Education policy and policy making, 1997–2009

This chapter argues that policy since 1997 has been marked by confusion and contradiction, with Labour wanting to appear to be non-ideological in their approach to welfare reform in order to try and capture as much of the middle-class vote as possible, and so unwilling to tackle the question of the role of grammar schools in the education system, or that of how to deal with selection on entry to secondary schools. It links Labour's use of top-down initiatives such as the literacy hour and their extension of the National Curriculum to a fairly clear attempt to privatise education. It concludes by suggesting that there is now little to choose between the two main political parties in respect of education policy.