Aspiring to a master’s degree

28 UNIT 6 EDUCATIONAL POLICY IN THE UNITED KINGDOM TEXT 1 Throughout the post-war period there have been many attempts to reform the UK education system. Let’s review empirical evidence looking at the impact of some key reforms which were designed to address a number of specific problems in the UK education system, namely poor and apparently falling standards in schools, the low staying on rate at age 16, the relatively poor basic skills of the UK population and persistent inequalities in Higher Education. A major concern in the 1980s was that the staying on rate in the UK, although rising, was low by international standards. Furthermore, exam achievement at age 16 had stagnated. This led to widespread concerns about falling standards in schools. In response the Conservative governments of the 1980s and 1990s introduced a number of market mechanisms into the UK education system, including parental choice, parent representation on governing bodies and linking school funding with student enrolment numbers. Alongside this publicly available test score information was made available with which parents could compare the performance of one school with another. These reforms were designed with an explicit aim to improve pupil achievement. They did, however, raise concerns about increased inequalities in schools. The empirical evidence on the impact of these reforms is patchy. Certainly staying on rates rose for all students and the gap in staying on rates between lower and higher socio-economic group students actually narrowed somewhat after the introduction of these reforms. The evidence on the impact of the reforms on pupil performance however is more mixed. At best it suggests only very limited positive effects of choice and competition on pupil achievement. The second area of concern to policymakers has been the poor basic skills of the UK population, relative to other countries, particularly amongst younger workers. In response the government introduced a st...