The SWP was published in November 2010 – six months after the new
Coalition Government came into power. This was its first White Paper on education, which outlined a wholesale reform plan, particularly regarding school autonomy,
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based on considerable international evidence including East Asia. Subsequent to the SWP, the policy initiatives aiming to increase school autonomy have been further legitimated in official speeches, announcements and press releases by frequently referencing East Asia. These documents and statements have constructed an image of highly autonomous schools in East Asia.
The SWP
In the first Foreword to the SWP (DfE, 2010), the Prime Minister, David Cameron, and the then Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, clarified the nature of the educational ‘crisis’:
“…what really matters is how we’re doing compared with our international competitors. That is what will define our economic growth and our country’s future. The truth is, at the moment we are standing still while others race past. In the most recent OECD PISA survey in 2006 we fell from 4th in the world in the 2000 survey to 14th in science, 7th to 17th in literacy, and 8th to mathematics.” (p. 3)
This ‘crisis’ was primarily identified according to the UK’s poor performance in PISA, although many academics (e.g. Goldstein, 2004; Micklewright & Schnepf, 2006) have specifically criticised its methodological deficiencies and generally questioned that the quality of education can be validly and reliably measured by large-scale surveys.
Subsequently, the solution was identified:
“The only way we can catch up, and have the world-class schools our children deserve, is by learning the lessons of other countries’ success.” (p. 3)
The then Education Secretary, Michael Gove, in the second Foreword, stated that the top performers of PISA “from Alberta to Singapore, Finland to Hong Kong, Harlem to South Korea” have been the “inspiration” for education reforms in England (p. 5). He emphasised that although “each of these exemplars has their own unique and individual approach to aspects of education, their successful
systems all share certain common features” (p. 7). Three “common features” were identified in the SWP:
“The most successful countries already combine a high status teaching
profession; high levels of autonomy for schools; a comprehensive and effective accountability system and a strong sense of aspiration for all children, whatever their background.” (p. 5)
This suggested that East Asia, which includes many of “the most successful countries”, enjoys high levels of school autonomy and that has contributed to its educational ‘success’. In other words, being supported by East Asian exemplars, changes in school governance and management have been described as the key to improving the quality of education services. However, there was little direct reference to specific East Asian exemplars to substantiate the claims about school autonomy; only South Korea was mentioned once:
“Finland and South Korea – the highest performing countries in PISA – have clearly defined and challenging universal standards, along with individual school autonomy.” (p. 4)
Singapore and South Korea were however cited four times respectively to highlight the weakness of England’s education system, and to support the need to reform schooling and the need for high quality teachers. Furthermore, despite their low PISA rankings, Charter Schools in the US, Free Schools in Sweden, and City Technology Colleges and Academies in England were often cited to substantiate the assertion that “in many of the highest-performing jurisdictions, school autonomy is central” (p. 51). For example,
“In high-performing US States, Charter Schools – publicly funded independent schools set up by a legal ‘charter’ – have been engines of progress.” (p. 51) “In Sweden, pupils who attend state-funded independent Free Schools
outperform those in other state schools and a higher proportion (eight per cent more) goes on to higher education.” (p. 51)
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“CTCs [City Technology Colleges] are now among the best schools in the country…Twenty-six per cent of Academies this year were judged to be
outstanding by Ofsted, compared to 18 per cent of all maintained schools.” (pp. 51-52)
The last example implied that schools enjoying high levels of autonomy perform better than those state-controlled schools with less autonomy. However, as Whitty (2012) notes, a fact that have been forgotten is that grant maintained schools in England were the model and reference for charter schools in the US. Most
statements were either made as self-evident ‘common knowledge’ or generally based on ‘international evidence’. For example,
“Across the world, the case for the benefits of school autonomy has been established beyond doubt.” (p. 11)
“Analysis of the international evidence also demonstrates that, alongside school autonomy, accountability for student performance is critical to driving educational improvement.” (p. 12)
Moreover, little attempt in the SWP was made to specify the precise nature, scope and form of school autonomy in any of the systems referenced. This left ample space for the Government to cite evidence relating to the generic concept. For example,
“Across the world, the case for the benefits of school autonomy has been established beyond doubt. In a school system with good quality teachers, flexibility in the curriculum and clearly established accountability measures, it makes sense to devolve as much day-to-day decision-making as possible to the front line.” (p. 11)
“Analysis of PISA data shows that the features of the strongest education systems combine autonomy (e.g. over staffing powers at school level) with accountability (e.g. systematic and external pupil-level assessments).” (p.51)
In spite of descriptions such as “flexibility in the curriculum”, “day-to-day decision-making” and “over staffing powers at the school level”, the SWP did not explain: (1) how flexible schools could be in terms of curriculum (e.g. freely
adopting curriculum for some subjects or creating new curriculum for all subjects); (2) in which areas of school management (e.g. personnel, finance and student admission) schools could make day-to-day decisions and what is the precise nature of decision-making (i.e. operational or policy-oriented); and (3) what do ‘staffing powers’ specifically designate (e.g. the power over staff appointment, appraisal or promotion).
Additionally, it was often highlighted in the SWP that more autonomy should be devolved to schools while high levels of accountability retain. For example,
“The best performing and fastest improving education systems in the world… combine high levels of autonomy for teachers and schools with high levels of accountability.” (p. 18)
However, similar to the promotion of school autonomy, no further explanations about school accountability in the ‘best’ systems were provided.
Official statements
Following the publication of the SWP, East Asia has been explicitly and increasingly cited in numerous official announcements, speeches and press releases (e.g. Gibb, 2012; Truss, 2013a; Gove, 2014a). In these statements, the attainment gap between English pupils and their counterparts in East Asia have been
highlighted. For example, as Truss (2014b) stated:
“In Hong Kong, just under 9% of all pupils achieved the lowest levels in the PISA Mathematics assessment. In Singapore, it’s just above 8%. In Shanghai, it’s under 4%. In England, it’s 22% – almost a quarter.”
The educational ‘crisis’ revealed by international comparisons has been
directly linked to the ‘disadvantages’ in global economic competition. For example, as Truss (2013b) stressed in another speech,
“This is an era of unprecedented competition... [and] an era where human capital is more important than physical capital, it means we need to improve
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education. The evidence is quite clear here: countries with higher attainment have higher growth rates.”
On this basis, policy initiatives have been extensively legitimated by referencing the evidence from economically-soaring East Asia. For example, in commenting on PISA 2009, Gove (2010, December 17)wrote an article for the
Times Educational Supplement on the need for more autonomous schools:
“Schools will enjoy new freedoms and will shed unnecessary bureaucratic burdens. Expanding the number of Academies together with new Free Schools, some promoted by groups of teachers, will further extend autonomy and choice… As the OECD points out, two of the most successful countries in PISA – Hong Kong and Singapore – are among those with the highest levels of school competition.”
In this statement, School competition was particularly intertwined with school autonomy, which has been frequently repeated in Gove’s other speeches (e.g. Gove, 2012a; Gove, 2012b). Three years later, England seemed not to have made progress and still lagged far behind its East Asian references in PISA 2012. In responding to UK’s “stagnancy”, Gove (2013) in one of his oral statements to the Parliament shifted the responsibility by declaring that the low performance was “a reflection on the education policies of the previous government” and then reaffirmed five lessons that England should draw from high-performing (i.e. Shanghai, Singapore, Hong Kong and South Korea) and fast-improving (i.e. Taiwan, Vietnam, German and Poland) systems. Among them, two were directly related to school autonomy:
“The third reform imperative is greater autonomy for head teachers. There is a strong correlation in these league tables between freedom for heads – in
systems like Singapore, Shanghai and Hong Kong – and improved results. That is why we have dramatically increased the number of Academies and Free Schools – and given heads more control over teacher training, continuous professional development and the improvement of underperforming schools.”
“The fifth pillar of reform is freedom for heads to recruit and reward the best. Shanghai, the world’s best-performing education system, has a rigorous system of performance-related pay. We’ve given head teachers the same freedoms here.”
The performance-related pay in Shanghai was specifically taken as an example of great autonomy enjoyed by East Asian school leaders. However, as I shall
describe in the Shanghai chapter, it is far more complex than it appears and only bring about very limited extra autonomy. Another specific example with regard to Singapore was given by Gove (2011a), but the nature of the autonomy exercised by principals was narrowed:
“In Singapore, often cited as an exemplar of centralism, the Government has deliberately encouraged greater diversity in the school system – and dramatic leaps in attainment have been secured as a result. Schools where principals are exercising a progressively greater degree of operational autonomy are soaring ahead.” (Emphasis added)
As discussed earlier, ‘operational autonomy’ designates the power to decide how a policy is implemented. The following chapters demonstrate that the autonomy granted to Free Schools in the SWP goes beyond the ‘operational autonomy’ enjoyed by principals in Singapore as well as the other two East Asian societies.
The School Reform Minister Nick Gibb (2014) more recently claimed that the “academisation” (conversion to academy status) of schools in England since 2010 had significantly improved the performance of schools in the inspections by Ofsted and of pupils in the General Certificate of Secondary Education examinations. He ascribed this achievement to the granting of “real” autonomy to schools to “vary their curriculum, extend the length of their school day and employ the best teachers – regardless of whether they have received formal qualified teacher status”.
Similar to the SWP, the necessity of school accountability in autonomous system has also been reinforced in official statements. For example, as Truss (2013a) emphasised:
“We are learning from the best in the world. And we will combine more autonomy for schools with better accountability.”
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Gibb (2015a) justified the Ofsted Schools Inspection framework which aims to improve accountability through “publicly grading state schools”. This is
contradictory to the feature of school accountability systems in East Asian societies studied later.
In parallel to the reform of school autonomy has been the reform to create a more demanding but less prescribed National Curriculum (DfE, 2011), which has also relied heavily on evidence from East Asia. For example, Gove (2012a) stated that “our curriculum reforms were inspired by the high expectations for all children in Singapore and Hong Kong”. However, neither Academies nor Free Schools are required to follow the National Curriculum. A number of English politicians have made study visits to Singapore, Hong Kong and China, and identified various features of these high-performing systems such as the Confucian culture, long school days and rigorous curriculum (e.g. Gove, 2010, December 28; Truss, 2014, March 4). However, there seems to have been little attention paid to school
governance and autonomy enjoyed by East Asian schools.
In short, England’s low rankings in international surveys have been taken as evidence to substantiate the criticism narrative of schools failing to deliver what was required and expected. East Asia has been identified as the source of lessons to deal with this educational crisis and further to prepare qualified workforce for global competition. Although little detailed evidence has been provided, in the SWP and official statements, East Asian societies have been represented as a model with high levels of school autonomy, accountability and competition which can improve pupils’ performance and eventually lead to a prosperous economy.