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- Zola : a political reading. August 13, 2023
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- ‘Transformative Teaching and Learning in Further Education – Pedagogies of Hope and Social Justice’ July 18, 2023
- Dilemmas of Growth June 14, 2023
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- In praise of ‘low value’ subjects. February 27, 2023
- Frigga Haug and the mystery of learning December 6, 2022
- Debating Growth. November 29, 2022
- Code red for human survival November 8, 2022
- The politics of silence. September 4, 2022
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- When Corsica welcomed thousands of Serb refugees (1916) August 9, 2022
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Tag Archives: marketisation
The oath and the compass
It sounds like the title of a medieval thriller; the brotherhood of educators send their top monks out to roam the world having sworn to serve learning and they solve all sorts of intractable problems with the help of a … Continue reading
‘Hindering’ subjects and ‘bad’ universities
The way we talk about subjects and universities has changed dramatically over the last few years, and not for the better. The English Bacc with its favoured GCSE subjects has led to a secondary school subject hierarchy which appears to … Continue reading
Reading the education manifestos
What is the point of manifestos, whether for education or any other policy area? Are they even worth the paper they’re written on given that we are fairly desensitised to parties straying from their election pledges in the name of … Continue reading
Market madness #6 Students as commodities: premium, discount and remaindered
Enrolment is always a challenge. We come back from our holidays to an empty college. Like someone organising an open house, we’ve stocked up on a range of snacks and drinks for our guests but we can’t really be sure … Continue reading
Posted in Education, Education policy
Tagged 18 year olds, aspiration tax, Colleges, commodity, competition, consumer, Education, marketisation, Post-16 funding, tertiary education, young people
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Market madness #4 A good system can help schools improve
A series of short posts about the marketisation of public education: #4 A good system can help schools improve. Whenever I am asked to explain English secondary education to foreign visitors I usually start by saying that there is no … Continue reading
Post-16: education’s wild frontier
Sixth form education in England has become the wild frontier for selection and marketisation with a plethora of new providers, whether 11-18 academies or 16-18 free schools trying to outdo each other in setting ever more exclusive entry requirements and competing … Continue reading
Market madness #3 The well-informed educational consumer
A series of short posts about the marketisation of public education: #3 The well-informed educational consumer. An ideal market requires well informed consumers who are in a position to make choices between products based on accurate information about the things … Continue reading
Sixth forms working together against the tide
Opening speech to the Sharing Good Practice conference at St.Angela’s school, Stratford, 4th June 2014. We are all here today because we are committed to providing the best possible educational opportunities to young people aged 16-18 and because we think … Continue reading
Market madness #2 “Choice and diversity”
A series of short posts about the marketisation of public education: #2 “Choice and diversity” “Choice and diversity” was the last government’s euphemism for marketisation in public services, putting a positive spin on something which is not particularly popular with … Continue reading
Posted in Education, Education policy
Tagged choice and diversity, competition, Education, Equality, marketisation
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Market madness #1 Oversubscribed?
A series of short posts about the marketisation of public education: #1 Oversubscribed? “6 applicants for every place”…”heavily oversubscribed”. These sorts of claims are often used to establish how popular, and by implication successful, schools and colleges are. They should … Continue reading
Posted in Education, Education policy
Tagged Colleges, competition, comprehensive education, marketisation, oversubsribed, selection
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Unashamedly egalitarian
If you had the choice before birth of the type of society to be born into but didn’t know your status in advance, what type of society would you choose? No doubt most of us would choose a more egalitarian … Continue reading
Posted in Education, Education policy
Tagged comprehensive education, Education, Equality, marketisation, Social mobility
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Eddie Playfair 