How policy impacts on practice and how practice does not impact on policy

Abstract

The TLRP project reported on in this article attempts to understand how the Learning and Skills sector functions. It traces how education and training policy percolates down through many levels in the English system and how these levels interact, or fail to interact. The authors first focus upon how policy impacts upon the interests of three groups of learners: unemployed people in adult and community learning centres, adult employees in work-based learning and younger learners on Level 1 and Level 2 courses in further education. They focus next upon how professionals in these three settings struggle to cope with two sets of pressures upon them: those exerted by government and a broader set of professional, institutional and local factors. They describe in particular how managers and tutors mediate national policy and translate it (and sometimes mistranslate it) into local plans and practices. Finally, the authors criticise the new government model of public service reform for failing to harness the knowledge, good will and energy of staff working in the sector, and for ignoring what constitutes the main finding of the research: the central importance of the relationship between tutor and students.

From policy to plate: Barriers to implementing healthy eating policies in primary schools in Wales

“…A complex route from policy to practice existed reflecting that previously found in mainstream education [10]. Policies at each level complied with those higher in the organisational hierarchy, i.e.…”

“…However, in England, the figure is lower (68%) since outsourced providers (17%) or schools themselves (10%) may provide the catering [9]. This multi-layering of organisational involvement is a common feature of programmes that originate at national level [10], which potentially subjects the original programme to additional priorities at each decision making level. For example, competitive tendering is associated with a reduced focus on diet and health and an increased focus on cost control and income generation [8].…”

English language teaching reform in Sultanate of Oman: The case of theory and practice disparity

“…Baldauf (1990) considers the teachers' professionalism as fundamental for any language education plan interpretation and places teachers at the heart of the language education process. Coffield et al (2007) report on the introduction of Teaching and Learning Research Program project at Further Education in U.K., which ELT was a fundamental part of. The authors acknowledge that the speed and burden of (technological and bureaucratic) change in the new policy were "intense", which subsequently affected material distribution and the appointment of new staff.…”

To be one’s own confessor: educational guidance and governmentality

“…However, such a focus would produce other, complementary results. See, for example, Coffield et al (2007), and Beach (1995). 2.…”