From a National System Locally Administered to a National System Nationally Administered: The New Leviathan in Education and Training in England

Abstract

This article's starting point is Glennerster et al.'s 1991 question in JSP, 20: 3 whether ‘the decisive break’ they then saw in British social policy represented ‘A New Enlightenment or a New Leviathan’. Evidence is produced from the policy arena of education and training (i.e., learning) to argue that the Learning and Skills Act due for implementation from 1 April 2001 represents an example of the latter rather than the former. The Act is a further step on the road from what was traditionally ‘a national system of education locally administered’ to a national system nationally administered. This is clearly seen when the post-war system of education and training established by the 1944 Education Act is contrasted with the new system of contracting out provision through agencies. In presenting this contrast the article is an exercise in ‘Learning Policy’, described as ‘a new area of social policy … [which] indicates the concerted approach that many governments in developed countries now take to integrate the reproduction of knowledge at all levels in the education institutions under their control with skill formation in training in and out of employment’ (Ainley, 1999, p. 9).