Past event
The Politics in Education Summit; Responsibility, Impact and Controls
The Politics in Education Summit;Responsibility, Impact & Controls
Monday 2nd November
The Royal Society London
Overview
The Politics in Education Summit www.politicsineducationsummit.co.uk will take place at The Royal Society on Monday 2nd November 2015 and will bring together practitioners, policymakers, stakeholders and experts from across education to explore and debate key issues around the role and remit of government in setting education policy and how this interacts with political ideology.
Our education system has the power to change lives, to generate social mobility and tackle social inequality. It prepares the next generation for productive social and economic futures, and it remains one of the most influential means that governments have available to them in ensuring economic productivity and competitiveness on the world stage. However, increasingly the UK has fallen behind many other countries in global league tables and successive government attempts to change this have seen a raft of education initiatives and extensive change across teaching, exams and school structures.
Key stakeholders within the education sector, in particular industry, universities and teachers have voiced concerns regarding how well students are prepared for the modern workforce or further academic study. The teaching profession has been vocal about the impact of ongoing educational reform and is reporting lower professional satisfaction levels than ever before and increasingly there are calls for a more cohesive approach to educational reform.
Whether it is focussing on the adaptive and relational skills that industry require or the ability for students to respond to the rigour of academia and independent research, the pressure on governments to create a world class education system in the UK has never been more important. The lack of a single answer probably underpins the challenges that governments face, but a clear voice is emerging that reform itself might contribute to the problem as much as be a solution.
Appointment to the role of the Secretary of State for Education has changed regularly over the past 25 years with an average time in post of just over two years, which makes implementing a clear and strategic long-term vision for education virtually impossible and begs the question – can any system subject to this much change possibly offer the best service to its users, and is there a better way?