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Education Policy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Rebecca Allen
Rebecca Allen*
Affiliation:
Reader in Economics of Education at UCL Institute of Education, currently on leave as Director of Education Datalab at FFT
*
E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

This article summarises the 2010–15 Coalition government's education policy, contrasting their attempts to liberalise education markets with the desire to impose a highly traditional curriculum. The government's quite radical reforms have not been easy to implement, taking place against severe budgetary constraints and a minority Coalition partner with ambitions to improve the educational outcomes of children from low income families. It could be argued that the reforms have been successfully implemented, and there is little prospect of wholesale reversal by any future government. However, their combative approach to reform leaves a demotivated teacher workforce, a possible impending teacher recruitment crisis as the economy recovers, and a tangled web of accountability structures that will need to be resolved.

Keywords

education policycoalition governmentI28
Type
Research Articles
Information
National Institute Economic Review , Volume 231 , February 2015 , pp. R36 - R43
Copyright
Copyright © 2015 National Institute of Economic and Social Research

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Footnotes

I would like to thank Meenakshi Parameshwaran and Ian Moss for research assistance. Chris Cook and Heather Rolfe gave very helpful reviewer comments that have materially improved the article.

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