ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the trend towards increased “consumer” choice in school education, considering arguments both for and against this as a policy in the context of changes in this respect in the UK. It highlights the need for further work in the area of school choice, and explains the difficulty of predicting the likely outcome of marketisation for the UK state-funded school provision. The chapter is concerned with parental choice of state-funded schools in the UK, several other liberal democratic states have introduced legislation relevant to increased school choice in the last 15 years. According to Keith Joseph in 1976, leaving systems to market forces is more effective than state intervention, provided of course that the free interplay of supply and demand is not impeded, and to some extent this claim is being tested in education. A major defect in the UK school market envisaged by the Education Reform Act 1988 is contained in that same legislation.
