Impact of the Education Reform Act 1988 - Essay Example

The Impact of Education Reform Act 1988 (Name) (Course) (Lecturer) (Date) Introduction Education in the United Kingdom is primarily concerned with developing and passing new skills and knowledge for the past years. It indeed plays a major role in the lives of the young generation as it offers knowledge and opens doors to various social achievements. As such, the different governments that have been in place have played major roles in boosting the level of education in the country. This was related to the changing system of education that perceived not to be responding correctly to the economic challenge. This included the competitive requirement to replace the United Kingdom declining manufacturing sector with novel industries that were manned by technically skilled work force. According to Nitta (2001) the teaching profession in the country needed to have recognized this and take the appropriate action. However, this did not happen and the government had to step in through a bureaucratic and clumsy manner which ultimately achieved raising standards in the primary skills (Dobert et al. 2004). For instance, these governments have introduced various Acts that have changed the systems of education. The Education Reform Act The famous 1988 Education Reform Act is regarded as one of the most radical part of education legislation of the last 5 decades. It was passed by the Conservative (New Right) government that was led by Margaret Thatcher. The Act was designed by Kenneth Baker, the then secretary of education. Indeed, most educationalists have it that it is the most massive intervention in the history of education system in the country in terms of school management, assessment and curriculum. It reversed the earlier political view about the autonomy of schools and teachers. The primary purpose of this Act was to centralize the educational provisions in the United Kingdom and offer a standardization of education in the country. This was in order to provide equal education standards to all young people no matter their residents with the UK. The Act introduced National Curriculum (NC) that the stated schools in the UK needed to follow. The NC laid down compulsory (mandatory) subjects that were expected to be studied in the main areas of science, literacy and numeracy. Further than this optional foundation, subjects were provided which state schools had limited caution in departing from (Garner 2009). The Education Reform Act also introduced Standard Attainment Tests (SATs) that was expected to be taken at the ages of seven, eleven, fourteen and sixteen. This SATs at the end point led to what was known as the four main stages of the centralize education system undertaken by the four to sixteen year old age group. Under the assessments, the GSCEs replaced the old two tier examination of CSEs and ‘O’ levels which students were entered for in state schools according to their observed academic ability. Under the Act, the City Colleges were set up to offer technology. The government saw to it that schools were funded and the grant maintained schools (GMS) were given a budget in order for them to decide on how to spend. Under parental choice, guardians had the right to apply for intakes in any state schools for their children. The schools would then admit the students at their direction by following the open enrollment policies. Other reforms included the introduction of local management of schools that allowed the state schools to control fiancé directly (Bloed 2004). The fund would be handed by the governors and head teacher of the schools; abolishment of the academic tenure; introduction of key strategies and the control utilization of the world degree were coined with respect to various bodies in the country. It is important to note that prior to the 1988 Act reforms, educationalists believed that the education system in the UK was outdated. For the instance, the 1944 Education Act that introduced tripartite system, catered for pupils through by determining their capabilities through the 11+ test. This was more of a discriminatory test as the only beneficiaries were the intelligent students who were able to attend grammar schools (Beaver et al. 2001). Impact of Education Reform Act 1988 on state schooling The impacts were basically the ones that were planned. The Act was designed basically to raise the raise the standards of education system through the introduction of a National Curriculum and the main subjects, that is, Science, English and Mathematics. This is because state schools were blamed for lacking the ‘the basics’. The Education Reform Act created quasi-market situation on education by increasing the customers, that is, the parents and decreasing producers, that is, the teachers’ power in education. This took place through the introduction of an open enrollment policies, SATs and new evaluation assessment system that made the teachers accountable and offered the league tables, results of SATs as the main basis for the parents’ decisions in selecting schools for their children (Cumming 2012). The quasi market situation did not only maker schools and teachers accountable but also made state schools compete against each other over resources and funding. Therefore, the act had created a situation where the government had the power to define the correct or desired results of education and ensure that the attainment in curriculum coverage was attained through the most efficient and effective way (Florian 2007). As anticipated the prominence of core subjects as stipulated by the National Curriculum shifted subject balance which had traditionally, been considered significant part of children daily activities. Despite the fact that NC was promised to balance and broad the curriculum it resulted to be quite impossible as the core subjects occupied more spaces in the timetable as compared to other subjects (Pachler & Barnes 2012). It is perceived that these core subjects took about half of the timetable and this left about twenty minutes for each other subject and the Religious Education per day. As a result, most of the expressive and effective subjects such as music, technology, PE and art were ruled out. This is because they were considered too take too much time. Still some teachers complained that dance and drama were cut down in the state school. It is argued that the primary education should not only develop academic excellence but it should also develop individual and take into account social development of the children. The above tradition has been associated to extra-services and cross-curricular activities which were affected by the reforms. It is perceived that the topic works and cross-curricular were constrained by the schooling planning as stated by the National Curriculum. The decline of the extra-curriculum activities is attributed to the fact that most teachers are mostly squeezed up in monitoring and assessing paper works. In addition the same teachers reported that various traditional activities in the schools were being pressed out as they felt that they had few energy left to plan and organize for non-academic activities (Nitta 2001). . The introduction of assessments, SATs, and record keeping caused frustration and to some extent anger among the teaching staff as they feared the undesirable and time consuming paper pushing that they considered being a major way of taking away the real teaching. The teachers viewed real teaching one way of interacting and responding to the students. It also involves preparing and planning lessons, displaying and marking works. Essentially, the reforms reduced or took over the real teaching in state schools (Hargreaves & Hopkins 2004). As the NC was aimed at raising the standards of education, especially in the core subjects, the teachers were pressed to apply the most effective and efficient teaching tools in order to cover the attainment targets (ATs) especially in the basic subjects. This resulted to unavoidable consequences on giving the children attention as pupils centered methods essentially were considered to be ineffective as they were seen to emphasize goals at the very expense of teaching cognitive objectives. As a result the teachers felt that they had not control of their teaching activities and had less freedom in the choice of teaching compared to the ways (Rutter 2006) Indeed, the Education Reform Act 1988 had various impacts on the system of education in the United Kingdom. The Act saw to it that the curriculum, budget, personnel and admission issues were according to the requirement of the students. The curriculum required that all states schools to teach national curriculum in 10 subjects and emphasized on the core subjects. It also requires assessment of all states schools age of 7, 11 and 14. Under the budget, required the financial sector to pass about 85 per cent of non-categorical funding directly to state schools, funding to be done per student basis and the governor and head teacher to control the funds. As seen most the critiques argue that the Act has more negative effects compared to the positive more so when evaluating the work of the teachers. Apart from funding and introduction of resources, the overall control of a teacher in the classroom and the interaction between the teacher and the pupil declined. References Beaver, M., Brester, J., & Ones, P. 2001, Babies and young children: diploma in child caare and education. London: Nelson Thornes. Bloed, A. 2004, European yearbook of minority: 2002-2003. London: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. Cumming, J. 2012, Valuing students ith impairment . New York: Springer. Dobert, H., Klieme, E., & Sroka, V. 2004, Conditions of school performane in seven countries . London : Waxmann Verlag. Florian, L. 2007, The Sage handbook of special education . New York: Sage. Garner, P. 2009, The key concepts: special education needs. London : Taylor & Francis. Hargreaves, D., & Hopkins, D. 2004, Empowered schools. New York: Continuum International Publishing Group. Nitta, K. 2001, The political of structural education reforms. London: Routledge. Pachler, N., & Barnes, A. 2012, Learning to teach modern foreign languages in the secondary schools. London : Routledge. Rutter, J. 2006, Refugee children in UK. London: McGraw Hill international. Read More