In the Public Interest? Research, Knowledge Transfer and Education Policy

1. In the Public Interest?Research, Knowledge Transfer and Education Policy Jenny Ozga

2. As Allan Luke puts it, we have education policy ‘All dressed up with multiple outcomes, voluminous curriculum documents, national testing, and so on, but without a strong normative vision of what might count as just and powerful educational systems in new economic and social conditions, in increasingly complex, risky and unjust transnational contexts.’ (Luke, 2003:98).

3. Global policy agendas: the economising of education results in: • New organisational forms and processes: including devolution and deregulation; the redesign of education (including governance, management and institutions) • New production rules of policy formation/implementation reflecting strengthened corporate interests and the influence of international and supra-national forces and agents on national systems

4. Constant improvement to cope with change ‘The modern world is swept by change. New technologies emerge constantly, new markets are opening up. There are new competitors but also great new opportunities … This world challenges business to be innovative and creative, to improve performance continuously, to build new alliances and ventures … In government, in business, in our universities and throughout society we must do more to foster a new entrepreneurial spirit: equipping ourselves for the long-term, prepared to seize opportunities, committed to constant innovation and improved performance’ (Blair, 1998:5)

5. Shared policy agendas emerge: • National programmes of curriculum standardisation, target-setting and testing • School self-management • Parental choice and inter-school competition • Teacher accountability, quality assurance (through inspection), performance-related pay • Curriculum centred on lifelong learning, preparation for work and citizenship

6. Key principles in restructuring education • A focus on education to meet economic need. Education provides the human capital for a developing knowledge economy • An insistence that change must be rapid, that it must penetrate teacher cultures and that strong leadership is essential for the success of the project of modernising the teaching force • An insistence on international competitiveness in education, so that each nation-state achieves ‘world-class status’ as measured by international league tables of examination success • A strong role for business in modernising education (this varies – it’s strong in England but not in the Nordic countries) • A shift from equality of opportunity or outcome to diversity and differentiation as organising principles of provision (Evidence from the Education Governance and Social Inclusion and Exclusion in Europe (EGSIE) Study)

7. From ‘It’s Democracy, Stupid’ ‘We need a new era of grown up government, which treats people as intelligent adults and expects them to do the same. It must distribute power with responsibility. This is the only way to deliver a new political agenda based on well-being and quality of life. Better health, education and jobs, a higher quality of life and genuine social inclusion can only be changed (sic) by persuading people to change the way they behave – government cannot deliver on behalf of the people. … the goal of democracy is not accountable or responsive government by representative leaders, but self-government.’(Bentley, 2001:1,13)

8. The World Bank publication ‘Building Knowledge Economies’ asserts that: ‘Continuous, market-driven innovation is the key to competitiveness, and thus to economic growth, in the knowledge economy. This requires not only a strong science and technology base, but, just as importantly, the capacity to link fundamental and applied research, to convert the results of that research to new products, services, processes or materials and to bring these innovations quickly to market’ (World Bank, 2002:21)

9. From the 2003 White Paper on the Future of Higher Education ‘Research lays the long-term foundations for innovation, which is central to improved growth, productivity and quality of life. This applies not only to scientific and technical knowledge. Research in the social sciences, and in the arts and humanities can also benefit the economy – for example, in tourism, social and economic trends, design, law and the performing arts – not to speak of enriching our culture more widely’ (DfES, 2003:23)

10. The SHEFC KT grant was not confined to conventional commercialisation activities; its purposes were wider: ‘To disseminate the outcomes of research to promote their application and commercialisation for the wider economic, educational, social, healthcare and cultural benefit of society’ (SHEFC, 2001:4) And the Scottish Executive Higher Education Review Report identifies the key challenges of ensuring competitiveness and ensuring that research: ‘… plays an increasing part in Scotland’s economic and social well-being, delivering the most gains possible for the Scottish economy and quality of life’ The review goes on to stress the importance of: ‘exploitation of social research … [that] plays a vital role in helping to improve quality of life and improving social justice’(Scottish Executive, 2003:40-41)

11. ‘Universities have a public responsibility to have a broad, rich and deep knowledge base which is attentive to a broad range of social and cultural knowledge and also to tradition. To residualise certain knowledges is to undermine the social contract between the public and the university in favour of sectional interests with the money to pay for the knowledge they want’ (Kenway et al, 2004)

12. As Lyotard observed: ‘The relationship of the suppliers and users of knowledge to the knowledge they supply and use is now tending, and will increasingly tend, to assume the form already taken by the relationship of commodity to the commodities they produce and consume – that is, the form of value. Knowledge is and will be produced in order to be sold, it is and will be consumed in order to be valorised in a new production – in both cases the goal is exchange. Knowledge ceases to be an end in itself, it loses its ‘use value’ (Lyotard, 1984:4)

13. Address to Edinburgh Here Wealth still swells the golden tide, As busy Trade his labours plies; There Architecture’s noble pride bids elegance and splendor rise; Here Justice, from her native skies, High wields her balance and her rod; There Learning, with his eagle eyes, Seeks Science in her coy abode. (Burns, Stanza 2)