Three ways to improve education policy-making
Nobody involved in education in England right now can be in any doubt that things are a pretty bad state: teacher recruitment and retention in crisis, staff morale and wellbeing plummeting, parents and children seemingly less persuaded of the value of education than ever, and so little money that the Government is in the process of cutting everything they conceivably can … and there will still not be enough money.
As we move towards a general election, there will be no shortage of ideas on how to fix all of this - from the politicians of course, but also from a wealth of organisations advocating for change, some with good intentions, some lobbying for a parochial interest. And while we absolutely need some fresh thinking, particularly in public policy, it’s also a good time to reflect on how we could make policy in a better way. Our new book, Improving Education Policy Together, does just that.
Because the truth is that, no matter how tempting it might be to look for villains to blame or silver bullets to fire, the real issue has been the nature of the policy-making process itself.
We met when we were both deep in the policy-making process, as a senior civil servant in the Department for Education and a senior policy leader for a major education union. We’ve been in too many frustrating conversations, and seen first-hand some phenomenally bad policy ideas emerge, good ideas strangled, and good policies badly implemented. But there have been bright spots too - ways of working that have improved policy, increased understanding, and built better relationships. Our friendship grew over coffee, and questions like ‘why won’t the unions support this policy’ and ‘why can’t the DfE understand how badly this will affect teachers’? We have some pretty strong beliefs about education - but we've always been motivated by pragmatism rather than ideology, by a willingness to roll-up our sleeves to get things done rather than posturing for effect.
Against this backdrop we began to ask ourselves: how could this be done better? How could we create a better policy-making process, one that leads to considered decisions and sustainable outcomes, that helps children and teachers, that isn’t afraid of compromise but also doesn’t accept low ambitions? As we talked, over more coffee (and sometimes wine) we framed a new approach that has three, clear, overarching principles that can apply to everybody involved in making education policy: we want to see more collaboration, iteration and long-term thinking.
Collaboration
There are two core reasons why collaboration matters. First, it can help you have better ideas, based on a range of perspectives and experiences. Second, policy-making shouldn’t happen in a vacuum - it should aim to have sustained impact which means those affected need to buy-in to what you are trying to achieve. For a policy to have positive impact, it needs to reflect the reality on the ground, to focus on actual problems, and to have the support of those who will implement it. But we find ourselves at a point where collaboration - and the trust needed to make it work - is in very short supply.
For too long, the approach taken by policy-makers (especially Government) has focused on stakeholder management (telling people why your idea is right after it has been decided) or flawed consultations that have the veneer of collaboration but make no real attempt to consider alternative ideas and views. Consultations too often happen towards the end of the process, when ideas have been developed - you only need to look at the recent Advanced British Standard consultation (“To what extent do you support the proposed design for the Level 3 ABS programmes?”) and the responses (ASCL “The sector is being consulted on an output (i.e. a qualification) before we have agreed the relevant inputs (what skills, knowledge and areas that we want our young people to learn and know).”) to see the frustration and missed opportunity this represents.
But there are other ways to collaborate, ways that seek to gain real insights and start from a place of listening rather than talking. We’ve both been involved in working groups and expert groups, and in the complexities of ‘Social Partnership’, bringing people together at earlier stages to understand the issues and develop possible solutions. Social Partnership wasn’t perfect (and neither Government nor Unions always behaved well) but it was an attempt at meaningful collaboration. What really makes a difference is involving the people closest to the problem in a way that allows ideas to be explored in an atmosphere of trust and constructive challenge, where people are focusing on solving a problem, not on representing a position. In our book, we explore the historical approaches taken in England as well as look at international examples of collaborative policy-making - including those that take a much more open stance to engaging members of the public as well as education professionals - and suggest practical ways to create a more collaborative policy-making process.
Iteration
Education is a complex affair, with thousands of different factors and interventions having an impact on the educational outcomes of every child, over decades of early years, school, and further and higher education. It is, of course, important to break those complexities down into manageable chunks to help to understand things, and to ensure that proper focus can be given to important issues. But too often as policy-makers we go too far in our search for certainty, pitching our ideas as proven solutions, as the panacea that will make all the difference, without any sense of humility. Policies are announced without any sense of nuance, and with timescales for success that are rarely realistic. Piloting, testing, learning - all of these are luxuries that few policy-makers get to enjoy. Even rarer is a meaningful evaluation, one that allows us to learn and tweak an idea. Changing an approach is quickly framed as a U-turn by the press and often by those with other ideas in the system looking to score quick points.
It is tempting to lay the blame for this approach at the feet of the policy-makers, constantly looking for the next shiny idea rather than thinking about the hard work of learning from what is actually happening. And it is true that some politicians are more magpie-like in their character than is ideal. But there are deeper and more pernicious factors at play that make iterative policy-making difficult. In our book we explore the historical, systemic, organisational, and personal factors at play - looking at actors such as ministers and general secretaries, the DfE, His Majesty’s Treasury, and Number 10, and of course the school system itself. We also suggest better ways to build policy, looking at different approaches to testing and piloting that policy-makers can use to achieve better outcomes and save money.
Long-term thinking
It is crazy that there is such a disparity between the long-term nature of education (at least 18 years in different ways before a child is allowed to stop engaging in the system), and the incredibly short-term horizons of policy-making.
Think about a child who's turning 18 in 2024, therefore leaving compulsory education. They will have been born in 2006, not long after the Labour Government had announced its response to the 2004 Tomlinson Report and the programme of 14-19 reform that sought to create a brand-new suite of Diplomas to stand alongside GCSEs and A-Levels. By the time this child began primary school (and after billions of pounds of spending), 14-19 Diplomas were out and A grades at GCSEs were the order of the day to progress onto ‘gold-standard’ A Levels. Vocational qualifications were still an option but the Wolf Review in 2011 (under a Conservative/Lib Dem Coalition) led to a significantly constrained number that could be funded. As the child went to secondary school in 2017 (now with a Conservative Government) they would be looking for 9s at GCSEs rather than As, and were joining a school that might well be narrowing its curriculum to respond to the new Progress 8 measure. They began their GCSE journey during the pandemic, and sat those exams in 2022 (the first cohort to do so for two years), looking ahead to A-Levels, T-Levels or perhaps an apprenticeship. Let’s say they took T-Levels, and as they are now thinking about reaching the end of that course, perhaps they have been paying attention to the latest Government announcement to create a new, Advanced British Standard.
The point is that 18 years might feel like a long time in policy-making terms, but it's a single experience for a child. Both children and parents end up having to navigate systems that change too often, that respond to fads and initiatives, that come and go with bewildering speed. Worse, those changes are seldom motivated by the best, long-term interests of the education system - of children, parents, teachers - but instead by the short-term needs of policy-makers, especially but not exclusively politicians.
The end result is wasted money and wasted efforts. Billions in spending, in hours worked, in walking teachers up-and-down hills - it is maddening.
We consider some of the reasons why it is so hard to break-out of the cycle of thinking longer-term about policy making - looking at the political, social, and personal reasons that motivate key actors - and offer hope for a new way of working.
Improving Education Policy Together
Together, we believe that the combination of thinking more collaboratively, iteratively, and for the longer-term can be transformative. We have been deliberate in not proposing a single new policy idea in the book - there will be plenty of others doing that. Instead, we have focused on the nuts-and-bolts of the policy-making process, to show how it can be done differently, achieving better outcomes for children. We don't have all the answers, but we hope you will come on this journey with us.
