8 - The less things change: conservatism, COVID-19 and incoherence in education policy

Summary

Introduction

The field of education policy in England is organised and governed by sectors (preschool, compulsory, further education, higher education and adult), each of which has peculiar and specific characteristics. Nonetheless, across these sectors, certainly at present, it is possible to identify a set of recurring policy emphases. This chapter addresses education policy with a primary focus on the compulsory schooling sector. Even so, this is in no way a comprehensive account of compulsory education policy under the Conservatives; that is simply impossible – there is too much policy. Rather it uses the COVID-19 interregnum and the Schools Bill 2022 as moments in which a more general set of issues in relation to education policy played out – issues of governance and issues of inequality.

The ‘story’ of Conservative education policy from 2015 to 2023 can be told two ways. One highlights some underlying principles that have a ‘history’ in Conservative political thought; the other emphasises muddle and lack of direction. The chapter gives some consideration to each, and to some extent joins them up by drawing attention to the tensions (in political rationality) and the resulting incoherence (in practice) that arise. That is to say, there are clearly aspects of different political rationalities embedded in the making of Conservative education policy; and at the level of practice, these produce contradictions. However, most policy analysis work begins with an assumption, or brings to bear a perspective, of coherence or planned order, and in this sense the analysis often works to constitute the object of its concern. We lack the tools, and perhaps also the predilection, to address policy as incoherent or absurd.

The education policies of the Conservative governments of Cameron (2015– 16), May (2016– 19), Johnson (2019– 22), Truss (2022) and Sunak (2022– ) have exemplified and continued the main trends and tensions initiated by the Conservative administrations led by Margaret Thatcher (1979– 90). First, a neoconservative commitment to traditional and canonical principles and priorities – particularly as regards the school curriculum, a form of ‘restorationism’ – and concomitantly an assertion of central controls over more and more aspects of education practice.