We’ve seen constant churn in the education sector with new policies and ministers introduced every few years. But why have so few of the lasting changes that have been heralded by successive governments stuck?
At Edge, we care about sensible long-term policy-making – including learning from international examples, learning from front line practice and learning from the past. It is critical that we learn from these lessons if we are to do better for our learners and, regardless of politics, ensure that the quality of our education policy-making is as high as it can be.
Alongside colleagues at the Foundation for Education Development, we were delighted to bring together a panel of past Permanent Secretaries including Lord Michael Bichard (1995-2001), David Normington G.C.B (2001-2005) and Jonathan Slater (2016-2020), chaired by the BBC’s Education Editor Branwen Jeffreys to explore these ideas.
We have also developed a series called “Learning from the Past” where we look back at previous policies in the technical and vocational education space to understand how they worked, what went well and what challenges they faced. You can read more about them here.