Policy Developments in Education

Abstract

The essay evolved here is describing the emergence of education system and its related various types of policies starting from the initial years to till now. The changes which were brought intentionally in the educational system and which came along with the passing time is detailed and the effects of those changes on the children, teachers and the families are detailed below. Challenges and issues are inevitable and unavoidable circumstances and in education system also they exists, in this regard how these were managed and tackled by the people and the government and social heads and teams is highlighted in this essay.

Definition of social policy in educational sector

Social policies in the educational system are the political, social & economic guidelines which are primarily present for referring the interventions regarding the creation, maintenance, development and changing of the education methods, ways and techniques conducted for the ethical welfare of people. The educational sector social policies are basically concerned with all those ways through which the societies across the world can met all the requirements for health, work, education, security and well-being (Hill et al. 2017). These kinds of policies mainly addresses the ways through which the society will respond towards the globally spread issues and challenges of economic, demographic and social changes coming forward and also the migration, poverty and globalisation matters.

The different types of sectors including the educational sector in the national education system are responsible for providing not only the education but are also responsible for constituting the social policy shifts towards employing more and more people. Moreover they also take all the different dimensions of the national education system including the primary education system, secondary system and the higher education system too and even works for examining the effectiveness and maximising the vocational education and trainings (Midgley et al. 2019). An education policy acts as problem solvers considering educational, opportunities, further career development programs and future educational policies too.

The educational sector social policies allocates the resources properly, increases the potential shifting of the public spending and diverges all the children from one sector to other such as from the initial traditional methods to the modern methods. The primary two challenges in type educational social policy making sector are improving the past quality of education in children and the second one is ensuring that there must be a well-maintained and good working condition for the children care workers and teachers also (Castiglioni et al. 2017). Both these are directly connected with the proposals of considering the education matters as social policy matter. These approaches are focused towards conceptualising “education as a matter of social policy”. Many researchers took up these challenges and proposed certain agendas to integrate the study of education in social policy literature and adding to this recognises the complexities of the national educational system in multiple stages.

Past policies in educational development sector

Starting from 1600 to till 1660, the evolution of education system initiated from the restoration of the Oxford University's library in the year 1602 by Sir Thomas Bodley and later on with the passing time the education system developed with various changes and transformations in it regarding the teaching methods, educational set-ups, working environment. Hoefer (2019) revealed that the care workers of the children and including their families too. There were several acts which were formulated in the past era of the education sector such as Scottish Act of Parliament 1616 which was later reformed in the year 1633. As the time passed, the governing bodies changed and improved and then came the time of wars and fights which impacted the education system in a huge way by developing more schools, colleges, universities; changes in the education subjects and so on (Steketee et al. 2017). Later n committees were formed ad new members were appointed as the governing members in education sector named as the Committee for the Advancement of Learning in the year 1653.

As this educational evolving process was going smooth, suddenly came the time of the Great Plague in 1665 followed by the Great Fire of London in 1666. Both these consecutive incidents obstructed the growth and development of the education system and their social policies but people also succeeded in sustaining in those situations too.

The educational policies were classified into two major policies that are mainly introduced targeting to raise the participation of children and their families in the compulsory educational system. Turner (2017) suggested that one of the two reforms is the initiation of the vocational qualification system of education where the primary introduction of new care workers and teachers were mostly focused on depending on the qualifications like the NVQ & the GNVQ. And adding to this the second reform is the revitalisation of the apprenticeship in the education sector of the nation. The social policies are not only about the sense of welfare in the education system but also the development of the intellectual potential of each of the individual and making people understand the compulsory and mandating of education in the lives of the society for a better future of the society and the nation as a whole (Sandwick et al. 2018).

Current policies in educational development sector

The current and present education system globally targeted on focusing towards the improvement of the quality of education and the educational environment so that it can be ensured that the children are getting the basics of their learning process in a standard set-up without any difficulties in growth of their future. The current social policies in the educational sector are contributing to an excessive and impressive journey towards the desire achievements. Teunis and Herdt (2019) advised that between the years 2011 to the year 2015, all the policies were ready to support over the 90 per cent of all the children of the primary age section who comes under the low income range population and nearly about 75 per cent of the children who comes under the lower middle range of income people. The total number of children who got benefitted is nearly about 330 million in numbers who are not expected to get the reading and do the basic studies by the end of the primary section of schools (Sandwick et al. 2018). These are the calculated statistics of the children in the nation which is truly shocking by nature and which demands an urgent need of the primary action to be taken as soon as possible.

The recent current policies of education are mostly focusing on being effectively efficient by making the education systems stand separately and individually on their own by their capabilities. According to Williamson (2017) the reforms and social policies are cutting the waste and using them as the public resources for supporting the children’s growth and development. These are more accountable and effective steps that are making the marginalised and poor children inclusive to the educational system which cannot be done by the teachers alone and needs the support of the families and the society too. Moriña (2017) opined that the new policies are promising the children of the nation to give the best possible quality in the primary 12 years of their education so that the base can be constructed for investing more in their future success through their talents and potentials despite the challenges such as poverty and other reasons.

Probable effects of educational policies on children & families

All the social policies in the educational sector of both the past and the present scenarios have different expected effects on the society children and their families. The expectation goes like:

The teaching quality will be good quality and advanced so that they can provide the children a valuable and effective learning in the schools. The teachings will be fully skilled and there will not be lack of proper settings for an absolute learning environment (Midgley et al. 2019). The social policies were formulated prioritising the hiring process, recruitment systems and motivated teachers for using the useful and knowledge intended strategies in case of children of the higher section. The policies were formulated with a probable expectation of protecting the children from poor and marginalised violence at schools and the teachers will be there to support their overall growth teaching them to be united and remaining influenced by the multilateral efforts (Hill et al. 2017).

The expectations from the probable educational policies implemented were that they will serve as the best possible measure for the most lower classed, marginalised and vulnerable children both the girls and boys who are studying and also to their families since families are the primary educational environment for each and every children (Steketee et al. 2017). So it is very much important that the schools and other educational institutions must coordinate with the parents of the children so that they too can be compatible for helping their children towards growth. The environmental and economic policies were there to protect the rights of the human being taking care of the educational front in the population.

Moriña (2017) suggested that many evidences have showed that the past educational system were not up-to-date since most of the focus at that time was emphasised on the teaching subjects and practices to make them easier for children but education doesn’t only have learning in it. More likely the education system itself is consisted of various dimensions and all of them are a part of the overall national educational sector (Sandwick et al. 2018). The past policies were probably lacking focus on other fronts apart from the teaching and learning process. The major and minor both the investments that were done for promoting the accountability, transparency and coalitions were seeking for a better educational environment with alternatives to cross the disruptions in the process but very few were seen to be successfully coming out.

Actual effects of educational policies on children & families

Apart from the expected and probable results of the implementation of the educational policies on the children and on the families of those children too, the actual effects showed were different. As per Hoefer (2019), education as being a basic human right gave the potential and advantages to the people of all the society making them empowered towards a sustainable growth and development. The actual effect or impact of the social educational policies majorly includes:

The policies boosted the previous underpinned developments and gave chances of earning a huge amount of quality education resulting to around 10 per cent boost in the increase of girl children initiating to go to schools as compared to boys which were more in numbers in the past times. Turner (2017) stated that records have revealed that as compared to the past times, the recent years got more capitals, funding and investments from the governments and from many non-governmental institutions also for making the education sector more engaged, tolerant, active and trust-worthy targeting for seeking better improvements to serve public in a better way.

The recent changes in the educational social policies also involved parents and the families of the children in the institutional educational system so they can also get chance to make themselves better for growing their children in their own family environments. Teunis, N. and Herdt, G.H. eds., 2019 advised that the actual policy effects support in benefitting the future generation in a huge manner by educating more girl children to have a better understanding and empowering on the acts of knowledge with a healthy and active behaviour. Williamson (2017) revealed that the actual result showed built social resilience and cohesion in the education sector which played a powerful role in the sense of shared identity which should not be misused for sowing division in the adapted measures.

Conclusion

The essay above concluded that the social policies in the education system nowadays have changed strengthening the political and economic dimensions towards the importance of education in the society and made realise that it is an integral part. The past education system and their policies were much different from the current advanced policies and systems. The current and present education system globally targeted on focusing towards the improvement of the quality of education and the educational environment so that it can be ensured that the children are getting the basics of their learning process in a standard set-up without any difficulties in growth of their future.

Dig deeper into Policy and Evaluation in Public Health with our selection of articles.

References

Castiglioni, R., Díez, J. and Franceschet, S., 2017. 11. Social Policy Reform and Continuity under the Bachelet Administration. In Comparative Public Policy in Latin America (pp. 247-271). University of Toronto Press.

Hill, H.D., Romich, J., Mattingly, M.J., Shamsuddin, S. and Wething, H., 2017. An introduction to household economic instability and social policy.

Hoefer, R., 2019. Modest challenges for the fields of human service administration and social policy research and practice. Human Service Organizations: Management, Leadership & Governance, 43(4), pp.278-289.

Midgley, J., Surender, R. and Alfers, L. eds., 2019. Handbook of social policy and development. Edward Elgar Publishing.

Moriña, A., 2017. Inclusive education in higher education: challenges and opportunities. European Journal of Special Needs Education, 32(1), pp.3-17.

Sandwick, T., Fine, M., Greene, A.C., Stoudt, B.G., Torre, M.E. and Patel, L., 2018. Promise and provocation: Humble reflections on critical participatory action research for social policy. Urban Education, 53(4), pp.473-502.

Steketee, G., Ross, A.M. and Wachman, M.K., 2017. Health outcomes and costs of social work services: A systematic review. American journal of public health, 107(S3), pp.S256-S266.

Teunis, N. and Herdt, G.H. eds., 2019. Sexual inequalities and social justice. University of California Press.

Turner, F.J. ed., 2017. Social work treatment: Interlocking theoretical approaches. Oxford University Press.

Williamson, B., 2017. Big data in education: The digital future of learning, policy and practice. Sage.