Ann Hodgson

Education for all : The future of education and training for 14-19 year olds

1. Introduction: Why a Review? 2. Aims and Values 3. Context 4. Measuring System Performance 5. Learning 6. Teaching 7. Curriculum Framework for the 21st Century 8. From Qualification Reform to a Framework for Learning 9. Employers and the Labour Market 10. Progression to Higher Education 11. Insitutional Arrangements and the Wider Governance Landscape 12. Policy and Policy Making in 14-19 Education and Training 13. Conclusions and Recommendations

PART-TIME WORK AND FULL-TIME EDUCATION IN THE UK: THE EMERGENCE OF A CURRICULUM AND POLICY ISSUE

The 1990s have seen a burgeoning international, national and local literature on the significance of part-time work for those in full-time education. In this article, we trace the development of different strands of research in this area over the last decade. In common with other writers, we attribute the increased interest in the phenomenon of part-time work among full-time learners to changes in the youth labour market allied to rising levels of post-16 participation. Using evidence from three recent studies, we suggest that the scale and intensity of participation in part-time work amongst full-time 16-19 year olds appears to have increased significantly towards the end of the 1990s and that a growing commitment to part-time work has become the norm for learners in full-time 16-19 courses. Our research suggests, however, that learners in advanced-level courses have related study and paid work in different ways, and we develop a number of learner typologies to reflect this. In the final section, we explore how the Qualifying for Success qualification reforms (often referred to as Curriculum 2000), which seek to expand study programmes for advanced-level 16-19 year olds, might affect the relationship between earning and learning. We conclude by identifying a number of issues around earning and learning that we feel deserve further research and public debate.

Modernisation and the Role of Policy Levers in the Learning and Skills Sector.

This paper examines the changing use of policy levers in the English postcompulsory education and training system, often referred to as the learning and skills sector (LSS). Policy steering by governments has increased significantly in recent years, bringing with it the development of new forms of arms‐length regulation. In the English context, these changes were expressed during the 1980s and 1990s through neoliberal New Public Management and, since 1997, have been extended through the New Labour government’s project to further ‘modernise’ public services. We look here at the changing use of policy levers (focussing in particular on the role of targets, funding, inspection, planning and initiatives) over three historical phases, paying particular attention to developments since the formation of the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) in 2001. We conclude by considering the range of responses adopted by education professionals in this era of ‘modernisation’.

An analytical framework for policy engagement: the contested case of 14–19 reform in England

This article attempts to construct an analytical framework to reflect upon the deeply contested area of 14–19 education and training policy in England following the publication of the Government’s White Paper 14–19 education and skills. We argue that the evolution of 14–19 policy over the last 15 years, culminating in the publication of the Tomlinson Final Report on 14–19 reform and then its rejection by the Government, might be better understood by looking at this area through the application of four related conceptual tools—political eras, the education state, the policy process and the operation of political space. These concepts or tools are used here both to narrate historical and recent 14–19 developments, to critique current policy‐making in this area, and to identify opportunities and challenges facing researchers seeking to engage with the policy process. We suggest that this analytical framework might not only be applied to reform in the 14–19 phase but also to education policy more widely.

Beyond A levels : curriculum 2000 and the reform of 14-19 qualifications

The importance of policy memory and system thinking for curriculum and qualifications reform in England Understanding and judging Curriculum 2000 Curriculum 2000 - patterns of change Reforming A levels under Curriculum 2000 - a halfway house? The Advanced Vocational Certificate of Education - a general or vocational qualification? Developing key skills in the 14-19 curriculum - from an assessment-led to a curriculum-led approach Shaping Curriculum 2000: the role of higher education and other external incentives Beyond A levels - a new approach to 14-19 curriculum and qualifications reform. Appendices: The Institute of Education/Nuffield Foundation Research Project (1999-2003) The Take-up of AGNVQ and AVCE, 1999-2002 The UCAS Tariff.

How policy impacts on practice and how practice does not impact on policy

The TLRP project reported on in this article attempts to understand how the Learning and Skills sector functions. It traces how education and training policy percolates down through many levels in the English system and how these levels interact, or fail to interact. The authors first focus upon how policy impacts upon the interests of three groups of learners: unemployed people in adult and community learning centres, adult employees in work-based learning and younger learners on Level 1 and Level 2 courses in further education. They focus next upon how professionals in these three settings struggle to cope with two sets of pressures upon them: those exerted by government and a broader set of professional, institutional and local factors. They describe in particular how managers and tutors mediate national policy and translate it (and sometimes mistranslate it) into local plans and practices. Finally, the authors criticise the new government model of public service reform for failing to harness the knowledge, good will and energy of staff working in the sector, and for ignoring what constitutes the main finding of the research: the central importance of the relationship between tutor and students.

Improving learning, skills and inclusion : the impact of policy on post-compulsory education

Section 1: What are the issues? 1. The main themes 2. The context and rationale of the research and the book Section 2: What does the research show? 3. The learners story 4. The policy-makers stories 5. The tutors stories 6. The story of the sector in action 7 . How inclusive is the sector? Section 3: Overall implications 8. Alternative futures Methodological appendix: How we developed the stories

‘The heart of what we do’: policies on teaching, learning and assessment in the learning and skills sector

One of the stated aims of government policy in England is to put teaching, training and learning at the heart of the learning and skills system. This paper provides a critical review of policies on teaching, learning and assessment in the learning and skills sector over the past five years. It draws upon data collected and analysed in the early stages of an ESRC‐funded Teaching and Learning Research Programme project. 1 Using evidence from policy sources, we argue that despite policy rhetoric about devolution of responsibility to the ‘front line’, the dominant ‘images’ that government has of putting teaching, learning and assessment at the heart of the learning and skills sector involves a narrow concept of learning and skills; an idealization of learner agency lacking an appreciation of the pivotal role of the learner–tutor relationship and a top‐down view of change in which central government agencies are relied on to secure education standards.

Riding the waves of policy? The case of basic skills in adult and community learning in England

This paper draws on data from secondary sources and in‐depth interviews to explore the question: What is the impact of policy on teaching, learning, assessment and inclusion in Adult and Community Learning (ACL) Skills for Life (SfL) provision? In particular, it focuses on the government’s use of five policy‐steering mechanisms—funding, inspection, planning, targets and policy initiatives (in this case SfL). The design of the study allows us to use evidence from four sets of interviews with teachers, learners and managers of ACL in eight sites of learning (four in London and four in the North East) over a period of 26 months of considerable policy turbulence. We argue, first, that there is a symbiotic relationship between ACL and SfL provision; and second, that while the combined effects of targets and funding have the most powerful effects on tutor and manager actions, inspection, planning and tutors’ and managers’ own professional values also have an important role in shaping the teaching of literacy and numeracy in ACL sites. We conclude by suggesting that professionals at the local level should be allowed to play a greater role in SfL policy‐making to ensure effective policy and practice.

A new learning and skills landscape? The central role of the Learning and Skills Council

This is the first paper from a project which is part of the Economic and Social Research Councils programme of research into ‘Teaching and learning’. The project, entitled ‘The impact of policy on learning and inclusion in the new learning and skills sector’, explores what impact the efforts to create a single learning and skills system are having on teaching, learning, assessment and inclusion for three marginalized groups of post‐16 learners. Drawing primarily on policy documents and 62 in‐depth interviews with national, regional and local policy‐makers in England, the paper points to a complex, confusing and constantly changing landscape. In particular, it deals with the formation, early years and recent reorganization of the Learning and Skills Council (LSC), its roles, relations with government, its rather limited power, its partnerships and likely futures. While the formation of a more unified learning and skills system is broadly seen as a necessary step in overcoming the fragmentation and inequalities of the previous post‐16 sector, interviewees also highlighted problems, some of which may not simply abate with the passing of time. Political expectations of change are high, but the LSC and its partners are expected to carry through ‘transformational’ strategies without the necessary ‘tools for the job’. In addition, some features of the learning and skills sector policy landscape still remain unreformed or need to be reorganized. The LSC and its partners are at the receiving end of a series of policy drivers (e.g. planning, funding, targets, inspection and initiatives) that may have partial or even perverse effects on the groups of marginalized learners we are studying.