How policy impacts on practice and how practice does not impact on policy

The TLRP project reported on in this article attempts to understand how the Learning and Skills sector functions. It traces how education and training policy percolates down through many levels in the English system and how these levels interact, or fail to interact. The authors first focus upon how...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:British educational research journal 2007-10, Vol.33 (5), p.723-741
Main Authors: Coffield, Frank, Edward, Sheila, Finlay, Ian, Hodgson, Ann, Spours, Ken, Steer, Richard, Gregson, Maggie
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Administrators
Adult Education
Adults
Basic skills
Continuing Education
Education policy
Educational administration
Educational Policy
Educational Practices
Educational research
Employees
England
English language
Environmental policy
Foreign Countries
Funding
Impact analysis
Institutional Characteristics
Job Training
Learning
Management education
Public Service
Skills
Tutoring
Tutors
Unemployment
Vocational Education
Work Environment
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Summary:The TLRP project reported on in this article attempts to understand how the Learning and Skills sector functions. It traces how education and training policy percolates down through many levels in the English system and how these levels interact, or fail to interact. The authors first focus upon how policy impacts upon the interests of three groups of learners: unemployed people in adult and community learning centres, adult employees in work-based learning and younger learners on Level 1 and Level 2 courses in further education. They focus next upon how professionals in these three settings struggle to cope with two sets of pressures upon them: those exerted by government and a broader set of professional, institutional and local factors. They describe in particular how managers and tutors mediate national policy and translate it (and sometimes mistranslate it) into local plans and practices. Finally, the authors criticise the new government model of public service reform for failing to harness the knowledge, good will and energy of staff working in the sector, and for ignoring what constitutes the main finding of the research: the central importance of the relationship between tutor and students.
ISSN:0141-1926
1469-3518
DOI:10.1080/01411920701582363