The impact of the 1988 Education Reform Act

The view that the 1988 Education Reform Act is influential in terms of controlling and progressing schools further could be seen as decisive, one reason being it could be a means of achieving control of the curriculum and the assessment, enabling them to progress and monitor there spending control, as well as the rise in the standards of school in terms of the competition and choice.There are also views that education has since, in similar ways, become more like a business, this comparison was made by sociologist Stephen Ball (1990), this would be because businesses (in other words; educational institutions/schools) would be competing to have the best customers (in other words; students). As well as, the feminists view that the act has benefited girls to become more work orientated instead of the typical stereotyped ‘love and romanticised’ girls.

In this essay I will further outline whether the act has had an impact on society or if it has become dysfunctional overtime.The 1988 Education reform act was one of the most notable and significantly developed legislation since the last radical regulation, the education act of 1944. This act was supported by the New Right, being pictured as the ‘jewel in the crown’, mainly because of the way it had achieved centralised control of the educational curriculum and the assessment, hence allowing them to monitored time after time, giving the schools spending controls as well as parents control of the child’s school and wellbeing.The New Right thinking had enabled a balance within the state control as well as the individual freedom, furthermore being argued as ‘business alike’ (Ball 1990), as it was controlled by a culture of target setting and a performance culture.

This view was oblivious to the more liberal proposals; further defining that educational institutions should support free thinking, imagination and cater individuality.Examples of the acts had included; a national curriculum (specifying core subjects), introduction of SAT’s and league tables (encouraging effectiveness and competition) and grant-maintained schools (state schools deciding to opt-out of being controlled by the local authority, if majority of parents had supported it too). First of all, the 1988 education reform act has impacted on the schools standards as it had been raised due to marketisation (institutions must be subject to market forces).Marketisation is the involvement of competition and choice, educational institutions must compete for the students with one another, providing parents the choice of their child’s education. Giving the parents freedom of choice is advantageous in some respect to the improvement of the school standards, as parents would want the best and most successful school available for their children, meaning that in order for the schools to attract the parents they would have to improve their standards in order meet the parent’s requirement.In a marketised education system public money is followed by parental choices, therefore it allows successful educational institutions to have funds extensively available as well as unsuccessful schools the encouragement to improve or face shutting down completely.

Although, marketisation may have a positive affect on education it also has a negative affect on education, as some marketisation and selection policies may produce social class differences in educational achievement.One aspect would be the ‘funding formula’; this procedure involves giving a school the same amount of funds for each of their student. This his can have an affect on working class children’s education because if the other schools have a higher fund due to parent’s choosing that school because of the high exam pass rate, then the working class children are unlikely to be able to get a place at that school therefore would lead them to being sent to a less popular school which has lower exam pass rate because of its lack of funding due to the number of pupils.This shows that the impact of the act does influence negativity and inequality as it benefits the middle class students immensely, as the low achievers (working class students) would be separated to a different school, allowing the middle class students to have better teaching than the working class students as there school would be more popular to some degree allowing them to do ‘creaming’. This term was suggested by sociologist Bartlett and Le Grand (1993) which was used to describe when a superior school chooses higher ability pupils (sociologist Stewart Ranson 1996), who would be able to gain the best results and cost them less to teach.

Another similar aspect would the introduction of exam league tables, exam league tables position each school according to its exam achievements but it makes no allowance for the level of ability of its pupils. This means that the schools that are higher achieving would select the higher achieving pupils neglecting the lower achievers from succeeding, which would further reinforce inequality in the education system.In contrast to this, it had started to benefit girls significantly, as they take education more seriously than boys, girls have the tendency to be more organised and care about their work, since the pre-industrial era women were more vulnerable as they were as the ‘stay-at-home housewife’ and now they have more time work and leisure. Feminists believe that education has become more advantageous towards women and has benefited disadvantaged women; they believe the act has allowed women to have more opportunities and an equal chance to men to achieve the best out of education.A study which supports this view is by sociologist Caroline Sharpe; she had interviewed a sample of women before and during the Education Reform Act, (interviews were made during 1976 and 1994). Her studies had shown that women’s priority had altered from the ‘love and marriage obsessed’ to aspiring women with careers; the results were clearly showing a major rise in the number of women with career goals and ambitions.

This shows that the 1988 Education Reform Act had a significant influence on women’s independence and have given them equal rights to work and education.On the other hand, the Reform Act in fact does still reinforce inequality in the education system, one aspect being that there are children from different social backgrounds which have accessibility to different resources, and have different experiences of education and achieve still different outcomes from education. Rather than improving life chances for all children, the system, regardless of arranging these policies which are designed to equalise opportunities, they reinforce advantages and disadvantages.Another aspect of inequality would the amount of knowledge parents have regarding the educational market as it would misleading to believe every parent has the same understanding.

Some parents have more cultural, social and economical capital which would have a major influence on getting them to a better more successful school. Parents who have more knowledge regarding this area are in a more enhanced position to influence the education market and utilise it to their gain and make the most out of it.This therefore puts the middle class and above in a better position than the typical working class as they would have the knowledge as well as the finances to put their child in a better more school with a higher reputation or place them in private schools, like; Harrow or Eton, which would be the ‘gateway’ to success as they would more and greater connections in the real world. In comparison, to the working class who would look to place their child in a local and free public school which would cost them little for their child to have an adequate education.These examples show how unfair and inequitable the educational institutions have become and how it doesn’t influence every individual in a positive way, it provides the middle class with more advantages rather than the working class who are in worse position as it is.

On the contrary, another disadvantage of the marketisation of education is that could lead to students having a constricted view of education meaning that they would see it as a means to an end.This was further backed up by sociologist Stewart Ranson (1996) he argued that the education market is based upon the theory that each individual will follow an ‘instrumental rationality’ in which there only worry would be to themselves. This would because the education market influences to act this way as it weakens the values which stress of the importance of egocentricity and co-operation of others.To conclude from this I would agree that the impact of Education Reform Act is beneficial to some degree, as the regulations since have become more equal in comparison to the regulations established before 1988. As in the pre-industrial era, an exam had determined the future of the generations, as if a child had passed their exam they were given the privilege of attending a grammar school, if they had failed they were sent to a secondary modern school.This level of inequality is unfair as it is exposes to them, at a tender young age, their future, a student which attends a grammar schools would be destined to great things, this also is an unequal opportunity as it did cater for everyone individual needs.

Hence since then, SAT’s (Standard Attainment Tests) have been introduced which tests each pupil at the end of each Key Stage rather than after the age of 11.There has also been justice for girls who haven’t had equal opportunity and have been given the chance of pursuing a successful education as well as a successful working job. However, the disadvantages would also have to be taken into consideration as it is still unfair for the working class families, there are many aspect which contribute to this argument a few having been already mentioned; parents not having enough economical capital to compete with the wealthy and parents not having sufficient amount of knowledge regarding the schools available for their children.