Critically analyse the ways in which education can be viewed as party political, by referring to specific policies/ issues prevalent since 1945. Education is politics; it is the way in which a country defines itself and sustains its cultural being, passing down ideas, knowledge, traditions and beliefs from generation to generation (Ward and Eden, 2009). This essay will critically analyse the ways in which education can be viewed as party political, by referring to specific policies and issues prevalent since 1945. Throughout this assignment the main focus will be the curriculum in England, starting with how it derived, how it has changed over the years, what effects it has had on the nation and why it is seen to be a vital part of the English education system. Alongside the assignment title the author will use evidence to try and answer the following question; has the national curriculum raised standards in the English education system? This is a question that has often caused many political debates, with professionals amongst others discussing what effects the national curriculum has had on the wider society. Before commencing with the assignment it is of extreme importance that some key terms are defined, to ensure that everyone is of the same understanding whilst reading this assignment. The first key term that will be defined is ‘Curriculum’; it is of great importance that this term is defined as this is the main focus of this assignment. Edward., et al (2013) states that curriculum refers to the means and resources in which students interact with in order to achieve identified educational outcomes. In agreement with this the national government website states:
The National Curriculum is the agenda for teaching and learning in schools. It establishes the subjects taught and the knowledge, skills and understanding required for each subject. It also sets standards for each subject, outlining targets that children should be encouraged to achieve. Additionally, the National Curriculum determines the assessment methods that are used to measure children’s progress. (Gov.co.uk)
From this statement it is apparent that a curriculum sets out the roots for the knowledge and skills a society wants to pass on to its children to learn. Most countries have some form of national curriculum their children have to adhere to (Chitty, 2004). Furthermore this assignment will explain one final term to ensure there is no misunderstanding on the jargon used further on in the text.
The final term is ‘ideology’; the term ideology is hard to define as it has a history that gives rise to a number of different interpretations. It is imperative that this term is clear because throughout this assignment the word ideology will be used to portray ideas governed in both politics and education, and it is hoped that it will be made clear by the end of this assignment that ideologies are the base or root for all policies as Apple (2004) states:
Most people seem to agree that one can talk about ideology as referring to some sort of ‘system’ of ideas, believes, fundamental commitments, or values about social reality, but here the agreement ends. The interpretations differ according to both the scope and range of the phenomena which are presumably ideological and the function – what ideologies actually do for the people who ‘have’ them. (2004: 18)

From the above quote it is clear the word ‘ideology’ is used to convey ideas which are shared by a group of people which they then communicate to the greater society. Furthermore as Apple argues above the interpretations differ according to the situation, for the purpose of this assignment the main focus for the term ideology will be on ‘education ideologies’ as Matheson (2008) reiterates:
From an educational perspective, an ideology can be defined as ‘any package of educational ideas held by a group of people about formal arrangements for education’. Ideologies work at different levels within an education system, from informing education acts to a national level of influencing classroom practices.
(2008: 21)

To conclude, ideologies are ideas shared by a collection of people about the way in which people should live. Consequently political ideology regarding education can be conceived to be the way in which a group of people or a political party judge how education should be operated. Political ideology can be placed on a left to right spectrum, for the purpose of swift categorisation (Bartlett and Burton, 2012). Before discussing the curriculum of the present day (currently known as the national curriculum) the author will try to ensure the reader is clear where the curriculum derived from along with why it was first introduced. This assignment will look at the structure of the education system and how education policy over the last century has impacted on education with regards to the national curriculum. This assignment will only be concerned with the politics and policies in England only; this is due to the diverse and complicated policies included in Scotland and Wales. It is hoped that this will show evidence of how political policy has influence the curriculum children in England adhere to. As the title states the time scale focus for the assignment is to concentrate on education policies and practices from 1945 until present, nevertheless it would be wrong to entirely dismiss early state education and pre-state education without justification as both are fundamental upon which the current day education system was derived. However due to the limitations of the word count the assignment will not be able to discuss each policy, Act or legislation individually, it will begin with a focus on the education system from the introduction of the Education Act 1944 also known as the Butler Act. The assignment will look at why the 1944 Education Act was introduced and the effects it had on the education system.
As stated above the Butler Act was introduced in 1944 by the Conservative President of the Board of Education, R. A. Butler. Although there were many education acts prior to this it was the Butler Act that effectively changed the whole education system in England (Nickson, 2014a). Prior to this Act there were a variety of other acts that impacted on education. The Balfour Act (1902) created the Local Education Authorities, the Fisher Act (1918) raised the school leaving age to 14 and then the education act of 1936 raised it furthermore to 15 (Gilard, 2011), finally between the years of 1923 and 1931 the governments Consultative Committee formed six reports. These are known as the five Hadow reports and the Spens report, all the named reports above had an effect on the Butler Act (1944) whether that be directly or indirectly, however as previously stated due to the word count for this assignment it is not possible to go into great detail about any of the acts or policies mentioned above. Nickson (2014a) stated that the Butler Act was released within a package of government policies near to and after the Second World War in order to try and create the modern welfare state. Furthermore he argued that these government policies had a purpose, he said the purpose of these new policies was to rid society of the ‘five giant evils’, according to Nixon these were ignorance, squalor, idleness, disease and want.
The main aim of the Butler Act was to publically provide primary and secondary education for all as Butler stated within the act “It shall be the duty of the local education authority for every area, so far as their powers extend, to contribute towards the spiritual, moral, mental and physical development of the community” (White, 2006). The ‘tripartite system’ was implemented in the 1944 Act, this offered three types of education for students at the age of 11, and this was set out in terms of the child’s ability. The tripartite consisted of three types of schools, these were, grammar schools; secondary modern schools and technical schools (Nickson, 2014a). Grammar schools were for the most able students, this was based on ‘intelligence tests’, the students with ‘average’ ability would attend secondary modern schools and finally the students that were seen to lack in technical or scientific ability would attend secondary technical schools this selection process was later known as the 11-plus examination (Shaw, 2014). The government said this was intended to increase opportunities for all. It can however be suggested that the tripartite system was suitable for middle class children more so than working class children because the parents of middle class children would be able to prepare their children better for the exams. Middle class parents continued, as they had done throughout the century, to ensure that their children were more successful in competitive examinations for the best state schools.
(Tomlinson, 2005)
As a result of this, it may be conceived that the system was not entirely fair because arguably not all children were sitting the examination at the same level because middle class parents could better prepare their children. Despite this suggestion, is it morally acceptable to restrict the chances of the working class? It is believed fewer Grammar schools were situated in working class areas; the consequence of this was that working class children had to achieve better marks on the examination in order to gain entry (Martin, 2004). It can be proposed that the government at this time were leaning towards a neo-conservative ideology rather than neoliberal, based upon the evidence provided to show the education a child was permitted to, was not based on the pursuit of personal interest but was based upon maintaining hierarchical differences in society. In relation to a curriculum the Act said very little about it, other than it had to include religious education, from the evidence provided it is evident that the political parties of this time became so concerned with social class and equality on society that they disregarded all other aspects of education. It is clear that at this point in time the was no evidence to show that the national government would ever have control of the curriculum and during this era the teachers were left to decide what to teach and how they would teach it, which has vastly changed over the years as will be seen later on in the assignment.
From 1951 until 1964 it was the Conservatives that were to remain in power, during this time there were four prime ministers, these were, Winston Churchill (1951-1955), Anthony Eden (1955-1957), Harold Macmillan (1957-1963) and finally Alec Douglas-Home (1963 -1964) (Gillard, 2011) along with five different Ministers of Education throughout the 50’s decade (Ibid). According to Young (1998) the 50’s started in hard times, still damaged and emotionally scarred by the war. He argues Britain suffered a lot of shortages due to the backlash of the previous decade, with houses, coal and steel been just a few to mention, but austerity was beginning to give way to affluence, over the decade average wages increased by 20 percent, unemployment was virtually nil and the recently constructed welfare system offered security from the cradle to the grave, although it did not solve all problems, and there were still many people living closely to the poverty line (Ibid). Sandbrook (N.D) states that it was the 1950’s that transformed Britain’s social and cultural landscape. After the several years at war during the 1940’s Britain was left in a state of desperation, financially and morally exhausted, desperately trying to rebuild the damage the Second World War had left behind (Ibid). Sandbrook goes on further to say that shortly after the Second World War the United Kingdom experienced a ‘baby boom’, and therefore in the early 1950’s when the children became of age to attend school, class sizes became increasingly larger than previous years and from this many politicians became committed to a swift expansion of educational facilities and opportunities in England (Rose, 2009). By the mid 1950’s public spending on education rapidly increased and for many years after this investing in education was seen as a good investment, not only as a way of supplying the nation with a skilled workforce, but also as a way of ensuring all children that have attended school have the necessary social skills to succeed in the work place (Tomlinson, 2005). In the classroom there were no helpers, classroom assistants were non existence and therefore it was down to the teacher to teach, educate and discipline class sizes of over 30 pupils (Ibid). In 1951 the school certificate examination was replaced by Ordinary (O) and Advanced (A) levels, and in 1954 Sir David Eccles, Ministry of Education contributed towards the Early Leaving Report, however due to the limited word count it is not possible to explain any of these happenings in detail.
From the above paragraph it can be seen that during the 1950’s education was gradually becoming more important in the eyes of the government and its class sizes grew due to the after math of the ‘baby boom’ previously mentioned. Although politicians did not make a strong connection between the economy and education and it can be noted that the curriculum is not mentioned during this decade, this is because the curriculum did not change throughout this era, the curriculum was still decided by the teachers and secondary curriculum was decided, again by teachers, on the basis of national examination preparation.
In October 1964 Harold Wilson, from the labour party won the general election and came to power (Kelly, 1990), during the election process he promised to create a ‘new Britain’ (Howard, 1995) Whilst in power Wilson contributed towards many significant social changes, capital punishment was abolished in 1965, homosexuality was decriminalised in 1967, abortion was legalised in 1967 and divorce law was reformed in 1969 to name but a few (Gillard, 2011). The Ministry of Education was renamed the Department of Education and Science and the Minister of Education was renamed the Secretary of State for Education in 1964 (Young, 1998).
With regards to the education system, according to Gillard (2011) Wilson wanted to create change and expansion, furthermore it was in this era when, for the first time ever a British government spent more on education than defence. Jackson and Marsden (1963) and Douglas (1964) emphasised the need to make change to schooling, to make it more accessible to working class parents and children, and to include parents fully in their children’s education. Benn and Chitty (1996:8) argue that this era saw criticism of the selection process (11-plus) and gradually the concerns grew stronger, it is alleged that “the middle class was expanding and grammar schools were not”, moreover they stated that the selection process perceived as failing because it is believed that talent was being wasted as many children left school ‘too early’ a view that was reinforced by the Newsom Report (1963) (Ibid). The Labour government did not try to abolish the 11plus through legislation, but through a circular (10/65) written to the Local Education Authorities (LEA’s) requesting change, although this was not taken lightly nationwide, some conservative controlled authorities ignored the this request. This shows how at this point in time the LEA’s had more power over the happenings of education than the central government. With regards to the curriculum, this decade saw a variety of developments, the first of which was in 1961 the Department for Education and Science (DES) formed a curriculum study group, which would be used to examine how the various curricula was working. The second was in 1964, under the labour government, when the Schools Council did a broad review of teaching and assessment to promote good practice, from this teachers began to experiment with approaches to education including ‘open classroom’ (no standard texts and no curriculum) and ‘learning by doing’. This became known as ‘progressive education’ (Zilversmit, 1993) Progressive education was generally associated with left wing politics (Nickson, 2014b). One understanding of progressive education is that it focuses more upon the child’s learning, ensuring a ‘child centred’ education rather than focusing on a teacher’s pedagogy or the curriculum content. Reinforcing this ideology, in 1967 the government released a report, known as the Plowden Report (Cunningham, 2002). This report was commissioned under the conservative government in 1963 but finished by the labour government (Nickson, 2014c). This report stated “at the heart of the educational process lies the child”, it is evident from this statement that this report focuses on the whole development of the child (the holistic development) and this became the start of the ‘child centred’ approach to education (Ibid). Progressive education mentioned above had influences from a variety of theorists (IOE, 2007), the ones the author will discuss further are Montessori and Froebel. Friedrich Froebel (1782-1852) believed that it was play that was key to a child’s education (Caldecott, 2011), he stated that in order for a child to holistically develop each child needed to be noticed for their individuality and potential to learn. Furthermore he argued that the ‘circle of people’ surrounding the child needed to work together in order to ensure all the child’s needs were met, this is the reason he asserts the importance of a ‘child centred’, ‘child led’ approach to education (Ibid). Froebel noticed the importance of childhood, stating, what children learnt and developed as a child effects how they act during adulthood (Ibid).
Maria Montessori (1870-1952) believed that a child’s intelligence was not fixed, that learning could be developed through the child’s individual learning experiences, and additionally she asserted that children learn best through their own direct sensory experiences of the environment and the world around them. Froebel and Montessori alike believed that observing children helped the educator decide what is best for the child, and would also help the educators choose developmental tasks in order to help the child progress further (Montessori, 2008).
Both Maria Montessori and Friedrich Froebel believed in a ‘child centred’ approach and progressive education, like the education style developed and delivered in the 1960’s. Both theorists theories and approaches to education had an influence on education in this era, however both theorists still influence present day education too, with Montessori schools and educationalist still delivering her pedagogy and Froebel has a variety of training and learning centres worldwide. The previous section shows the reader theorists whom agreed with this approach, nonetheless not everyone thought this educational style was of satisfactory standards as will be addressed in the next paragraph. The 1970’s can be conceived as an unsettled period in the history of the United Kingdom, this period saw an economic crisis, strikes within the public sector and the ‘winter of discontent’ (Kingdom, 1999). The famous ‘oil crisis’ brought the neglect of education to an end , the shortage of oil caused industry to slow and this could be seen as one of the reasons for the recession (Merrill, 2007). By the late 1970’s birth rates started to decline and meant that children made up a smaller proportion of society, meaning educationalists were forced with surplus school places (Kelly, 2009). Parallel to this unemployment was rising, bringing a wide range of socially-economic problems. As Bartlett and Burton (2012:86) put it, during the unrest of the 1970’s there was ‘a public perception, whether based on fact or fiction, that education was in severe crisis’, they also proposed that education became a sort of “scapegoat” for socio-economic issues. Ward and Eden (2009) agree with this saying, politicians looked for someone or something to blame for the economic crash and decided one of the culprits was the education system, stating teachers had failed in their mission to equipping young children with the skills they needed to prepare for working life. The conservative government of 1979, were committed to reduction in public spending, this included the rationalisation of the current education system and school specifically. The outcome of these events meant school leavers felt pressured to do well in examinations set at school in order to compete for jobs in the ever competitive jobs market.

The Black papers were released in 1971, they were not written by members of the government or by education experts, however they were very influential (Lawton, 1989). These papers were generally associated with right wing, traditionalist views of education (Nickson, 2014d) and it criticised the excesses of progressive education. The paper stated that ‘competition has given way to self-expression’ and that ‘educational expansion has sacrificed quality in education because more has meant worse’ (Lawton, 1989). Linden (2011) states ‘ it inspired New Labour to adopt their central argument of academic independence with the idea of independent, non-fee paying state schools’. Furthermore Linden adds ‘the Black Papers argument was enforced by a genuine parental concern fuelled by examples where progressive education had led to academic disintegration’.
An adjustment to the curriculum was made in 1976, when at this time the Labour Party was led by James Callaghan (Chitty, 2004) Callaghan was not happy with the education in the United Kingdom and he gave a speech at the Ruskin College (Ibid). In the speech he declared there was a need for a public debate on education, people were given the chance to have their say at conferences held across the country, this later became known as the ‘great debate’ (Tomlinson, 2005). Batteson (1997) asserts that Callaghan did not feel the education system was helping young people succeed in a competitive working world, furthermore he suggests that Callaghan was critical about the education system during his speech stating that schools in the United Kingdom were not providing acceptable standards, and he did not believe that education was fairly delivered across the country, this led to the idea of a national curriculum and this gave the Conservative Party something to think about (Ibid).
From 1979 until 1990 it was the Conservatives back in power, led by Britain’s first and only female Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and political ideology of the new right. During this decade is when the first real changes in British education started to happen, but education was still not a main priority in the eyes of the government (Bates et al., 2011). This era saw ten Education Acts passed (Tomlinson, 2011), in Thatcher’s first year in power the DES abolished the Schools’ Council and replaced it with the School Curriculum and Development Committee and the Secondary Examinations Council (House of Commons, 2009). The abolition of the Schools’ Council, which was mainly run by teachers, is thought to be the first steps towards a government take over on education and mainly the curriculum. Additionally, this era saw the release of several white papers, these papers were used to inform people of the increase to educational budgets (Ibid). Following on from Callaghan’s earlier speech, the White Paper released in 1985, named ‘Better Schools’ recommended a move towards a nationally agreed curriculum (Tomlinson, 2005). This was again a step closer to the start of the national curriculum.
In 1987, when Kenneth Baker was elected the new Secretary of State, a document was released, stating government legislation was to be put in place to set a basis for a National Curriculum (House of Commons, 2008). The ‘National Curriculum’ was first introduced as a part of the Education Reform Act 1988, brought in by the Conservative government. This act is a huge piece of legislation, it is much lengthier than the 1944 Education Act with 238 clauses and 13 schedules it is believed to have taken more than 360 hours of parliamentary time. It can be argued that the National Curriculum brought in by the new right government was trying to ensure all children were in receipt of an equal standard of education and national testing would be the key to identifying if this was the case in configuration to inspect the standard of teaching. As stated above this Act was brought in by the Conservative government, however Lawton (1989) states that a national curriculum would have been on the agenda no matter which political party was in power in this era, he argues further that the national curriculum proposed may have well been different given other political circumstances and ideologies. The introduction of a National Curriculum saw the government have more power over the education service than ever before, limiting the possibilities for progressive education to succeed in schools (McKenzie, 2001) The National Curriculum is set out into four key stages, ensuring children learn the relevant things at a relevant age, it is aimed at children ages five to 14 years old and gives guidance as to what subjects they should learn, divided into core subjects (maths, English, science) and foundation subjects (physical education, geography, history etc) (Ibid). The National Curriculum was first implemented in primary schools and then gradually introduced to secondary schools over the following years (House of Commons, 2009). The release of the National Curriculum caused a lot of debate, Young (1998) argues that the National Curriculum is not national; he states not every school nationally has to follow the curriculum and therefore it is not truly national. Gillard (1995) also shows concern, he says the content of the National Curriculum is to specific for teachers to follow and that it is the government that has decided the content not the teachers or professionals and therefore how can the government be sure it has the right content for children to learn. Furthermore he says he is troubled by the assessment procedures put in place, stating that the child is not assessed holistically, they are only tested on the subjects they are taught which does not show the child’s full potential (Ibid). 1994 saw a review of the National Curriculum, Sir Ron Dearing (Chair of the School Curriculum and Assessment Authority) released the review this became known as the Dearing Review. This review took place as parents complained the curriculum was too complicated and the testing arrangements were to complex (House of Commons, 2009). Dearing agreed with this stating that too much pressure was put on children during key stage testing and as a result of parents complaints along with his review the curriculum content was reduced (Ibid). From 1997 to 2007 it was New Labour that was in control, the Prime Minister was Tony Blair and through this era more continuous progression of the National Curriculum took place. It is thought that New Labour took a balanced, middle ground approach to politics (Bates et al., 2011). Their main focus was to raise standards, using their knowledge of inequalities within education to succeed in this approach. Whitty (2002) says that education became the priority of the New Labour era, with Tony Blair stating their new policy would be ‘education, education, education’. Bates et al, (2011) believes that the Blair government carried on the work of the National Curriculum set by the new right conservative government. In 1993 the government did a review of grades in GCSE examination to see if the National Curriculum had helped to raise standards, however the results were not good (see appendix 1, 2 and 3). The percentage of students achieving ‘average grades’ were very low, from this review the government vowed to make sufficient changes to the National Curriculum in order to improve standards like it was originally set out to do (Bates et al., 2011). In 1999 the National Curriculum was reviewed again by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA), which was introduced under the Conservative government, the QCA again stated that the content was still too large and it was due to this that it was reduced further (House of Commons, 2009). In 2000 an issue was raised by teachers that they did not know the purpose of the National Curriculum so the government released a document in order to ensure understanding on everyone’s part (Ibid). The National Curriculum has four main purposes (which are still present today) these are; ‘to establish an entitlement’ to ‘establish high standards’ to ‘promote continuity and coherence’ and to ‘promote public understanding’ (Ibid). Over the next ten years there were many more reviews and in effect the National Curriculum was reduced twice more. In 2010 the coalition government was formed (Conservative and Liberal Democrats) and together they produced a White Paper named ‘The Importance of Teaching’ which stated the importance of allowing teachers to teach, stating that the National Curriculum should be a ‘benchmark for teaching not a straightjacket’ or indoctrination of information fed to pupils in order to prepare them for the ‘adult world’ (DfE, 2010). It is of vital importance to note that the Coalition government became very critical of the National Curriculum, passing the blame on previous governments (New Labour), however New Labour did not make any major changes to the curriculum and the National Curriculum was first introduced by the Conservative party (who were one half of the coalition government). Following on from this in 2011 the DfE released a review of the National Curriculum and the outcome of this paper was that the new National Curriculum would introduce the idea of ‘freedom’, the new curriculum was to outline the subjects educationalists should teach instead of giving an in depth instructions (DfE, 2011). From 1993 to 2010 the standards in education have improved (see appendix 1, 2 and 3) and therefore it is of clear evidence that the government, schools, teachers and pupils are heading in the right direction to improving standards in the education system.
In 2013 the new National Curriculum was introduced and was to be implemented in schools by September 2014. The reason for the new curriculum was to try and improve standards in the United Kingdom’s education system. This is because in worldwide rankings of education results, the United Kingdom does not score well, ranked at 26th place in the ‘Pisa’ tests conducted by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD, N.D) (See appendix 4). This shows that there are 25 countries ‘succeeding’ higher than the UK, however in the tables shown in appendix (1, 2 and 3) it is evident that over the past 20 years the percentage of children in the UK leaving school with GCSE’s has improved, showing that the National Curriculum may have done what it intended to do and may well have raised standards in the education system In conclusion the assignment has investigated how the embracement of a National Curriculum for education would try to result in everyone receiving a fair standard of education and to see if the introduction of a National Curriculum has helped raise standards in British education. To do this the assignment began by investigating what the curriculum has been like in the UK historically, stating any social impacts and the effect the National Curriculum has had holistically. Following the discussions of the impacts each political party had on the curriculum it can be concluded that not everyone agrees with a National Curriculum, however the main aim of this essay was to investigate if it has helped improve standards. The author believes from the strong evidence shown (see appendix 1, 2 and 3) it is clear that the standard of education has definitely improved; however whether this is due to having a National Curriculum in place or not is still not decided. If the author was to say that standards have improved in the UK simply because of the introduction of a National Curriculum, the following question would have to be asked; if the National Curriculum was to be eradicated would standards in the UK’s educational system fall?