowledge, while Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland include a more wide-ranging set of skills across different areas of learning in their curriculums (Sibieta & Jerrim, 2021). This pattern of similarities and difference, in part shaped by sociocultural and political histories, is also reflected across all phases of educational provision such as further education and higher education. As Jones (2002, p. 3) stated: ‘Britain, in educational terms, is not a single policy space.’

Nevertheless, education policies across the four countries, and more widely, have been recast in the light of a set of global perspectives and convergences – a new ‘global policy ensemble’ (Ball, 2021, p. 62). We explore three policy drivers that have shaped education policymaking and policy discourses for over two decades: market forces, high stakes accountability and ‘responsibilisation’. These are powerful, fundamental ideas that have policy consequences and create conflicts and tensions in educational provision.

‘Education policies across the four countries of the UK have been recast in the light of a set of global perspectives and convergences – a new “global policy ensemble”.’

Market forces in education provision

The insertion of market forces into educational provision in the UK has been one of the most dominant aspects of policy reform in the past few decades from early years education to higher education. The argument goes that ‘“the market” … will determine who deserves to succeed and who does not’ (Monbiot & Hutchinson, 2024, p. 3). Essentially markets are based on competitive relations between different providers so they can recruit consumers (children and students) to increase their income – what Ball (2021) calls a new moral environment where institutions are motivated by self-interest. The changes in higher education that have accrued over time from this approach will not be lost on this readership (Brown, 2015).

Another somewhat less visible outcome has been seen in discursive changes – from children and students to consumers; from being teachers and tutors to being employees to be managed in new ways by a burgeoning class of managers. In all this, teachers’ practice, professionalism and, perhaps also, teachers’ identities have changed significantly.

High stakes accountability and education

Working alongside market forces are accountability policies and practices designed to promote competition and freedom of choice of school/college/HEI as a strategy for developing an educational quasi-market. Policies including school targets, high stakes testing practices, and inspections have all been developed to deliver on national strategies for raising standards. These policies feed into institutional cultures of performance management – designed to render practices visible and accountable; a ‘data gaze’ (Beer, 2019) where nothing counts unless it is ‘evidence-based’ and where what counts as ‘evidence’ is carefully filtered to exclude disruptions to dominant policy discourses.

‘Responsibilisation’ and education

Finally, what of ‘responsibilisation’ whereby teachers and schools are ‘negotiating and fulfilling demands related to both state-imposed accountability practices and social justice agendas’ that would have historically not been their task? (Done & Murphy, 2018, p. 142). Schools that are underfunded and under-resourced are to ‘blame’ when anything goes wrong. Universities that under-recruit have to shed staff. Schools and colleges run their own food banks to compensate for austerity and precarity – policies not of their making. Policies that have shaped the high stakes accountability systems in which teachers and students in all educational phases operate, have resulted in a significant reduction of teachers’ autonomy. These changes to the work of schools and teachers under such responsibilising regimes have had deleterious effects on teachers’ workload, and thereby their wellbeing, and continue to push the teaching profession into crisis (Towers et al., 2022).

In this short piece, we have skated over complex policies, large periods of time and some variances in four different nations’ education policy agendas. There are findings that suggest substantial problems still persist in education provision (Tahir, 2022); yet there are also spaces for resistance and alternative provision, for example, work on climate change and sustainability education; imaginative curricula and innovative provisions in different phases and institutions. Policy is a process, it may well be susceptible to pathway dependency, yet there are sometimes ‘moments’ and spaces for change. Perhaps one such ‘moment’ may lie in the revisions and reviews to school curriculum and assessment policies that are currently in process across all four parts of the UK. Time will tell!

References

Ball, S. (2021). The education debate. Policy Press

Beer, D. (2019). The data gaze: Capitalism, power and perception. Sage.

Brown, R. (2015). The marketisation of higher education: Issues and ironies. New Vistas, 1 (1), 4–9.

Done, J., & Murphy, M. (2018). The responsibilisation of teachers: A neoliberal solution to the problem of inclusion. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 39(1), 142–155. https://doi.org/10.1080/01596306.2016.1243517

Monbiot, G., & Hutchison, P. (2024). Invisible doctrine: The secret history of neoliberalism. Penguin.

Sibieta, L., & Jerim, J. (2021). A comparison of school institutions and policies across the UK. Education Policy Institute. https://epi.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/EPI-UK-Institutions-Comparisons-2021.pdf  

Tahir, I. (2022, September 13). The UK education system preserves inequality – new report. The Conversation. https://ifs.org.uk/articles/uk-education-system-preserves-inequality-new-report

Towers, E., Gewirtz, S., Maguire, M., & Neumann, E. (2022). A profession in crisis? Teachers’ responses to England’s high-stakes accountability reforms in secondary education. Teaching and Teacher Education, 117, 103778. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2022.103778