The essays in this book criticise the new positivism in education policy, whereby education is systematically reduced to those things that can be measured by so-called ‘objective’ tests. School curricula have been narrowed with an emphasis on measurable results in the 3 R’s and the ‘quality’ of university departments is now assessed by managerial exercises based on commercial audit practice. As a result, the traditional notion of liberal arts education has been replaced by utilitarian productivity indices.

"This book is a call for discernment . . . and finally it is a call to action." The Tablet
"A biting collection of essays."  Journal of Applied Philosophy
"Raises issues that should be widely debated in the media and which should inform educational manifestos for the next election." Network
"The first thing that struck me was the diverse range of contributors [divided between 'old-school Tories' and those of a more liberal persuasion], united however in their disdain for the new positivism in education policy."Mike Cole, Educational Review

Contents

Acknowledgements
About Authors
Introduction

Part I: The Mismanagement of Universities

Bruce Charlton
Audit, Accountability and All That
Anthony Smith
The Laura Spence Affair
Evan Harris
Higher Education: A Question of Access
Robert Grant
Education, Utility and the Universities
Roger Scruton
The Idea of a University
Stephen Prickett
Polyphony, the Idea of Education, and Social Utility
Desmond Ryan
Neo-Luddism

Part II: Testing to Destruction: the New School Environment

Diana Mabbutt
From Board School to Boardroom: Changes and Consequences of Education Policy
 in Primary Schools
Margaret Sutcliffe
Bureaucracy and the Growth of Anxiety in a Small Independent School
Libby Purves
Against the Grain
Rowan Williams
Statements, Acts and Values: Spiritual and Material in the School Environment

Afterword

Stephen Prickett
Managerial Ethics and the Corruption of the Future

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Introduction (pdf format)
Contributors (pdf format)

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