ABSTRACT
Jones (2013) in her primer, Understanding Education Policy, has identified a framework of four education orientations, namely conservative orientation, liberal orientation, critical orientation and post-modern orientation. Jones points out that the liberal orientation has been linked to 'human capital theory' and the shift in post-industrial societies, where preparation for a single career has been replaced 'by multifarious "up-skilling" of individuals to allow for a competitive, flexible and insecure workforce'. Jones notes that, while the neo-liberal orientation can be considered within the liberal orientation, it should be differentiated 'from general "progressive" and "Victorian" liberal perspectives with the assumption of a clear separation of the state and the autonomous individual (and insistence on the pre-availability of choice)'. The critical orientation is linked to such movements as class-system reforms, post-colonialism and attempts to address issues of the marginalization of particular social and cultural groups.
