Education Lindsay Paterson Edinburgh University

Topics Teaching and learning in primary schools. Structure of secondary schools. Student finance in higher education.

Literacy and Numeracy: Background Poor performance of UK countries in 1980s and 1990s by international standards Poor performance by criteria of national tests Effectiveness of ‘early intervention’ in mitigating effects of poverty Economic benefit of good basic grounding

Literacy and Numeracy: Policies England after 1997: more directive approach (literacy and numeracy strategies) Wales: attenuated version of English policies Northern Ireland: no significant change Scotland: maintenance of ‘child-centred’ approach

Literacy and Numeracy: Evidence Pilot literacy hour in England: large gains in attainment at low cost 2007 TIMSS survey: large gains in England, stagnation in Scotland PISA studies: Wales falling further behind England, but less so in teacher-centred subjects such as science

Structure of secondary schooling: Policies Scotland and Wales: retain non-selective and uniform public system, and unification of assessment system Northern Ireland: agreement in principle to end selection for secondary, but slow movement towards this England: specialist (but mainly non- selective) schools

Structure of secondary schooling: Evidence (1) A non-selective system can narrow inequalities, but long pre-dated devolution Unification of assessment also has origins pre- dating devolution Northern Ireland has not changed yet England’s relative position in attainment at age 16 has changed a great deal: now second after Northern Ireland, whereas Scotland and Northern Ireland used to be ahead

Structure of secondary schooling: Evidence (2) Autonomous specialist schools may promote improvement without exacerbating inequality Conditions for this (Swedish and US evidence): –no selection –no fees –national curriculum

Student finance: Policies Fees and loans introduced in 1997, leading to controversy in 1999 elections in Wales and Scotland Scotland replaced fees by ‘graduate tax’ Wales and Northern Ireland have moved in similar direction

Student finance: Evidence Participation rising everywhere, by approximately the same amount Long-run financial benefit to individual of degree has not fallen No evidence that loans etc are deterrent to any social group The financial regimes do not differ by enough among the countries to be likely to provoke any differential effect

Conclusions Devolution has had little impact on opportunity through education Policy innovation in education has mainly not come from the devolved institutions Devolution has allowed existing differences to be consolidated Specifically educational policy can achieve little in promoting opportunity: much more important is policy on inequality and policy affecting the operation of the labour market