ABSTRACT
In a book which deals predominantly with the analysis and description of the growth of central state control over many spheres of education, this chapter traces the development of the parallel move towards educational devolution in Wales (Daugherty et al. 2000). It is both ironic and remarkable to reflect that during the period between 1988 and 1997, a period characterised by increasing policy centralisation by successive Conservative governments, Wales was able to develop a distinctive educational and institutional framework that preceded political and legislative devolution in 1999. The subtitle of our chapter is borrowed from Jones (1992); like him, we want to show in this chapter how the legacies of Ruskin influenced Wales in different ways, so much so, in fact, that at the beginning of the twenty-first century, when referring to education, it is no longer possible to refer in the same breath to ‘England and Wales’. Rather, contemporary and future educational discourse will have to embrace the notion of an ‘England or Wales’ scenario in relation to education policies. We trace the origins of these developments, in particular in relation to the school curriculum, and consider their consequences, which, of course, have implications for the future of the nation-state. For, as Jones (1994: 13) suggests, the Education Reform Act (1988) (ERA) ‘revolutionised the role of the state in education, thereby inadvertently raising questions about the relationship between the Welsh nation and the British state in a new context’. The history of education in Wales between 1976 and 2001 therefore provides an opportunity to analyse the ways in which educational reform, cultural politics and political nationalism became closely inter-related.
