On the democratic deficit in recent education policy making in England: Brian Hudson

Brian Hudson is emeritus professor of education at the University of Sussex and co-editor with Marilyn Leask and Sarah Younie of Education System Design: Foundations, Policy Options and Consequences.

Introduction

I was prompted to write this piece when preparing for my role as discussant for the webinar held on “Policy Options and Consequences: Education System Design – perspectives from across the UK” organised by the BERA SIG on Educational Research and Educational Policy-Making on 11 May 2021. In approaching my task I was struck by the way in which England is an international outlier, not only in terms of policy options and consequences, as so vividly presented by Sarah Younie in her presentation, but also in terms of the foundations on which these options are based. This led me back to the title of our book which includes “foundations” along with “policy options and consequences”. The first chapter of the book addresses the values and principles which underpin decisions made about the structure of any education service.

The Democratic Conception of Education

In thinking about the underlying values I was drawn to reflect on the work of John Dewey (Dewey, 1916) and in particular his book Democracy and Education which was published over a century ago. In considering the “Democratic Conception in Education” he argues that the conception of education as a social process and function has no definite meaning until we define the kind of society we have in mind. This is based upon a vision of democracy that is more than a form of government. Rather it is primarily seen as a mode of associated living in a society which makes equal provision for full participation on the part of all its members.

Democracy as a Universal Value

This view of democracy chimes with the idea presented more recently of ‘Democracy as a Universal Value’ by Amartya Sen (1999) who sees the recognition of democracy as being one of the major achievements of the twentieth century. In addressing the question of what exactly is democracy, he argues that we must not identify democracy simply with majority rule. Rather democracy has complex demands, which includes voting and respect for election results, but which also requires the protection of liberties and freedoms, respect for legal entitlements and free and open debate. In particular he identifies three significant aspects of democracy. First he argues for the intrinsic value of political and social participation for human life and well-being. Second he highlights the instrumental value in enhancing the hearing that people get in expressing and supporting their claims to political attention with regard to political decision making. Third he draws attention to the

constructive function which relates to the practice of democracy which gives citizens an opportunity to learn from one another and helps society to form its values and priorities.

England as an outlier in relation to the constructive function of democracy

On the basis of the evidence from the four contributions from across the UK, it is striking that England is an outlier as a modern liberal democracy for the way in which the constructive function of democracy has been seriously eroded over recent years in ways that are very evident in relation to education policy making. All of this has happened against the background of a post-truth political culture and the propagation of false divides, in true Cummings style, between “The Blob” and Ministers, between so called traditionalists and progressives and most misguidedly between knowledge and skills.

Some consequences of the democratic deficit

As a consequence we have examples of schools being forced to join multi-academy trusts against the wishes of the local stakeholder communities such as the indefensible case at Moulescoomb Primary in Brighton at the present time despite two recent very positive Ofsted monitoring reports. In addition we have the recent announcement by the Education Secretary that he wants all schools to become part of multi-academy trusts which will serve to foster further division with local stakeholder communities. Other examples are very well documented by Warwick Mansell on the Education Uncovered website.

Furthermore we have an existential threat to the future of university based teacher education as a result of the untimely and needless “ITT market review” recently announced by the government despite HMCI reporting that 100% of age-phase ITE partnerships in England were judged to be good or outstanding. This review is overseen by a small ‘expert group’ that is neither independent nor representative of the stakeholder community and has led to public expressions of concern from the Universities’ Council for the Education of Teachers and the chair of the Cathedrals Group and the UUK/GuildHE teacher education advisory group.

On the urgent need to rebuild stakeholder consensus on education policy making in England

The current policy direction in England will only serve to demoralise schools that are currently maintained by councils, risk destabilising the excellent provision of initial teacher education in the country and do nothing to address the issues of social inequality brought into sharp relief by the pandemic. Against this background as we begin to emerge from the pandemic it is time to start rebuilding consensus around education policy making in England, if not through a National Education Board, then through a Royal Commission as proposed recently by Robert Halfon as Chair of the Education Select Committee.

References

John Dewey, (1916) Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education. New York: The Free Press.

Amartya Sen, (1999) Democracy as a Universal Value, Journal of Democracy, 10, 3, 3-17.

 

 

 

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