The influence of overseas examples on DES policy‐making for the school system in England, 1985–1995

Abstract

Claims are often made in British education about the extent to which policy reforms have been ‘borrowed’ from overseas. Based on interviews with senior civil servants and HMI, this paper addresses the extent to which such claims apply to central government educational policy‐making at school level in England between 1985 and 1995. This was a period which saw the collapse of traditional ‘partnership’ modes of educational reform (central and local government, schools, teachers, educationists), which was replaced by major centrally directed legislation from Kenneth Baker’s 1988 Education Reform Act onwards. It was also a period in which the OECD promoted the use of educational ‘performance indicators’ to facilitate cross‐national comparisons of educational quality. The paper finds that, while overseas developments were frequently cited during this period of radical legislative change, these were largely convenient examples from countries with particular ideological closeness to the English climate, promoted by ‘New Right’ think tanks, to lend legitimacy to what were primarily ‘home grown’ policy solutions. Overall, their effect was marginal. Reforms in England took place both prior to and in parallel with similar reforms elsewhere; hence examples from overseas were more often used to confirm developments in England rather than to initiate them.

Notes

1. One of the authors is Scottish; the other would claim some Welsh ancestry, but the focus of this paper is on the reforms in England. We do not cover the way that these varied, sometimes significantly, in Wales, and that Scotland, while affected by the same ideas, followed a very different pattern and pace of reform.

2. In 2005/6 we interviewed a number of key figures involved in the 1980s reforms for this paper. We have drawn on this material as background. A list of those interviewed is attached at Appendix 1.

3. Mrs Thatcher’s Secretary of State for Education from 1986 to 1989.

4. The right wing Hillgate Group’s pamphlet Whose Schools? A Radical Manifesto, published in December 1986, contained a very similar proposal. This group called for maintained schools to be ‘owned by individual trusts’ with ownership transferred from local state education authorities (LEAs).

5. Chile was suggested as an even earlier example, where under the military regime an educational voucher scheme had been introduced under monetarist prompting in the early 1980s (interview with Tim Brighouse, February 2006).

6. Interview, February 2006.

7. Legislation was in fact proposed in 1970, but not enacted until 1976.

8. Selectively, these included:

• ‘1. Widespread dissatisfaction with the standards of education

• 2. The quality of teaching is not what it should be…

• 4. A disciplined framework is all too rare…

• 6. Too many LEAs are imposing their own political prejudices upon the system in their charge

• 7. Their administration at the local level is frequently inefficient, over bureaucratic and costly

• 8. There is too much local variety in what is still regarded as a national system.’ (Baker, 1993)

9. Baker himself described his move to the DES from the Department of the Environment as ‘dropping two divisions’ (in the Football League). The MSC’s main buildings were in Sheffield, but it had a centrally located London base.

10. Moves in the DES to produce a similar publication failed to take off.

11. Policy paradigms are ‘a curious admixture of psychological assumptions, scientific concepts, value commitments, social aspirations, personal beliefs and administrative constraints.’ They are ‘a working model of why things are as they are, a problem‐solving framework … a guiding metaphor of how the world works which implies a general direction for intervention’ (Rein, 1976, 103).

12. Baker’s US visit in 1987 came after the broad shape of his reforms had already been established.

13. Technically it was the right to ‘express a preference’.

14. Confusingly the abbreviation ‘HMI’ also covers Her Majesty’s Inspectors of Schools. They were not abolished in 1992; many took early retirement but others were transferred, retaining their title, to the new organisation.

15. A subtle shift to emphasise the department’s responsibility for education rather than its provision of education.

16. Demetri Argyropulo, Education, 16 May 1986, quoted in B. Simon (1991, p. 517).

17. Senior Chief Inspector (SCI) of HMI (1974–1983).

18. We are indebted to David Taylor, HMI for this observation.

19. Interview, February 2006.

20. David Green, HMI, interview February 2006.

21. It is perhaps too limiting to pigeonhole reforms enacted in the late 1980s as simply ‘quasi market’ reforms. They were potentially rather broader in scope, which may explain why they also flourished under administrations that were much less ‘market oriented’.

22. A senior HMI commenting on why the USA was such a strong focus of attention at this point.

23. Being actually in Elizabeth House was important as it gave rapid access to files, ad hoc meetings and circulating minutes. Baker promoted the use of IT within DES, but it did not have an impact until later in the decade.

24. Only in one case was this the result of suppression, under OFSTED (Smith, 2000, p. 344).

25. Statistical Bulletin 10/85 covered comparative data on education and training of 16–18‐year‐olds in a dozen developed countries. Statistical Bulletin 16/86 covered comparative data on education and day care for 3–6‐year‐olds.

26. A phrase used by a senior DES official involved in the 1988 reforms.

27. The loss of the Conservative seat in Ryedale was particularly attributed to this factor.

28. Arguably, the GCSE made a major impact. Introduced in 1988, it contributed to a significant increase in staying on rates at 16+, feeding through into the expansion of higher education in the early 1990s.

29. Only the assessments (at age 7, 11 and 14) are not explicitly mentioned in these lists.

30. Even ‘No 10’, which was closely involved in the reforms, often through Brian Griffiths, Head of Mrs Thatcher’s Policy Unit, was said to have been ‘swamped’ (senior DES civil servant).

31. Cyril Taylor, later Sir Cyril Taylor, played a key role under both Conservative and Labour administrations, first as chairman of the CTC Trust and later the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust.

32. Baker apparently also tried, but failed, to recruit Geoffrey Holland, head of the MSC, as permanent secretary at the DES.

33. For example the impasse reached in 1993 when teachers took industrial action on issues of workload relating to the imposition of new National Curriculum assessment procedures.

34. The MSC had itself been wound up in 1988 and its training functions moved to the Training Agency within the Department of Employment.

35. Official and advisors were consistent in stressing that the Japanese example had not made an impact—the systems were too different.

36. Interview with HMI who advised on places to visit in the US (February 2006).

37. This was the International Education Indicators Project (INES) set up by the OECD in 1987.