From New Public Management to public value: Irish education policy through the lens of Statements of Strategy

ABSTRACT

Through the lens of successive Department of Education and Science (DES) Statements of Strategy (1997–2021) the author considers the evolution of Irish education policy making from the perspectives of New Public Management (NPM) and the public value paradigm. In the context of changing international and national environments, the Strategic Management Initiative (SMI), introduced in 1994, was rooted in NPM principles and characterised by performance indicators, measurable outcomes/outputs, and value for money. However, more recent strategy statements have been predicated on vision, a whole-of-system approach, and values that include learning as a public good, and wellbeing. This evolution occurred in an environment where social partnership has been a constant feature. Following consideration of the main contours of ten SSs, and discussion of the relevant antecedents and the move towards public value, some unresolved issues are briefly identified in the concluding remarks.

KEYWORDS:

• Evolution of Irish education policy
• statements of strategy
• New Public Management
• public value
• models of accountability

Introduction

Submission of this paper was motivated by the paucity of attention to Irish education policy making since the introduction of the Strategic Management Initiative (SMI) in 1994 and the ensuing publication of Departmental Statements of Strategy¹ (SSs). During the twentieth century policymaking in Ireland was centralised, fragmented, secretive, and ad hoc (Lee 1989; O’Halpin 1992). Meanwhile, Ireland’s proportional representation electoral system generated a ‘pervasive populism [with] political decision-makers looking fearfully over their shoulders’ (Garvin 2004, 103), resulting in a ‘peculiarly Irish reluctance to define public policy and processes in an explicit manner’ (McKevitt 1995, 34).

During a time of economic adversity, the National Economic and Social Council (NESC) sought ‘to foster a greater degree of consensus in Irish society’ (1986, 321).² This led to the adoption of a social partnership approach to governance and the negotiation, between 1987 and 2015 of seven partnership agreements where the main partners included Government, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, employer bodies, farming, and community organisations. Deputy Mary Harney, Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, described this consultation-based approach, which was employed in the preparation of successive National Development Plans (NDP), as ‘unique in Europe and unthinkable in America’, adding that ‘it has now been virtually built into the fabric of our system of government’.³

Against this background, the SMI was adopted in order to modernise all Departments and Offices of a civil service where ‘decision-making was too fragmented, the left hand not knowing what the right hand was doing’ (Government of Ireland 1994). The subsequent Public Service Management Act (Government of Ireland 1997) sought to enhance public service management, effectiveness, and transparency, with Government Departments and Offices being obliged to produce SSs setting out their key objectives, outputs and strategies and Business Plans. This approach called for:

the work of each part of a department to be linked to higher-level goals and strategies as laid out in the statement of strategy [involving] specification of outputs, the amount of expenditure necessary to achieve objectives, as well as the support services required. (Collins, Cradden, and Butler 2007, 51–52)

Before considering Irish education policy making through the lens of successive DES Statements of Strategy (1998-2021), it is important to locate these developments in the wider context of public sector reform, both internationally and nationally.

Public sector reform

Influenced by neo-liberal ideologies (Ball 2012), public sector reform became a common feature of governance during the latter part of the twentieth century. Resting on economic foundations and public management theories and practices (Kaboolian 1998), this ‘new public management’ (NPM) approach, predicated on Taylor’s (1911) scientific management, represented a paradigmatic shift from the prevailing bureaucratic Weberian model (Hood 1991).

While the implementation of NPM varied across countries, its fundamental theoretical principles included public choice theory, principal-agent theory, transaction cost economics, and competition theory. As noted by O’Flynn (2007, 260) ‘the critical [NPM] performance objectives were centred on efficiency and economy … reflecting the economic framing of government activity and the reconstruction of citizens as customers’. Principal-agent theory involved the establishment of agencies, where government managers, having articulated the policy and set the performance standards, were required to ‘choose in a competitive market an agent who will faithfully act in the government’s behalf to deliver the goods and services so that the outcome sought will be attained’ (Kelly 1998, 205).

The expected NPM efficiency gains did not materialise however, with conflicts arising between individual demands and public interest (Lawton 1998; O’Flynn and Alford 2005). Public choice initiatives, introduced to increase state efficiency (Boyne et al. 2003), led to fragmentation and reduced levels of accountability. The OECD (2003, 2), notwithstanding its advocacy of NPM, would acknowledge that the associated ‘reforms produced some unexpected negative results [and a failure] to understand that public management arrangements … enshrine deeper governance values’.

In a context where the ‘social values inherent in public services may not be adequately addressed by the economic efficiency calculus of markets’ (Hefetz and Warner 2004, 174)⁴, there were calls for an overarching public value framework where ‘post-competitive, collaborative network forms of governance [would replace the] individualist focus associated with NPM’ (Stoker 2006, 41). The preoccupation with benefits to the economy and customers was replaced with ‘public interest, public goods, the common good [and] democratic accountability’ (Bryson, Crosby, and Bloomburg 2014, 448). Characteristics of the public value paradigm, which originated at Harvard Business School, included ‘multiple objectives … broader outcomes, and the creation and maintenance of trust and legitimacy’. Public value involved a focus on outcomes rather than costs and outputs (Barber 2017), and on the quality of services provided for citizens (OECD 2010).

Bryson, Crosby, and Bloomburg (2014, 445) identified ‘a heightened emphasis on citizenship and democratic and collaborative governance’, with public managers being encouraged to work across boundaries (OECD 2001) and to include community representatives in their deliberations (Jorgensen and Bozeman 2007). Given the focus of the current paper, Dewey’s (1927/1954) belief that a public is created when citizens experience the negative consequences of situations beyond their control is particularly noteworthy. As noted by Bryson, Crosby, and Bloomburg (2014, 453), ‘following Dewey, the public value literature and the emerging approach to public administration represent the products of a practitioner and scholarly ‘public called into being’ response to such concerns’.

Public sector management in Ireland

Influenced by increasingly frequent interactions with EU systems and with NPM-style reforms in New Zealand and Australia, the Irish public service came to NPM relatively late. The Co-ordinating Group of Department Secretaries was charged by Taoiseach Albert Reynolds with the development of the SMI⁵ in 1994. Rooted in ideas of corporate management. and tailored to meet national administrative requirements, the SMI ‘envisaged a more performance and customer-oriented culture within the civil service’ (PA Consulting 2002, 17). In keeping with the prevailing culture, the senior civil servants who designed the SMI ‘considered it sensible to avoid a rigid adherence to any theoretical debates’ (McKevitt 1995, 34).

The ensuing Civil Service reform programme, Delivering Better Government (Department of the Taoiseach 1996), called for a performance-oriented public service with rigorous systems for objectives setting and performance management. The ensuing Public Service Management Act (Government of Ireland 1997) consolidated SMI priorities by transferring various responsibilities⁶ from Ministers as ‘corporate soles’ to Secretaries-General, introducing freedom of information legislation, and giving increased powers to parliamentary committees.⁷

The Act (Section 5.1) obliged Government Departments and Offices to produce SSs ‘compris[ing] the key objectives, outputs and related strategies of the Department concerned’, with associated the Business Plans providing the basis for Annual Departmental Reports. Meanwhile, as part of a systematic review of public expenditure, the Minister for Finance established the Expenditure Review Initiative (ERI)⁸ in 1997, with a view to moving away from ‘the traditional focus on inputs to concentrate more on the achievement of results’ (Department of Finance 2001, i). The Department of the Taoiseach (2004, 17) would subsequently state that strategy statements ‘should include performance indicators (both quantitative and qualitative) as a means of monitoring progress’.⁹

Agency building, a key aspect of NPM, involved ‘policy and provision [being] distributed or decentralised to a range of actors and agencies, including, in some cases, private companies’ (Ozga 2009, 151). In the case of Ireland, Hardiman and MacCárthaigh (2010, 378) identified ‘over 350 agencies performing public functions at the national level by 2008’. However, they can find no evidence that the increased use of agencies between 1958 and 2008 was planned, describing the Irish approach as ad hoc insofar as ‘the need for [these] new agencies had not been subject to evidence-based efficiency audits’ (Hardiman and MacCárthaigh 2011, 7).

Furthermore, a considerable proportion of board members were political appointees (Clancy and Murphy 2006), and poor financial accountability was an issue in some cases e.g. the state training agency FÁS. Indeed, OECD (2008) concluded that many of these new agencies had been created to enable the employment of more staff without breaching core departmental limits.

The PA Consulting Group (2002, 32) evaluation of the SMI concluded that, while ‘civil service organisations have developed an unmistakable capacity to analyse their operations, to examine strategic alternatives, and to present the results of this analysis in a cogent and readable form’, the matching of budget allocations to goals and strategies remained problematic, insofar as these two processes were ‘considered to remain quite distinct and separate events, which do not necessarily impinge on each other’(47).¹⁰ While observing that Ireland had advanced ‘significantly’ along the NPM continuum, OECD (2008) expressed concerns regarding the absence of criteria that would guide the reform and the inadequacy of performance measurement efforts. They concluded that ‘the overall political and managerial systems in Ireland are still based on a compliance culture that emphasises controlling inputs and following rules’ (170).

In an environment where the prevailing party system was not characterised by any ‘strong class cleavage or clear left-right differentiation’, Hardiman and MacCárthaigh (2008, 6) concluded that,

[while] NPM Irish-style proponents argued that it was designed to promote market-type efficiencies [it was not] a radical programme of reform inspired by new right thinking [and did not] originate in an ideological adoption of the market as inherently superior to state-led decision making’.

These authors would subsequently conclude (2011, 3) that ‘beneath the surface, relatively little changed fundamentally’, while McGeough (2013, 17) would observe that ‘the key difference between public service reform in the UK and Ireland was the strong political will [in England] over a long period’.

Whereas NPM moved off the Irish and international stages, social partnership remained an important feature of Irish policymaking. For example, in the interests of stronger accountability, the Programme for a Partnership Government (Government of Ireland 2016, 131), indicative of the general move towards public values,

affirm[ed] the contribution of the community and voluntary sector to building a more just and prosperous society [and sought to] ensure that all commissioning for human, social and community services takes place in a societal value framework (targeted at maximising the value for society).

Irish education policymaking

Education administration over much of the twentieth century was characterised by a culture of secrecy (Cromien 2000), with education policy being disseminated exclusively through ministerial decrees or circulars (Coolahan 1995). The Department of Education (DoE) Planning and Development Unit, established in response to an OECD review in the mid-1960s, had been abolished in 1973¹¹, with Sociology Professor Liam Ryan (1988, 6) observing that the DoE has ‘made fewer concessions to change than any other institution in [Irish] society’. OECD (1991, 36) would observe that the Department’s ‘patchwork of structures and processes [was characterised by] in-built resistance to creating any permanent machinery for facilitating the policy-making process’ with the result that ‘the basic goals and values of the Irish education system ‘tended to be tacit rather than explicit [emphasis added]’ (76). As a former Department Principal Officer recalled,

the administrative decisions get taken because they’re urgent, whereas the professional ones can be put on the long finger. The quality of the education process doesn’t cause government to fall or TDs to lose their seats, but it’s different if a school is threatened with closure or can’t afford the heating oil. (Gleeson 2010, 79)

A similar picture emerges from the commissioned review conducted by Cromien (2000, 2) who concluded that ‘the Department is overwhelmed with detailed day-to-day work, which has to be given priority over long-term strategic thinking … the urgent drives out the important’. Former Ministerial Adviser Pat Keating’s observation that ‘the Education White Paper was written in the time stolen from the normal running of the Department’ (Gleeson 2010, 77) is indicative.

Under the Ministers and Secretaries Act (1924) the DoE is constitutionally the ‘handmaiden’ of the Minister, who is responsible to Dáil Éireann for all aspects of policy and administration of the system and ‘all actions of the civil servants working within the Department’ (Harris 1989, 7). In this environment, Irish educational administrators have tended ‘to be cautious and conservative … to protect the minister of the day from controversy in view of his/her position as corporate sole’ (Coolahan 1995, 20). The DoE presentation at the National Education Convention was prefaced by the ‘disclaimer’ that ‘this presentation does not deal with policy … . The Minister and Government are responsible for policy decisions’ (Department of Education 1993, 1). Furthermore, in the broader context of social partnership, the DoE operated in a populist environment where policymakers had to negotiate with various interest groups (Coolahan 1995; Cromien 2000), and one could ‘access the decision-makers with a phone call quicker in Ireland than anywhere else in the world’ (Gleeson 2010, 77).

Education strategy statements

Publication of the Education White Paper (DoE 1995) was followed by a strategic plan for its implementation (Department of Education 1996), the Department’s first Strategy Statement (DES 1997), and the establishment of the Strategic Policy Unit in 1999.¹² Over the intervening period, the Department has published nine further SSs, each associated with a change of Minister as may be seen in Table 1. Prior to the creation of the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science (DFHERIS) in 2019, all levels of the education system were included in these statements.

Table 1. DES Strategy statements and associated ministers for education.

1997–2000 Micheál Martin, T.D.^a

2001–2004 Dr Michael Woods, T.D.

2003–2005 Noel Dempsey, T.D.^b

2005–2007 Mary Hanafin T.D.

2008–2010 Batt O’Keeffe T.D.

2011–2014 Ruairi Quinn, T.D.^a

2015–2017 Jan O’Sullivan T.D.

2016–2019 Richard Bruton T.D.^c

2019–2021 Joe McHugh T.D.

2021–2023 Norma Foley T.D.

^a Foreword from relevant Minister not included.

^b Minister Dempsey was appointed Minister for Education and Science following the 2003 General Election.

^c Minister Bruton was appointed Minister for Education and Science following the 2016 General Election.

SSs were normally focused around four or five high-level goals (HLG), reducing to three in 2021 when the DFHERIS published its own SS. Recurring themes include:

• - Meeting students’ personal, social, cultural and economic needs.

• - Improving the quality of all learners’ experiences in preparation for full participation in society and the economy.

• - Serving those at risk of educational disadvantage including learners with special educational needs.

• - Helping education service providers to continuously improve.

• - Improving accountability across the system.

The evolving nature of the SS process, as illustrated in Table 2, is indicative of changing Department of Education and Science (DES) thinking and perspectives. Some of the main themes of this evolution are now considered.

Table 2. Key features of strategy statements since 1998.

Year	Vision/ Values	High-level goals	Objectives	Strategies	Outputs	Performance indicators
1998/00	X	8 goals/ functions	58	X	X	X
2001/04	X	7 functions	X	107^a	X	X
2003/05	x	5	27	90	185	218
2005/07	X	5	28	24	52	280
2008/10	X	4	18	75	196	57
2011/14	X	4	15	56	X	120
2015/17		4	X	26	59	X
2016/19		5	23	139 actions	X	83 target indicators
2019/21		5	X	25 strategic actions	X	5 key indicators
2021/23^b		3	X	21 actions	X	2 key indicators

^a 28 of these strategies seek ‘to maintain and strengthen organisational capacity’, while the remainder aspire ‘to promote quality, inclusion and lifelong learning’.

^b DFHERIS now established.

Performativity

The first Education SS, Implementation of the Public Service Management Act, (DES 1997), set out HLGs and associated objectives and strategies. SMI influence can be seen in the liberal use of technicist and consumerist discourse, such as ‘customer/client interests and needs’, ‘deliver a high-quality education’, ‘appropriate legislative, financial and accountability frameworks’ (author’s italics). It introduces the notion of a Value for Money project ‘with a view to establishing relevant performance measures and indicators for every area of the Department’, while acknowledging that, although ‘some progress has been made [it] will take more time to establish measurable indicators’ (29).

Under the influence of the Department’s Performance Management and Development System (PMDS), subsequent SSs were characterised by a ‘Performance Driven Culture’ with the 2001/04 SS (DES, 51) indicating that a Quality Customer Service Culture (QCS) will ‘be embedded in all processes’. The 2001 and 2005 (DES 2005, 8ff) SSs¹³ indicate that the Department will ‘monitor the [delivery of their] objectives and strategies … on the basis of performance indicators outlined’ and that ‘each of the Department’s Business Units will draw up a detailed annual Business Plan designed to deliver on the objectives and strategies outlined in the Strategy Statement’.¹⁴ Annual DES reports are structured around the relevant SSs, reporting progress on their implementation, and identifying reasons for non-delivery of outputs.

The influence of NPM is reflected, for example, in the discourse of the 2005 SS with its array of objectives, strategies, outputs and 280 performance indicators, and in its HLG3, ‘we will contribute to Ireland’s economic prosperity, development and international competitiveness’ (DES 2005, 35). When Gleeson and Ó Donnabháin, 2009 analysed said indicators¹⁵ they found that 63% of them had to do with the national system, 20% focused on the managerial authorities, and only 6% focused on individual learners, with more than three-quarters relating to policy levers/constraints and only 20% relating to individual learners/instructional settings. This performative discourse is redolent of various policy statements of the time e.g. Industrial Policy Review Group¹⁶ (Government of Ireland 1992), the National Competitiveness Council (NCC 2001), the Enterprise Strategy Group (Enterprise Strategy Group 2004), the Irish Business and Employers Confederation (IBEC) (2004), and successive NDPs.

However, this approach to SSs would change noticeably in subsequent years. The 2011 SS makes no reference to ‘outputs’, and the 2015 SS, where vision and values were introduced for the first time, did not include performance indicators. While a few key indicators are included in the 2019 and 2021 SSs, it should be noted that the DES Statistics Section began to publish annual Education Indicators for Ireland in 2019.¹⁷ Meanwhile, recent SSs are characterised by an increasing emphasis on ‘actions’ and ‘strategic actions’, with the 2016 SS being called an Action Plan.¹⁸

Agencies

As already noted, the establishment of ‘delivery agencies’ was a significant feature of NPM. The 2008 SS (DES, 56–57) states that, to:

enable [a] focus on [strategic] policy formulation, evaluation and planning … the Department has been engaged in a major programme of structural reform’ involving the establishment of bodies such as the State Examinations Commission, the National Council for Special Education, the Qualifications and Quality Assurance Agency.

The 2009 Annual Report (DES, 52) identifies twenty-two ‘non-commercial bodies under the aegis of the Department’, not including agencies such as the National Adult Literacy Agency, the Educational Welfare Service or the Child and Family Agency. Subsequent SSs make reference to newly introduced agencies in areas such as research, Project Maths, STEM, ICT etc. Once established, these national agencies would become part of the furniture, with Goal 5 of the 2016 SS (DES, 50) recognising that ‘the Department and its agencies have an important role in providing strategic leadership, developing policy and delivering services’.

Referring to these agencies as ‘think-tanks’, Sugrue (2008, 80) argues that their proliferation has resulted in ‘more and more bodies competing for the attention of policymakers’. He goes on to suggest that the associated launch events, publicity, and PR spin have become ‘ends in themselves rather than genuine contributions to public discourse on education policy and future directions [in an environment where] advocacy and access to public policy makers [have] become the only game in town’. Noting that these agencies raise important questions for national research policy, Sugrue remarks that they ‘pursue particular lines of research that may be more self-serving than pursuit of collective endeavours’ (67).

Consistent with their opinion that the establishment of agencies during the 1990s and 2000s does not appear to have been ‘strongly guided by any clear administrative reform priorities’ Hardiman and MacCárthaigh (2008, 12) suggest that new agencies may ‘have been formed in order to devolve responsibility for problematic issues into less high-profile bodies’. Meanwhile the OECD (2008) would suggest that the principal reason for the establishment of such a large number of new agencies in Ireland was to facilitate the employment of more staff without appearing to breach limits on core departmental civil service numbers.

International influences

The 2005 SS adopted the same format as the Lisbon European Council of 23/24 March 2000, where the European Union’s (2000) strategic goal was to ‘become [by 2010] the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world, capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion’. Nine of the 29 objectives in the 2005 SS made specific reference to what became known as the Lisbon Agenda, and the SS also includes a commitment to playing ‘an active role in a variety of European Union (EU) activities in the fields of education and training [and with] international agencies including OECD, UNESCO and the Council of Europe, and with a large number of individual countries’ (DES 2005, 7). Following the subsequent economic downturn, the Lisbon Agenda per se would not feature in subsequent SSs. However, a new version of this theme would recur in the 2016/19 SS where the central vision was that the Irish Education and Training System should become the best in Europe over the coming decade.

Vision and values

The role of education in promoting values such as tolerance, civic participation, and social cohesion, as well as personal and economic goals, has been recognised in various SSs since 2005. There was however a significant development in 2015 when DES vision and values, broadly reflective of the associated HLGs, were formally included for the first time. This practice, continued in all subsequent statements¹⁹, is indicative of the shift from NPM to public values, where learning contributes to the development, cohesion and wellbeing of society, and the learner is afforded a central place in policy development. This is encapsulated in the title of the 2019/21 SS, ‘Cumasú’, the Irish language word for empowering, with Minister McHugh stating in his foreword that ‘a quality learning system empowers learners to make better life choices’ (DES, 1), followed by an explication of the SS's transformative vision of preparing young people ‘to be confident in their national, cultural and individual identity, to be aware of their capability to achieve more and to take every opportunity that arises to be the best that they can be’ (3).

The first SS since the establishment of the DFHERIS espouses an education system ‘where every child and young person feels valued and nurtured’ (DES 2021, 6), one that aims to ‘focus on the development of the whole person … recognis[ing] that education is about far more than a student’s academic performance and career development skills. It is also about students’ personal development, self-actualisation, civic mindedness, wellbeing, and capacity for self-expression’²⁰ (18).

Learning as a public good

The shift of focus from teaching to learning is closely associated with the inclusion of vision and values in SSs. For example, the first statement not to include performance indicators (2015/17), which includes eight times more references to learners than students, values learning as a public good and recognises its ‘role in the development, cohesion and wellbeing of society’. This paradigm shift is clearly reflected in the Framework for Junior Cycle (Gleeson, Klenowski, and Looney 2020). Now that DES SSs are focused exclusively on ECCE, primary and secondary levels, students are increasingly referred to as learners, and there is a strong focus on holistic education and personal wellbeing:

… [an] education system where every child and young person feels valued and is actively supported and nurtured to reach their full potential … an education system that is of the highest quality and where every child and young person feels valued and nurtured and where a sense of community is aligned with a global vision … (SS, 2021/23, 6)

Whole-of-system approach

In sharp contrast to the fragmentation that prevailed over many years (Gleeson 2010; Cromien 2000), all DES Annual Reports since 2004 have been structured around SS goals and objectives. Stakeholders (sometimes referred to as customers) and/or partners²¹ have featured prominently in such reports and SSs over the years.²² For example, the 2008/10 SS (DES, 65) stated that ‘effective cross-departmental cooperation is essential to achieve many [of its] objectives’²³, while the 2011/14 (DES, 14) SS calls for ‘regular structured engagement between senior management in the Department, its agencies and other stakeholders’.

The adoption of a ‘joined up’ or ‘whole-of-system’ approach to strategic planning and implementation becomes part of SS discourse in 2015, where six DES strategies are introduced that ‘contribute to working collaboratively with other Departments and Agencies’ (DES, 6). The importance of collaboration with other Government Departments, state agencies, national stakeholders and international experts is re-iterated in subsequent SSs.²⁴ For example, one of the stated values of the 2019/21 SS is the ‘vital importance of open communication, consultation and collaboration with stakeholders within the education sector and with the wider community’ (DES, 4). In his introduction to the 2021/23 SS, the Secretary General notes that the Department’s engagement ‘in a wide external and internal consultation process [that includes children has] greatly helped to inform and guide the development of this Statement’.

Establishment of DFHERIS

This has enabled the most recent DES SS (2021/23) to focus exclusively on early childhood, primary and post-primary education. In the public good, the learner is seen ‘as the central focus of policy development, and education has a key role in the development, cohesion and wellbeing of an inclusive society’ (7), with the support of strong partnerships, and collaboration ‘between sectoral stakeholders, the broader public sector, the political system and other governmental bodies’ (16).

All SSs published prior to the establishment of DFHERIS emphasised the importance of research in order to meet the fast-changing economic, social and technological circumstances e.g. HLG 3 of the 2005 SS (DES 2005, 11) identified an ‘urgent need for investment in science and research to support a knowledge and innovation-based society, essential to our economic competitiveness and continuing prosperity’. With a view to providing for Ireland’s future growth and prosperity, the 2008/10 SS (DES, 39) sought to develop ‘a world class system of research and innovation … including a doubling of PhD graduates by 2013’, while the 2016/19 SS (DES, 49) focused on working ‘with enterprise to increase the number of [postgraduate] researchers’ so that Ireland would become a Global Innovation Leader.

On the other hand, however, while the DES 2021/23 SS recognises the obvious need for DFHERIS institutions to address DES research needs in a wide range of areas, its main research focus is on ‘climate change … one of the greatest challenges facing global society’ (13) – another clear indication of the adoption of a public values approach.

Evolution of strategic education planning

As Boyle (2020) observes, the Irish state adopted an evolutionary as against a revolutionary approach to public sector reform. From an education perspective the regular publication of SSs provides valuable insights into this evolutionary process. Mindful of the significance of contextual factors to education policymaking (Ball 1993) this process is now discussed with reference to its broader historical context and the move towards public value, including learning as a public good.

Relevant historical context

The SMI was introduced in a context where theories of human capital formation (Hannan and Boyle 1987; Lee 1989) had underpinned and legitimated the expansion of educational provision in Ireland since the publication of Investment in Education (OECD/Department of Education 1966). As O’Sullivan (1992, 464) observes, Irish education policy was characterised by liberal functionalism, where education and social discourse were becoming increasingly ‘coterminous with the theme of education and the economy [while] cultural identity, language, civic competence and moral development excluded as themes’.

This mentality, which is reflected in the Education White Paper’s (Department of Education 1995, 193) concern with ensuring ‘value for money … and associated measures of performance and effectiveness’, provided a hospitable environment for the performative and neo-liberal discourse of earlier SSs. Lynch, Grummel, and Devine (2012) rail against the rhetoric of the SMI and early SSs, where market-led models of control and regulation were set to replace values traditionally associated with professional responsibility and service. It was felt that the premium placed on efficiency and effectiveness militated against ‘more broadly based moral and social values related to care, autonomy, tolerance, respect, trust and equality’ (Lynch 2014, 3).

Notwithstanding the NPM discourse however, the rhetoric/reality dichotomy is a well-recognised feature of Irish life (Kearney 1985; Lee 1989; Ryan 1984). For example, Hyndman and McGeough (2008, 30) draw attention to the ‘major disparity between the arguments relating to the importance of performance measurement and performance management and the impact of such rhetoric’. As McGeough (2013, 17) concludes, ‘while Irish organisations are reasonably good at publishing performance indicators, they are unwilling or unable to develop targets against which to measure actual performance’.

Pre-dating the SMI and NPM, social partnership remained a constant feature of the reality of the Irish education landscape. This consensus-seeking approach, which dispelled the culture of secrecy that characterised Irish education policymaking during most of the twentieth century, was alive and well. Furthermore, in the Irish multi-seat PR electoral system, government backing for a proposal can often depend public acceptance rather than its educational merits (Gleeson 2010). It is noteworthy for example that the strongest sections of the Education White Paper (Department of Education 1995) relate to areas where consensus was reached at the partnership-based National Education Convention. As a former General Secretary of the ASTI remarked, ‘the government, and certainly the minister, would seem to be working to a populist agenda’ (Lennon 1996, 3).

Partnership has a statutory basis in the Education Act (1998), and the DES established its own Partnership Committee in 2000. Minister Hanafin, in her introduction to the 2005 SS, where partnership is mentioned 30 times, ‘look[ed] forward to working … in a spirit of partnership with all the stakeholders in education’. We are reminded in the same SS (DES 2005, 14) that ‘the commitment of stakeholders in the education sector is secured’ through partnership. While it is recognised in the 2008/10 SS that partnership can result in delays, its advantages are re-iterated. In his introduction to the 2019–2021 SS, the Secretary General observes that the Department ‘engaged in a wide consultation process and received in excess of 400 submissions’ (DES 2019, 2). This growing focus on public engagement is further evidenced by the commitment in the current Programme for Government to convening a Citizens’ Assembly on education – Dewey’s ‘public called into being’ revisited?

Notwithstanding the valid concerns of Lynch et al regarding the rhetoric of SMI and SSs, the full force of NPM was never likely to be felt in an Irish context where social partnership had been well established before the arrival of the SMI and the implementation of policy reforms was a matter for negotiation and agreement between government and the public sector unions. As noted by Hyndman and McGeough (2008, 30), the partnership approach means that ‘radical transformation is unlikely and a gradualist, ad-hoc, cherry-picking [and] reflective process is more probable with respect to performance measurement specifically and a wide range of NPM reforms generally’. From an education perspective, the exceptional power of the Irish teacher unions is widely recognised (Gleeson 2010; OECD 1991). As McNamara et al. (2020, 65/66) remarked, ‘the notion that the more extreme manifestations of neoliberal accountability regimes could have been imposed in Ireland is far-fetched and wildly overstated’. Yet another example of that well-known Irish rhetoric/reality dichotomy!

Moving towards public value

With the demise of NPM, the public value approach, asking ‘how much public value is being created by public expenditure’ (O’Connor 2018, 41), emerged as the dominant paradigm. The focus shifted from costs to improving the quality of services for citizens and businesses (OECD 2010), and from outputs to outcomes (Barber 2017).

Learning came to be seen as a public value and students were increasingly referred to as learners. The 2015 SS, notable for the absence of performance indicators, and including eight times more references to learners than students, proclaims that ‘we value learning as a public good and recognise its role in the development, cohesion and wellbeing of society’ (DES, 5).

NCCA curriculum specifications are nowadays characterised by high numbers of learning outcomes, with curriculum documents (Gleeson 2022) emphasising holistic education and personal wellbeing, as do recent SSs e.g.

… an education and training system which empowers learners to be confident in their national, cultural and individual identity (DES 2019/21, 3)

… [an] education system where every child and young person feels valued and is actively supported and nurtured to reach their full potential (DES 2021/23, 6)

In their respective Forewords to the 2021/23 SS, both the Minister and the Secretary General emphasise the importance of holistic approaches. The former states that a school is a ‘place where a sense of achievement must be based on personal growth as much as academic achievement’ (1), while the latter remarks that ‘education transcends economics’ (DES 2021, 6).

There are, however, certain ironies at play here. Recent studies report that, in the face of the high stakes Leaving Certificate examination, students ‘shifted focus towards a more instrumentalist view [where] teaching to the test became the signal of a good lesson … [and expressed] intolerance of teachers who do not focus on what is likely to appear on the examination papers’ (Smyth 2016, 197). A further irony is that, while this new emphasis on holistic education is welcome, it is happening at a time when the influence of the churches, with their professed commitment to holistic education (Gleeson 2015; Healy and Reynolds 1996) is waning (Genesis 2021). The emphasis on holistic education in current NCCA curriculum frameworks where subject specifications are predicated on pre-determined learning outcomes that are set out in behaviourist terms of what students ‘should be able to do’, is also somewhat incongruous.

Given the OECD’s focus on measurable outcomes, as evidenced by its annual Education at a Glance and PISA reports, its support for the development of cross-curricular competencies is also somewhat ironical. Concerned about the over-emphasis on the cognitive aspects of education, and with the support of member countries, the OECD (1997) established a pilot study with a view to identifying ‘indicators which would do more justice to the multidimensional nature of education’ (5). Having concluded that this was feasible in certain domains, they established the DeSeCo (Definition and Selection of Competencies) initiative in twelve countries (Ireland did not participate) (Rychen 2003, 83).

Subsequent expansion of DeSeCo (OECD 2009), which forms the theoretical underpinnings of PISA, led to the creation of the Learning Compass framework (OECD 2019) with a view to helping countries decide what knowledge, skills, attitudes and values are important for tomorrow’s world.²⁵ This recognition of the importance of transferable competences and skills (OECD 2021) marks a decisive break with the previous OECD approach (Hughson and Wood 2022) where the focus was on education as a tool that serves economic advancement (Brown et al. 2008; Lauder et al. 2012).

Drawing on these developments, NCCA (2006) sought to promote the integration of key skills across the Irish senior cycle curriculum (Dempsey 2016), an approach that would subsequently form a key aspect of the Junior Cycle Framework (NCCA 2014). Consistent with the values of recent SSs, these ‘learning for life’ skills also feature prominently in the NCCA (2022) Advisory Report on senior cycle. However, while key skills/competences are a prominent feature of curriculum policy in many countries today, the associated understandings and definitions lack consistency (Tahirsylaj and Sundberg 2020; Vooght and Pareja Roblin 2012). For example, whereas the focus of the Chinese competencies framework, heavily influenced by the Confucian tradition, is on moral values, the ‘US [competences] framework reflects the pragmatic skill tradition’ (Deng and Zhengmei 2021, 92).

Furthermore, the implementation and assessment of such skills is difficult and complex, particularly in the context of Anglo-Saxon curriculum culture (Beneitone and Yarosh 2022; Deng 2021; Pepper 2011), and especially in the case of social and emotional skills (Restada and Elde Mølstad 2021). While further consideration of associated issues is not possible within the parameters of this paper, one cannot ignore the uneasy tension between the OECD’s role in generating comparative league tables, and its support for the development of ‘soft’ skills.

Concluding remarks

The ten SSs published since 1997, which are indicative of the significance of national and international contextual influences, provide valuable insights into the evolution of Irish education policy. It is noteworthy that the emerging picture mirrors the Irish approach to curriculum policy and practice over the same period (Gleeson 2022). Meanwhile, the establishment of the DFHERIS affords the DES greater freedom to pursue more student-centred and holistic approaches to education.

However, notwithstanding the attractive rhetoric of public value, the realities of implementation are another matter. For example, the research evidence clearly suggests that the final two years of senior cycle could hardly be characterised as student centred (Baird et al. 2015; Burns et al. 2018; Smyth 2016), while debates around junior cycle curriculum reform were dominated by teacher union opposition to school-based assessment for national certification. Nor does the Minister’s minimalist and populist response to the forward-looking NCCA (2022) Advisory Report on Senior Cycle augur well. Moreover, while the use of detailed performance indicators was discontinued in 2015, the DES Statistics Section has, since 2019, been producing highly descriptive Education Indicators for Ireland reports for each year in the form of ‘a statistical overview of the work of the Department of Education and its agencies’ (SS 21/23, 23). As more data becomes available and policy evolves, plans are afoot to develop this indicator set further. This approach does not sit easily alongside the student-centred and public values discourse of recent SSs. A case of ‘plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose’?

Two substantive and associated aspects of public policy require more attention than is possible here. Firstly, the meaning of a public value approach to public sector reform tends to vary from country to country (Bozeman 2002). For example, O’Flynn (2007, 358) describes the public value approach as ‘multi-dimensional … created not just through outcomes but also through processes which may generate trust or fairness’. From the perspective of Australia, one of the first adopters of the public value paradigm, Warner, Brown, and Cherney (2021, 857) observe that a ‘single theory of public value is inherently problematic … because [it would] foreclose difference in both public and value’. Redolent of the working of social partnership in Ireland (Gleeson 2010), they note ‘the inherently political nature of consensus building [towards] a single theory’ (857) and propose the antidote of an ‘agonistic approach’ whereby ‘deeply divergent positions and identities manage to negotiate some sort of engagement that produces policy outcomes, without either extinguishing, excluding, or silencing any particular position or identity, at least not permanently’ (859).

Secondly, accountability becomes more critical than ever when the public value paradigm is adopted in the context of a neoliberal ideology where ‘the performances of individuals or organisations serve as measures of productivity, output or displays of quality, representing their relative worth, quality or value’ (Gore, Rickards, and Fray 2023, 453). Definitions of effective or satisfactory performance, and agreement regarding what measures or indicators are considered valid, lie at the heart of policy reform (Ball, 2003; Gleeson and Ó Donnabháin, 2009). This dilemma is encapsulated in the title of the Gore et al (2023) paper – From performative to professional accountability: re-imagining ‘the field of judgment’ through teacher professional development. From an Irish perspective there has been ‘a significant move towards the global education reform logic with its new emphasis on standardisation, a narrow focus on literacy and numeracy and a reconfiguration from low/moderate to high-stakes accountability’ (Conway and Murphy 2013, 29). This performative environment is hardly ideal for the public value approach to public sector reform sector reform and strategic planning.

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Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jim Gleeson

Jim Gleeson is an Adjunct Professor at the Institute of Education, Dublin City University. Having spent five years teaching in the VEC sector, he moved into teacher education at Thomond College of Education, Limerick. Much of his work has been in curriculum development, including independent curriculum evaluation, Project Leader at Shannon Curriculum Development Centre, and NCCA Development Officer for Leaving Certificate Applied. He held various positions at University of Limerick, including Head of Department, and was one of the IUA nominees on the Teaching Council (2005–2012). Jim was appointed to the Chair of Identity and Curriculum at Australian Catholic University in 2011. His main research interests include education and curriculum policy and practice, teacher development and professionalism, and faith-based education.

Notes

1 Sometimes titled Strategy Statements.

2 The given rationale for the first social partnership agreement, the Programme for National Recovery (Government of Ireland 1987, 5) was that the main partners, ‘conscious of the grave state of our economy and social life, have agreed … to seek to regenerate our economy and improve the social equity of our society through their combined efforts’.

3 Conference on EU Venture and Seed Capital Measure on 24 September 1998.

4 See also Bryson (2011).

5 His successor would appoint a Minister of State with responsibility for the SMI.

6 e.g. appointments, dismissals, performance and discipline of civil servants below a certain grade

7 Meanwhile the SMI was renamed the Public Service Modernisation Programme (http://www.bettergov.ie).

8 Reflecting the ideology of the marketplace, a systematic meta-evaluation of the ERI process (Department of Finance 2001) would define ‘value for money’ in terms of effectiveness and efficiency.

9 Such ‘performance indicators [should be] clearly associated with objectives and strategies and capable of being assessed’.

10 For example, although the Report of the Task Force on Physical Sciences included full implementation costings, when questioned in the Dáil (9th October 2003) the Minister for Education replied that ‘funds are not available at present to progress the strategy on the scale recommended in the report’.

11 It is noteworthy that the Building Unit was retained.

12 While Cromien (2000, 16) recognised the key role of this Unit in establishing a cohesive philosophy and direction, he noted ‘a lack of awareness of [its] role and purpose’ and emphasised the importance of giving it a research function.

13 See also 2001/04 SS, 12

14 repeated in the associated Annual Report (DES 2005, 38) and the 2008 SS (58).

15 HLG5 - We will support the delivery of education by quality planning, policy formulation and customer service - was not included.

16 The Culleton report.

17 Prior to that, brief statistical reports were published annually.

18 And a commitment to the publication of yearly Action Plans.

19 The 2011 SS had introduced the five values that ‘guide Department staff’ in their work.

20 HLG2 aspires to ‘fostering wellbeing and … prepar[ing] [students] effectively for active and responsible citizenship’.

21 Promoting partnership through consultation with, and respect for, all our customers (SS 2011/14, 3).

22 e.g. The Department … coordinates the development of policy in consultation with relevant stakeholders (SS2008/10, 73); Each year a new Action Plan will be developed and published to further our goals in consultation with stakeholders (SS 2016-2019, 5); Providing strategic leadership, developing policy and delivering services across the sector requires cooperation between the Department and a wide range of stakeholders, including the sectoral stakeholders, the broader public sector, the political system and Government Departments (DES 2005, 26).

23 ‘Given the importance of education and training to social and economic development the Department’s mandate requires its involvement in a significant amount of cross departmental and cross sectoral work delivering on a range of policies led by other Departments’. DES 2011, 3.

24 The Department of Education works with a range of other Government Departments in progressing cross-Government priorities and interdepartmental work. Given the synergies between our areas of responsibility, we work most closely with the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science and the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (SS20 19-21, 16).

25 The three transferable competences were: innovation for inclusive growth and sustainable development; taking responsibility, ethics; reconciling tensions and dilemmas.