ABSTRACT
In many countries of the industrialised world the 1980s and 1990s saw the dramatic reorganisation of state-maintained education systems giving greater choice of school to families with the explicit aim of encouraging competition between schools. These moves towards a quasi-market have often been accompanied by greater financial and ideological support for the private sector and a greater blurring of the distinction between private and state-maintained schooling. Historically, choice of school in England and Wales has been mainly available only to those families able and willing to pay high fees for private schools. Quasi-market mechanisms were introduced through the 1993 Education Act. First, grant-maintained schools and voluntary aided schools were encouraged to appoint sponsor governors from business and become Technology Colleges specialising in science, technology and mathematics. Second, the 1993 Education Act introduced the second attempt to encourage the supply-side of the quasi-market.
