• authoritarianism
  • bullying
  • economic duress


  • unaccountability
  • gagging
  • confrontation
The preventable rise of New Right dogma in education
Check out John Perry's MEd thesis, a significant contribution to the debate on commodification and the new managerialism in FE.

In April 1993 colleges of further education in England and Wales were 'incorporated' - they became corporations, no longer run by Principals, but by 'Chief Executive Officers', no longer funded by the Local Education Authorities, but by a central, unelected quango known as the Further Education Funding Council (FEFC). These new corporations like to portray themselves as analogous to other corporations, the Chief Executive Officer's responsibility being to execute the policy decisions of the 'board of directors', namely the college's board of governors.
A significant difference, however, which the analogy is doubtless intended to draw a veil over, is that a vital element has not been carried over into these corporations, namely the shareholders. Who would the shareholders be who might attend the equivalent of a shareholders' meeting and to whom the directors would be responsible - the parents, the students, the staff? Governors are under no obligation to meet any of those. The governing body may include staff or student representatives, but that is for the governors to decide. The governors are not answerable to anyone via election. They are unelected, they may remain governors almost in perpetuity, when one leaves (s)he is replaced by another chosen by the governors and their grounds for the choice are not revealed. At best they are answerable to the FEFC. These corporations are run by unelected, unaccountable bodies responsible to an unelected body. To what extent the FEFC itself is accountable is an open question.
An example of the extent of the lack of accountability was recently revealed by Baroness Blackstone, the Further Education Minister, who stated that the Secretary of State for Education and Employment does not have the power to dismiss chief executive officers or governors unless such dismissal is recommended by the FEFC. In other words, a minister of a democratically elected government does not have the power to overturn the decision of an unelected body which oversees other unelected bodies, despite the fact that those unelected bodies are funded by the same taxpayers who elected the minister.

"Review of Complaints against St Austell College"

for a free copy of this report by Professor Howard Newby, ring the Department for Education and Employment on 0171 925 6527



The attack on further education lecturers needs to be considered in the context of these facts:
Wage inequality is the greatest it has been since records began in the late nineteenth century. With the single exception of New Zealand, Britain has had the fastest growing rate of inequality in the world. In 1993 3.9 million British children lived in poverty, a greater number than in any other state of the European Union.
Over a twenty year period the income of the poorest 10 per cent of the population remained constant, while the income of the wealthiest 10 per cent increased by 50 per cent. The income of the top 10 per cent of the British population is equal to the income of the entire bottom 50 per cent. More than two thirds of the income of those in the bottom 10 per cent comes from state benefits.
In 1979 9 per cent of the population lived in poverty; by 1994 that proportion had increased to 23 per cent. Of the £31.8 billion in tax cuts between 1979 to 1997, almost a third went to the richest 1 per cent; 14 per cent went to the bottom half.
A couple of suggestive comparisons:
RJB Mining enjoys a monopoly in the English coalfields. The boss, Richard Budge, earned £666,165 in 1995, plus an additional £2.2 million in 1996, while continuing to hold a 2.3 per cent stake in the company. In the first full reporting year after the mines were sold off, deaths rose from 2 to 5, major injuries increased by 18 per cent.
Sir Geoffrey Mulcahy, Chief Executive of Woolworth, earning £1 million per year, had his and his wife's tax advice paid for by the company, at a cost of several thousand pounds per year. In the Dundee branch of Woolworth, two shop assistants were sacked for eating sweets worth 2p after they had fallen to the floor and were to be thrown away.

Nick Cohen of the Observer has often reported on the interesting developments at Doncaster College, where, he reports, the Chief Executive, Terry Ashurst, simplified the process of making complaints against him by appointing his third wife to the post of Clerk to the Governors. Thus, any complaints against Mr Ashurst had to be made to the Clerk to the Governors (Mrs Ashurst), which presumably ensured that they were rapidly dealt with. Alternatively, complaints may be made to the Head of Personnel, who will no doubt deal with them with similar efficiency as the Head of Personnel also happens to be Mrs Ashworth. Certainly a complaint made to the Observer by John Giddens, the union representative, was very expeditiously dealt with - he was sacked in no time at all.
Of course, there is always the argument that further education colleges, competing in the real business world now, should not be tramelled by such unnecessary considerations as justice and burdensome processes like disciplinary procedures and grievance procedures. Flexibility is all if they are to meet the needs of the local community (sorry: local business). It's interesting, then, that Cohen quotes former Doncaster college governor, John Wain, as complaining that the college had paid £25,000 to management consultants who had 'come up with nought' and Liam Hayes, a 'local health quangocrat', as concluding at a meeting in April: "Currently industry in general is not delighted in Doncaster College and sees no value in supporting its courses." For further examples of 'sleaze' in further education, see the BBC's education news site.
The speed with which whistle blowers can be dismissed makes for an intriguing comparison with the tenacity that Principals display in hanging on to their posts (and inflated salaries).
"Unless you get to the source of power, which ultimately is investment decisions, other changes are cosmetic and can only take place in a limited way. To challenge the right of investors to determine who lives, who dies, and how they live and die - that would be a significant move towards the Enlightenment ideals. That would be revolutionary."

Noam Chomsky


The job insecurity which has afflicted the rest of the working population for many years has finally caught up with further education lecturers too. The lecturers' unions have been emasculated and are powerless to prevent whatever organizational and contractual changes employers may wish to introduce. Whilst at many colleges, those on the old-style contracts are allowed to remain on them (albeit without any possibility of a pay rise), most colleges have introduced new contracts for all new employees and any promoted posts which may become available. At some colleges lecturing staff have been forced to take a pay cut, at most colleges part-time lecturers have taken a pay cut of around 25 per cent. Disciplinary procedures, grievance procedures, sickness policies have been unilaterally re-written by college managements - in 'consultation' with the unions, certainly, but consultation has come to mean simply informing the unions what is going to be done. At best, there is a 'consultation process' which merely serves to lend a spurious legitimacy to whatever measures managements choose to introduce. The parallel with the new managerialism in industry is striking in other respects, too, not least in the way that wages are capped and insecurity increased for all but senior management whose position seems unassailable and whose salaries continue to rise.
See also: the commodification of education


Almost immediately after incorporation, most FE colleges attempted to introduce new 'professional' contracts for their staff. 'Professionalism' apparently meant the acceptance of:
  • unlimited teaching hours
  • unlimited attendance at college
  • 40 per cent reduction in holidays
  • weekend working
  • relocation to college premises anywhere in the world
  • new disciplinary, grievance and sickness policies
and more. Fortunately, the National association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education (NATFHE), succeeded in preventing these new contracts from being forced on lecturers by appealing to the European Union. Employers, however, offered a £500 bribe to anyone who would sign the contracts. Those who remained on what were, by implication, unprofessional contracts were told they would never receive a pay rise again.
'Unprofessional', of course, is a matter of degree. Mr FE UK plc, macho man Roger Ward, the former chairman of the College Employers' Forum, resigned after 'Rogergate'. After years of directors and managers scoffing from the trough of public largesse, this can hardly come as a surprise, though what does come as a surprise is that he actually resigned. How very quaint.
For more information on sleaze in FE, see the BBC's website.
One might expect that for the hard-nosed businessperson the acid test of so-called flexibility would be: does it work? Firstly, it depends what you mean by 'flexibility'; secondly what you mean by 'work'. 'Flexibility' can be taken to mean flexible working practices such as team-work, flexible job assignment and multi-skilling; it can also be understood as referring to the 'flexible labour market' with decreased job security, deregulation and derecognition of unions. 'Work' can be taken to mean increasing the firm's competitiveness and viability as well as contributing to the wider good, for example by increasing employment and prosperity or it can simply mean enriching the owners, managers and shareholders. The simple answer is that the first kind of flexibility 'works' by the first definition, the second kind of flexibility 'works' only according to the second definition.
more....

Free competition equals higher quality, or so we're told. A little thought experiment suggests that it might well: two car manufacturers produce roughly equivalent family saloons; they're much the same in performance, equipment, prestige, reliability and so on, so each has around 50 per cent of the market. To steal a march on the competition, one manufacturer adds in a satellite navigation system at little extra cost. As customers go for the new equipment, the other manufacturer is forced to add something similar. So in principle the free market can work to ratchet up quality and value for money.
Does the free market have a similar effect in education? Again, a simple thought experiment is all that is needed. Take the example of two students who wish to obtain NVQs in, say, Information Technology. They each have to complete the same assignments and meet the same objectives to obtain the qualification. One, however, also has a clear understanding of drives, filename extensions, directories, file attributes and so on, the other merely knows how to complete the tasks required for the NVQ. Clearly, the former is a 'better quality product'. But, since each achieves the same qualification, the latter is better 'value for money'. The college receives the same funding for each; the less highly skilled student will have received less attention from the lecturer, thus freeing up the lecturer to increase 'throughput'; throughput can be further increased by seeking the least demanding qualification to offer and also, of course, by making it as easy as possible to 'fulfil' the objectives.
As far as the customer is concerned, the lower quality product is also likely to be preferable. In many cases, customer and product are one and the same - the student who wants the qualification in the shortest possible time and with the minimum effort. If we consider the student's potential or current employer to be the customer, then, clearly, it is the former student who is the better quality product, but, to follow the analogy through, the customer in this case has no way of knowing until the product has been purchased whether or not it is of merchantable quality. Indeed, in very many cases, the customer hasn't the slightest idea what merchantable quality might be. All s/he has to go on is a piece of paper which certifies that the product is fit for its purpose.
Add to this the demoralization of teachers whose work has been downgraded from a profession to a job plus the need for many teachers to increase student retention and the pass rate in order to have a job next year and it is clear that 'the market' in education can work only to drive quality down.