What Is Education - History Of Education

This week’s lecture was taken by former Minister of Education Jane Davidson who is now involved with Trinity College. Jane spoke about the history of education and The Learning Country which she herself introduced.

In 1983 Margaret Thatcher was the Prime Minister of Britain. Thatcher wanted to create a curriculum that was available to every child, a curriculum that was fair and gave children equal opportunities to education no matter where they were from in the country. However, at the time there was opposition from teachers as the introduction of the National Curriculum meant they would not have the freedom to teach what they wanted to. One of the main aims of the curriculum was to ‘promote pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development and prepare all pupils for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of life.’(National Curriculum, 2008) The Conservative government then introduced SAT tests which would be taken at the ages of eleven, seven and thirteen. Every child would be assessed using the same test to see what level each child was at in their learning of the new curriculum.

In the year of 1997 the Labour Government came back into power led by Tony Blair. When Blair came into power he stated that his three main priorities were ‘education, education, education’ which struck a chord with the British public as many disagreed with Thatcher’s policies on education. The education policies were seen to be to structured, that children were being trained instead of educated. It was believed that teachers and children should have more freedom instead of teaching children for tests.

In Wales in 1999 the welsh government really started to take action on the education system in Wales which led to the Referendum for the National Assembly being introduced. This meant that Wales would have separate education policies to England. Initially there were two ministers of education in Wales, one for pre sixteen’s education and one for post sixteen’s education. In the year of 2000 Rhodri Morgan became the first minister of education along with Jane Davidson herself. While Minister Jane along with others developed The Learning Country and The Learning Country Vision into Action as the education system in Wales needed to be revamped. The aim of the Learning Country Vision into Action was ‘to provide a ten-year strategy that would embody vision and action, so that we might transform education and lifelong learning in post-devolution Wales.’ (Welsh Government, 2001)

References
http://wales.gov.uk/topics/educationandskills/publications/guidance/learningcountry/?lang=en Retrieved 21st May April 2012
Education, education, education" BBC News,14 May 2007. Retrieved 21st April 2012.