Educational Opportunity, Social
Citizenship and Devolution: ‘community
schools’ and educational attainment in
Wales
Gareth Rees
Wales Institute of Social & Economic Research, Data and Methods
Moray House School of Education
4 February 2011
Overview: Policy Divergence and Social
Citizenship
• One of the signal effects of parliamentary
devolution since 1999 has been policy
divergence, especially with respect to public
services, including education.
• What this implies is the development of
different forms of – in T.H.Marshall’s terms ‘social citizenship’.
• These have significant implications for the
relationships between citizens (pupils, parents),
the school and ultimately the state.
‘For Wales, see England’
• I shall be drawing primarily on an analysis of Welsh
experience since 1999 (based on work done with
colleagues, Sally Power and Chris Taylor, at WISERD).
• This is partly because, unlike for Scotland and
Northern Ireland, the extent of devolved powers and
policy divergence in Wales is not widely recognised.
• This is especially important given that much of the 20th.
Century was characterised by an ‘England and Wales’
educational system.
Community Schools and Educational
Attainment in Wales
• More specifically, a broadly social democratic version
of social citizenship is expressed, inter alia, through a
strong commitment to ‘community schools’.
• However, this is in sharp tension with other dimensions
of this account of social citizenship that emphasise
particular forms of educational attainment.
• These tensions generate a ‘crisis of legitimacy’ for
devolved educational provision.
Community Schools and Welsh
Education Policy
• Welsh schooling is dominated by state provision: only
2% of pupils attend independent schools.
• The Welsh Assembly Government (WAG) has
consistently pursued a policy of non-selective,
‘community-based’ secondary (and primary) schools;
comprehensive schools serving defined neighbourhood.
• Hence, the diversity of types of secondary school
adopted in England is not replicated in Wales.
• In October 2010, the Minister announced that the
Education (Wales) Measure 2011 would stop any
further Foundation Schools.
State Secondary Schools in Wales,
by category, 2000-1 to 2009-10
Community
Voluntary
aided
Voluntary
controlled
Foundation
Total
2000-1
200
19
2
8
229
2003-4
198
19
2
8
227
2004-5
198
19
2
8
227
2005-6
195
19
2
8
224
2006-7
195
19
2
8
224
2007-8
193
19
2
8
222
2008-9
194
19
2
8
223
2009-10
194
19
2
8
223
Community Schools: some
implications 1
• Community schools entail a prioritisation of close
relationships between schools and the geographicallydefined communities they serve.
• More specifically, they imply a number of key ideas
about how secondary schooling ought to be organised.
• These include:
• A key role for parents (for example, the new Inspection
Framework) and pupils (for example, mandatory school
councils) in the management of schools;
• Local authorities provide the most important mechanism for
the wider management of secondary-level provision,
especially through funding, admissions and support services
(for example, 2008 School Effectiveness Framework).
Community Schools: some
implications 2
• Equally, however, it is important not to over-emphasise
the distinctiveness of this system.
• Welsh-medium schools provide an element of diversity
and have different sorts of relationships with their
‘communities’.
• Community schools operate ‘open enrolment’ systems,
although without ‘league tables’ (or great diversity).
• There are significant variations in how community
schools operate in different regions and localities across
Wales.
‘Producer Interests’ and Education
Policy
• Community schools have gone hand-in-hand with other,
not wholly consistent, ideas about the appropriate
organisation of secondary schooling.
• These include:
• The valorisation of ‘professional standards’ as the key to
assuring the quality of educational provision (for example,
the abandoning of testing and ‘league tables’; the
prioritisation of CPD);
• ‘Fairness’ in access to educational opportunities through
absence of specialisation and selection.
• These aspects have been interpreted as reflecting the
capacity of ‘producer interests’ to block progressive
reforms in educational provision.
Social Democratic Consensus and
Education Policy
• An alternative account stresses the effects of what remains
a dominant social democratic consensus in Welsh politics.
• As the then First Minister, Rhodri Morgan, emphasised in a
speech in 2002, the WAG (and the National Assembly)
place a positive valuation on the ‘clear red water’ between
their policies and those pursued by the Westminster
Government.
• What is involved is more than simply the rejection of New
Labour’s and now the UK Coalition’s policies. It also
reflects a positive commitment to forms of public service
provision that embody alternative ideological priorities that
are seen to be specifically attuned to Welsh needs and
values.
Alternative Models of Social
Citizenship
• What this implies is an acknowledgement that social
citizenship can rightly differ where values differ, even
within the same (UK) state.
• More specifically, the WAG has made a positive
decision to adopt forms of public service provision
which reflect a prioritisation of citizen voice, rather than
market choice.
• Educational provision – and community schools, more
specifically - clearly reflect this alternative
conceptualisation of what social citizenship entails.
Education Policy and Patterns of
Attainment
• There are, however, contradictions in the Welsh model
of social citizenship; in particular, between the forms
of service delivery adopted (such as community
schools) and the educational opportunities that are
provided.
• A key element in the Welsh model of social citizenship
is the ‘right’ of access to effective educational
provision.
• There is an increasing tension between approbation of
the educational policies adopted and concern over what
is widely seen to be a ‘crisis of educational attainment’.
The ‘Crisis of Educational
Attainment’
• There have been significant increases in levels of
attainment in Welsh schools over the past decade.
• However, comparisons with other parts of the UK and
more widely have produced a ‘crisis of attainment’.
• There is, of course, a material basis to this (albeit a very
complicated one); but perhaps the principal effect has
been the creation of a crisis of legitimacy for the Welsh
educational system.
GCSE Results in Wales, 2000-1 to
2009-10
70
60
50
40
Level 2
Core Subjects
30
20
10
0
2000
2002
2004
2006
2008
2010
Pupils aged 15 Achieving 5+ A*-C
GCSEs, %
70
60
50
40
Wales
England
30
20
10
0
2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008
PISA 2009: Mean Scores, UK countries
and OECD
520
510
500
England
Northern Ireland
Scotland
Wales
OECD
490
480
470
460
450
Reading
Maths
Science
Equity in Educational Attainment?
• Moreover, research carried out by colleagues in
WISERD reveals that this relative decline in relation to
the other countries of the UK and elsewhere is not
compensated by greater equalities within Wales.
• Hence, the attainment gaps with respect to poverty
(eligibility for free school meals), gender and, in some
respects, ethnic background have been widening over
recent years.
• This is clearly contrary to what might be expected from a
social democratic model of educational provision.
Concluding Comments 1
• This ‘crisis’ reflects the limitations of policy divergence
and, by implication at least, the model of social
citizenship which is thereby implied.
• The citizen’s access to educational opportunities is
regulated not only by reference to the form of
educational provision, but also in terms of the
outcomes of educational participation.
• Understandings of the latter are shaped only very
partially by reference to Wales and, much more
significantly, by comparisons with what are seen to be
educational attainments elsewhere.
Concluding Comments 2
• These complex constructions of social
citizenship imply a significant crisis of legitimacy
for Welsh schools and educational provision
more widely.
• There are already indications that this crisis will
have important impacts on educational policies
that will limit the scope of policy divergence in
the future.