The establishment of OfSTED, the Office for Standards in Education, in 1991, signified a new era for school inspection. The schools’ inspectorate shifted from being a flexible and fairly informal advisory body with no particular pedagogical agenda, to becoming a highly centralised organisation with a rigid remit: to oversee the implementation of DfES initiatives – and reprimand schools for failing to do so.

Through this collaborative relationship between the DfES and inspectorate, the government has created a monopoly over what counts as quality in schools. Nowhere is this monopoly more apparent than in the private sector where OfSTED’s very raison d’etre is to blindly enforce government regulation. Private schools are now subject to highly prescriptive ‘minimum’ requirements set by the DfES. Compliance with these requirements is, either directly or indirectly, enforced by OfSTED.

Of the approximately 2500 independent schools in England, roughly 1200 are inspected directly by OfSTED, with the other 1300, those in associations belonging to the Independent Schools Council (ISC), inspected by the OfSTED-monitored Independent Schools Inspectorate (ISI). Although inspected by this independent body, ISC member schools are also required to comply with the DfES’s statutory Independent School Standards, and OfSTED monitors their inspections. 

The purpose of independent school inspection is to: ‘…advise the DfES whether independent schools meet the prescribed standards for registration, as specified in the 2002 Education Act.’ Although DfES regulation for independent schools was first introduced by the 1996 Education Act, it was not until legislative changes brought in in 2002, that the private sector felt the force of government regulation on everyday practice. Statutory regulation now entails highly prescriptive standards for the independent sector. What is striking about these standards is that they apply not just to basic health and safety requirements, but also to what is taught and how it is taught. What is more, not only are the regulations concerning teaching extensive, the details within them do not equate with a broad notion of basic standards. The result is that nominally autonomous schools must comply with a monolithic definition of ‘good’ curriculum design, delivery and assessment based solely on the impulses of the DfES.

It’s of little surprise, in light of this level of government dictation over what counts as quality, that there is now concern that alternatives to state pedagogy have become limited in both the state and the private sector. In 2003 Dr Richard Bell, a former researcher in education at the Open University and current vice-president of the European Forum for Freedom in Education (EFFE) carried out an evaluation of the UK’s education system. Bell identified five ‘deficits’ in the UK system, each of which are to do with the limited opportunities for pedagogy which strayed from that of the government’s. His observed weaknesses were as follows:

• The National Curriculum narrowed the freedom of schools
• Pedagogical minorities such as Waldorf schools repeatedly failed to gain admittance into the state system
• There were very few ‘alternative’ schools
• There were no subsidies for independent schools
• Independent schools were restricted by state control.

Straitjacketing is a problem which has negatively impacted education as a whole in this country. In the state sector, teacher retention is near crisis point as central directives demoralise and over-burden teachers. In the private sector, parental choice concerning the curriculum and teaching methods is being overridden by government decision-making. The fact that even nominally immune private schools are subject to directives on the minutiae is a pointed indictment of the government’s misguidedly autocratic approach to improving education. Particularly so when the private sector academic record was considerably higher before the introduction of such government regulation.

For progress and excellence to be fostered it is imperative that central control over pedagogy, curriculum and outcome is loosened throughout the education system. This does not mean leaving schools to irresponsibility. It means giving schools and teachers in both sectors the flexibility to respond to their pupils, and judging the success of their strategies on learning outcomes. For now, the most important step in the right direction would be to restore the schools’ inspectorate’s impartiality from the government. Doing so would open up the definition of what counts as quality in schools, thereby allowing for greater pluralism.

www.civitas.org.uk