EDUCATION STUDIES

Education Studies

Education Studies

A number of legislations have been passed in last 150 years to reform the English educational history. The main objective of this paper is to identify and assess two related events in English educational history that had influential impact of the English education. Different legislations have been passed in last fifty which amended the previous version of laws related to education standard. However, few new acts were also presented to improve the standard of education in UK. Two main events that have been analyzed in this paper include The Education Reform Act of 1988, and The School Standards and Framework Act 1998 and its impact on the National Education curriculum.

There has been a great concern of government to improve the education processes and standard. Skills shortage had been a major problem that was observed in last three decades in the country. Main reason is attributed to the poor structure of education and inability of department to assess the need of quality workforce requirement for the country. As a result, past few governments have been consistently focusing on improving the education curriculum to best serve the need of society. Under-performance in science, IT, mathematics, and social education domains of educational curriculum is mainly attributed to the conventional teaching methods that were extensively focusing on the process approach of educational curriculum (Tomlinson 2005, 64). In order to address these problems, Education Reform Act was approved in 1988 that was regarded as highly significant educational legislation in UK, Wales, and Ireland. In series to that, another act renowned as School Standards and Framework Act was passed in year 1998 that addressed the potential vulnerabilities of English educational system (GBP 2004, 79).

The Education Reform Act 1988

The Education Reform Act 1988 changed the elementary principles that were controlling the basic structure of educational system in English Channel. It enhanced the relationship between local education authorities in England and Wales and Department of Education and Science. This Act resulted in transfer of decision making powers from local government bodies to central government. This resulted in changing role of education department with remarkable impact on the responsibilities of educational institutes. Dimensional change in the policy structure was evident in this reform regarding improving the educational department roles and responsibilities (Jones 1992, 51).

This act was presented by Department towards central direction and statutory control mainly to deal with curriculum and educational assessment matters. Conservative thinking urged redefining the responsibilities and role of local education bodies. Its main objective was to enhance the accuracy in system and address the potential pitfalls of Education Act 1944. Implementation of this act resulted in transfer of decision making powers related to education curriculum and policies development to central government. National Curriculum Council member were therefore going to be appointed by the central committee directly monitoring the educational reform policies under the rights provided by the implementation of Act. This Act established policies under following dimensions that created a significant change in English Education ...