Contradictions in the Government of Educational Change
| Published date | 01 March 1985 |
| Date | 01 March 1985 |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-9248.1985.tb01561.x |
| Author | Stewart Ranson |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Political
Studies
(1985),
XXXIII,
56-72
Contradictions in the Government
of
Educational Change
STEWART
RANSON*
University
of
Birmingham
In the context of declining rolls, contracting resources and mounting youth
unemployment, The Department
of
Education and Science, encouraged by
successive Administrations since the mid-l970s, has intervened to direct and
restructure education. The paper argues that although there were differences of
strategy within the DES there was nevertheless an underlying consensus on policy: to
prepare a more vocational curriculum, to rationalize resources, and differentiate
opportunities. The Department has claimed that the contradiction between its duty to
control education and the powers made available have frustrated its purposes. This
paper concludes, however, that the promotion of ideologies and practices
of
stratification contradict its principal duty to develop through education, individual
powers and capacities.
I
Education is shaped by, but also serves to constitute, the principles which
underlie the social order. The curriculum gives access to knowledge and power,
exams select young people for a layered labour market, while the differential
opportunities provided by schools and colleges shape their beliefs about place
and horizons. It is in this way that choices about education can ‘often act as a
kind of metaphor
of
national destinies’.’
The state has played a central role during the post-war period in keying the
metaphors and in regulating the restructuring of education. At first, the images
stressed the importance of raising ‘expectations’ and expanding educational
‘opportunities’. The focus during the
1960s
upon establishing comprehensive
schools and upon
a
child-centred curriculum were designed to develop the
personal capacities of
all
young people
to
participate equally in
a
modern and
open society. The mid-1970s recession, the growth of unemployment and the
decline in school rolls transformed the context of education. Government
began to generate new metaphors of ‘relevance’ in the curriculum, or ‘realism’
in expectations and ‘vocational preparation’ for economic roles to serve the
needs
of
industry and nation.2
*
This paper is based upon research into policy planning systems sponsored by the SSRC Centre-
Local Relations Panel. An earlier version was presented at Christ’s College, Cambridge, September
1983. Quotations
by
DES officials taken from the research are marked with an asterisk.
1
Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies,
Sociaf
Democracy, Education and
the
Crisis
(Birmingham, Birmingham University, 1978), p.
1.
2
HMSO,
Education
in
Schools:
A
Consultative Document
(Cmnd 6869, 1977).
0032-321
7/85/01 /O056- 17/$03.00
0
1985
Political Studies
STEWART
RANSON
57
It is the intention
of
this paper to explore what is presupposed in this
argument about the role of government
in
educational change: firstly, that
there is a coherent and agreed view within government about the direction
change should take and, secondly, that government has, what Habermas would
call, the ‘steering capacity’ to implement ~hange.~ The paper will examine the
extent of consensus and capacity where they seem most ambivalent-in the
Department of Education and Science whose weak internal integration and
external powers of control have been the subject of critical analy~is.~
Indeed, contradiction is arguably the birth-mark of the DES. Its remit under
the
1944
Education Act to secure a national education service under the ‘control
and direction’ of the Minister is perhaps the strongest
in
Whitehall. Robson has
identified the not too auspicious ancestry
of
the phrase ‘control and direct’ as
deriving from the Poor Law Amendment Act of
1834
‘under which the public
assistance authorities were completely subordinated to the central depart-
ment’.5 Yet, in spite of such heritage, the DES has never been granted the
specific powers which would allow it to ‘direct’. Griffiths, in his classic study of
central departments proposes that the DES has merely ‘promotional’ powers as
against other department which have the capacity to ‘regulate’ policy develop-
Responsibility without power might seem a reasonable claim by
members of the DES, although others in the service might contend that it was
the division
of
power between the central and local partners which contributed
to and protected the development of education.
Focusing upon the creation of policy for the
16-19
age group, it will be
argued that, despite tactical differences between branches within the DES,
there has in fact been an underlying departmental consensus upon the purposes
of educational change. Moreover, although deprived of unilateral powers, the
DES has nevertheless been able through a number of strategies to contribute to
the restructuring
of
education and thus to the creation
of
a new social and
political order.
IT.
Competition and Consensus in the
DES
Lodge and Blackstone have recently reaffirmed the view that officials of the
DES establish a ‘departmental view’ of policy which they are typically able to
impose upon ministers: ‘arguably the ironside traditions
of
the DES sustains
the departmental view against the incursions of transient politicians’.’ There
has been much support for this argument. Kogan,8 Hal~ey,~ and Vaizey’O have
all claimed that the Department has a coherent and determinant influence in
educational policy formation. It will be argued here that there has in fact been a
J.
Habermas,
Legitimation Crisis
(London, Heinemann,
1976).
OECD,
Educational Development Strategy in England and Wales
(Paris,
OECD,
1975).
5
W.
A. Robson,
British Government Since
1978
(London, Allen and Unwin,
1950),
p.
30.
J.
A.
G.
Griffiths,
Central Departments and Local Authorities
(London, Allen and Unwin,
P. Lodge and
T.
Blackstone,
Educational Policy and Educational Inequality
(Oxford, Martin
1966).
Robertson,
1982).
*
M. Kogan,
EducationalPolicy Making
(London, Allen and Unwin,
1975).
lo
J.
Vaizey
in
Policy Making in the DES
(London, HMSO,
1976).
A.
H.
Halsey
in
Policy Making in the DES
(London, HMSO,
1976),
p.
192.
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