Margaret thatcher education policy

Chris Husbands
She established more comprehensive schools than any other secretary of state for education. She raised the school leaving age. She set up the Bullock Committee which produced a ground-breaking report on language and learning still held in awe by teachers of English.

She accepted the James Report on teacher training and in-service education recomend that teachers should be released for in-service training for periods equivalent to one term in every 7 years of service. Her most substantial White Paper &#;  Education, A Framework for Expansion &#;  envisaged that within ten years “nursery education should become available without charge to those children of three and four whose parents wish them to benefit from it” , that the number of teachers in schools would increase by 10% above the number required to maintain existing class size.

Education policy in the philippines We have no intention of imposing on the country a universal system of comprehensive schools. And assuming that was the case, one can only conclude that Heath supposed MT a solid supporter of the new statutory policy. Margaret Thatcher's view at the time went unrecorded. The origins of this policy can be traced back to the establishment in of the Institute of Economic Affairs, a right-wing think-tank which, during the s, had 'worked tirelessly to persuade the Conservative Party to abandon the post-war welfare consensus and embrace social and educational policies based on nineteenth-century free-market anti-statism' Chitty a

She was given a standing ovation at a National Unions of Teachers conference. She set up the commission which produced the  Warnock Report on special educational needs, and the legislation based on the report introduced the concept of statementing to secure appropriate provision for children with additional learning needs. Her government funded the most lavish programme of technical and vocational curriculum development the country had ever seen.
She did not introduce local financial management of schools – that had been done by local authorities such as Solihull – but the Education Act extended financial management to all schools.

She did not introduce parental choice – which still does not exist as a legal right in England – but the Education Act gave parents the right to express a preference on which school their children should go to.

Margaret thatcher education policy The letter describes a dinner of European Finance Ministers at which Helmut Schmidt, later German Chancellor, admits that the British were paying too much and expresses a readiness to look again at the terms of entry. The Pay Board also hopes to report in June on the question of London allowance. But this also parallels our experience in the United States: continuing in the right direction toward reform, making some mid-course corrections, with more effort still needed. Her government's policies 'accelerated the closing down of unprofitable industries and promoted a profound social and economic restructuring' Jones

She introduced the first statutory entitlement to a broad and balanced curriculum England had seen. Her Education Act introducing this national curriculum was, at the time, the largest single piece of legislation Parliament had enacted, though she subsequently regretted the excessive detail the act had introduced. She introduced national testing at 7, 14, 11 and   The ‘City Technology Colleges&#; introduced in prefigured City Academies;   ‘grant maintained schools’ – for all practical purposes revised as converter academies in – were harbingers of autonomous schools.

She abolished tenure for university academics. For many years she was nicknamed ‘milk snatcher’ for the decision to remove free school milk for children over  the age of 7.
This was the education legacy of Margaret Thatcher. As an expansionist secretary of state for education in the Heath government of the s and as a dominating Prime Ministerial figure in the s she straddled two quite different eras in educational politics:  the period of confident expansion and investment which preceded the economic crisis of , and the period of painful adjustment to financial realities of the s.

Her legacy shapes education:  universal nursery education, prefigured in the White Paper is now seen as a cornerstone of social policy.

Education policy journal By raising the school leaving age and, at the same time, providing for a dramatic development of nursery education the Conservative Government made a notable extension of quantity. Files on crucial episodes have been filmed and placed on line below, by generous permission of the National Archives. Local authorities would no longer allocate children to schools: 'The parent should be able to apply to any secondary school; there should be no zones, no catchment areas' Sexton We have to assume that the politicians keep their fingers out of it, apart from laying down the framework within which variety and diversity can abound in accordance with the aspirations and abilities of the children Sexton

The education participation age raised in is now being raised again. No British government will ever abandon the idea of a National Curriculum, nor will local financial management ever be rolled back. Her legacy defines the education world which we all operate in and it was not substantially changed by John Major, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, David Cameron nor any of the ten secretaries of state for education who have held office in the twenty four years since she left Downing Street.
Her legacy remains divisive: divisive between those who see competition, market forces and the accompanying accountabilities  as drivers of higher efficiency, improved performance and greater transparency,  and those who see them as corrosive of collaboration, community and professional integrity.

But however divisive the debates remain, the White Paper and the rather different and Education Acts continue to shape the debate about education. It was an earlier Conservative minister for education, David Eccles, who in spoke of the curriculum as a ‘secret garden’ into which politicians should not venture. Margaret Thatcher, as secretary of state and as Prime Minister tore down the walls of the secret garden – well, comprehensively.