03 Section B Option 2, Key question 1 - New Right education and vocationalism (part 4)

New Right choice and standards

The New Right argues that education should develop capable, responsible individuals and respond more closely to the people who use it.

The New Right combines support for markets and individual choice with conservative concerns about authority, discipline and shared values. Its market argument questions whether a centrally administered education system has enough incentive to improve. If families have little alternative, providers may continue receiving pupils and resources even when their teaching disappoints them. The objection concerns the incentives facing institutions; it does not establish that individual teachers lack commitment.

In the proposed mechanism, parents compare schools using information about results, provision and standards. They prefer a school that meets their child's needs. Where resources depend on attracting pupils, losing applications threatens a school's position; attracting them rewards success. Leaders therefore have an incentive to improve teaching, use resources efficiently and respond to families. Accountability means having to explain performance and face consequences for it. Choice is supposed to make schools accountable to parents as consumers rather than mainly to administrators.

An original teaching example makes the reasoning explicit. Two publicly funded schools compete for pupils. Families begin preferring the school offering reliable teaching and strong support. If the other school can lose pupils and funding, its leaders have a reason to improve that provision. The claim that standards will rise depends on several links: families must identify quality, have an accessible alternative and be able to obtain a place; schools must be able to improve. Announcing choice alone does not complete the mechanism.

Chubb and Moe's US book Politics, Markets, and America's Schools (1990) argues for parental/student choice, school competition and greater school autonomy. It supplies a clear market-oriented argument, rather than proof that introducing choice will improve every English school. Its national setting and the difference between an argument and a causal test matter when applying it. Brookings publisher account.

Individual responsibility connects the parts of the argument: parents should choose carefully, pupils should work and accept discipline, and schools should answer for standards. However, market freedom does not necessarily remove government. In an influential earlier argument, Friedman (1955) distinguished public financing from direct state administration, proposing parental vouchers while retaining minimum standards and recognising education's contribution to shared citizenship. His proposal was an argument, not the description of a British voucher system. Original essay, pp. 2–5 of the PDF.

This creates a tension worth explaining: greater school autonomy gives providers room to respond, while common requirements limit that freedom. Historically, the Education Reform Act 1988 included a National Curriculum with attainment targets and assessment arrangements. That is evidence of state standard-setting alongside the market debate; the detailed policy sequence belongs to the later policy lesson. Act as enacted, section 2.

Unequal capacity to choose

Formal permission to choose a school does not give every family the same practical opportunity to secure a preferred place.

A school market requires information, accessible alternatives and usable resources. Economic resources include money for travel or housing near a school. Cultural capital means socially valued knowledge, dispositions and ways of communicating; here it can include understanding admissions procedures or knowing how to question a school's claims. Social capital means resources available through social relationships, such as advice from parents who already know the system. These can shape how confidently and effectively a family navigates choice.

Consider this original scenario. Both families want good education and have the same formal right to express preferences. One can visit distant schools, organise transport and use knowledgeable contacts to interpret admissions information. The other faces inflexible work hours and cannot afford the journey. The second family's shorter list need not indicate lower aspiration or less responsibility. It may reflect a smaller set of feasible options. Even well-informed families cannot all gain places at one oversubscribed school.

Gewirtz, Ball and Bowe's article Parents, privilege and the education market-place (1994) draws on an ESRC study of secondary-school markets. Its published abstract uses detailed accounts of three families to show how material resources and cultural capital shape engagement with choice, including disadvantages affecting some immigrant families with middle-class backgrounds. This qualitative approach illuminates processes which a simple count of preferences might miss. Three family accounts cannot establish the national percentage experiencing each barrier; the evidence should support an explanation of unequal choice, rather than a universal claim about all working-class or immigrant parents. Original journal abstract.

There is also a problem of what competition rewards. If families judge schools chiefly by raw examination results, a school may gain by attracting pupils likely to achieve highly. Cream-skimming means seeking an advantaged or high-attaining intake rather than improving education for every pupil. This is a possible incentive, not a claim that every school behaves this way. A rise in a school's average results could reflect changed intake rather than improved teaching. Pupils remaining in a less popular school may face a worsening resource position before any promised improvement occurs.

A New Right response could propose clearer information, fair access and help with travel so that more families can exercise choice. Such a response acknowledges that the design of a market matters. The evaluative question becomes whether these measures remove the relevant barriers and make competition reward teaching, rather than assuming either that all choice succeeds or that no family can benefit.

Academic, vocational and work-based routes

Education can prepare people for work through general knowledge, occupational learning and training undertaken in employment.

Academic education is organised mainly around bodies of disciplinary knowledge, such as history or mathematics. A levels are a familiar example. Academic learning can support higher study and employment, even when it does not train a learner for a single occupation. Vocational education relates learning to an occupation or occupational field, such as engineering or health and social care. It can take place in a school or college and can contain substantial theoretical knowledge. Work-based training develops learning in the workplace, often through supervised practice alongside experienced workers. An apprenticeship combines employment and training with study. The official account for England describes apprentices as employees learning job-specific skills alongside training/study; other UK nations have their own arrangements. GOV.UK apprenticeship explanation.