Friday 27 November 2009

Further Education: ...

policy hysteria, competitiveness and performativity

an article by James Avis (School of Education and Professional Development, University of Huddersfield) published in British Journal of Sociology of Education Volume 30 Number 5 (September 2009)

I picked this to read from the e-content alert for this journal since it has no online abstract and found myself immersed in a stunningly useful critique of government policy in relation to the further education agenda, primarily but not exclusively as evidenced in England.

It is not my intention to contravene copyright law by reproducing the whole of this essay nor to reduce my fingers to stumps copy typing; and regular readers of this blog will know that producing any kind of meaningful summary of an article is not one of my strengths.

The other option is to provide you with parts of the introductory paragraph as a flavour of the whole.

This essay addresses a number of issues that bear upon further education (FE) in England. It examines the socio-economic context in which the sector is located, considers its policy framework, touching upon the lived experience of those working and studying in the sector. Whilst the substantive focus is FE, the issues debated have a wider currency. ... One common feature of this turbulent environment is the manner in which policy is frames by an emphasis upon the skills agenda and the allied development of competitiveness. ... The aim is that learners of whatever age are readied for waged labour with practitioners prioritising this aspect of their work. ...
So there you have it – as if you didn’t already know. Further education is not about education it’s about turning out workers for the waged labour market.

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