ABSTRACT
Something is certainly going on in education. At the policy level, recent changes in primary and secondary education include the introduction of a national curriculum, the virtual abolition of the long established structures of local democratic control and independent national inspection, and the quasiprivatization of schools; while in higher education the number of autonomous universities has been nearly doubled, the established mechanisms of academic planning and control have been downgraded or replaced, and student demand has become one of the main vehicles for differential funding of institutions. At the same time, the education system’s outputs are changing dramatically: both qualification levels (as proportions of the relevant population cohorts) and the demand for non-compulsory education are rising at rates that, as recently as five years ago, were regarded by policy-makers and analysts as possibly desirable but certainly unattainable.
