Policy-Practice Proximity: The Scope for College-Based Higher Education and Cross-Sector Collaboration in Wales

In relation to the size of its population, Wales has a relatively large number of higher education institutions, several of which are small and located in rural areas. Compared with other parts of the United Kingdom, only a small number of higher education students are taught in Welsh further education colleges. Nevertheless, efforts have been made to increase higher education provision in the colleges, beginning in the late 1980s with the encouragement of franchising arrangements by the Wales Advisory Body and later with a joint initiative by the Higher and Further Education Funding Councils for Wales to expand some sub‐degree higher education in the colleges by direct funding. These developments represent just one strand of activity linking the higher and further education sectors in Wales and have not been a subject of major or regular policy attention. For reasons of scale and geography, and through the enabling structures and processes serving both funding councils, cross‐sector initiatives and collaboration have generally been given high priority in strategies to widen access and build progression. The administrative devolution reflected in these arrangements has been increased by political devolution since 1999, with as yet unclear implications for the future development of higher education in the colleges.     

A Comparison of Part-time Higher Education Provision and Participation Rates in the UK: Implications for the Development of Provision in Northern Ireland

Most studies of higher education participation rates have been primarily concerned with the numbers of full-time students most of whom have progressed into higher education soon after leaving secondary school or full-time further education. This paper seeks to compare part-time provision and participation levels in Northern Ireland with that in other parts of the UK. The pattern which emerges is that part-time participation rates in Northern Ireland do not appear markedly different to those in other parts of the UK. However there are distinctive features in the pattern of provision. Compared with Scotland, a much higher proportion of part-time HE in Northern Ireland takes place within the universities. It is argued that these differences should be considered when examining options for tackling the under-supply of HE places in Northern Ireland which are identified in the Northern Ireland Appendix to the Dearing Report.     

Higher education policy in post-devolution UK: more convergence than divergence?

Many researchers studying the impact of parliamentary devolution conclude that education policies in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are diverging. They attribute this to five factors: the redistribution of formal powers associated with devolution; differences in values, ideologies and policy discourses across the four territories; the different composition, interests and policy styles of their policy communities; the different ‘situational logics’ of policy-making and the mutual independence of policy decisions in the different territories. This article reviews trends in higher education (HE) policy across the UK since parliamentary devolution. It focuses on policies for student fees and student support, for widening participation, for supporting research and for the HE contribution to economic development, skills and employability. On balance, it finds as much evidence of policy convergence, or at least of constraints on divergence, as of policy divergence. It argues that each of the five factors claimed to promote divergence can be associated with corresponding pressures for convergence.     

Higher Education in Wales: The (Re-)emergence of a National System?

This paper explores historical patterns of change in participation in higher education in Wales, using as an organising framework Halsey's (1992) distinction between higher education as an administrative and as a social system. The nineteenth-century development of Welsh higher education was both part of a distinctive national political project and reflected the specificities of wider Welsh society. Expansion through the early and middle decades of the present century eroded this distinctiveness, as both the governance of Welsh higher education and patterns of student recruitment and participation became increasingly integrated into an 'England and Wales' system. The more recent expansion of higher education institutions in Wales, as well as the participation of Welsh students in higher education overall, has further accentuated this social integration into an 'England and Wales' system. Currently, Wales exhibits a pattern of participation which is unique amongst the home countries, whereby the Welsh higher education institutions serve very substantial numbers of students from England (and to a much lesser extent elsewhere), whilst a large proportion of Welsh students register at institutions in England. This indicates that there is now a significant disjuncture between an increasingly distinct pattern of governance of Welsh higher education and a pattern of participation which is massively integrated in the 'England and Wales' system.     

Education and Nationhood in Wales: An Historiographical Analysis

Throughout the centuries, a sense of national identity in Wales has manifested itself in a variety of ways – aspirations to statehood, a unique language, cultural distinctiveness, religious affiliation, sporting achievement and, most recently, political devolution. Educational institutions in myriad forms have reflected aspects of these manifestations and themselves shed some light on their nature. In turn, the historiography of education in Wales is itself a product of national, educational, social and scholarly preoccupations which both reflect the ideas and priorities of the time and shed some light on their nature and significance. It is the purpose of this article to make a preliminary exploration into some of these interactions and, in so doing, provide an introduction to some of the major secondary sources of information on Welsh education. To this end, the article outlines in very general terms outstanding landmarks in those elements of Welsh education since the early modern period which might be claimed to be distinctive and the way in which the historiography reflects and reinforces such claims. Although the article sketches the picture in the centuries from the Tudors to industrialisation, its main thrust, reflecting the historiography, is on the period since the nineteenth century when the England/Wales state took over the financing of the education of its citizens to an ever increasing extent. Within this period, there is particular emphasis on such episodes as the ‘Treason of the Blue Books’ in 1847, the Welsh Intermediate Education Act of 1889, the ‘Welsh Revolt’ following the Education Act of 1902 and the more subtle but steady devolutionary episodes evident in the twentieth century, culminating in the creation of the National Assembly for Wales in 1999. All have generated a range of secondary works which itself reflects the priorities of historians in a scholarly environment which, since the 1960s, has seen changes in approach to the study of history which have allowed historians of Welsh education to take their place in the mainstream of historical studies.     

Improving attendance and behaviour in Wales: the action plan

The National Behaviour and Attendance Review (NBAR) Report for Wales was produced in 2008. Subsequently, its recommendations were accepted by the Welsh Assembly Government (WAG) which established an Implementation Group to prepare its response in detail. A year later in April 2009 this Group presented its findings and recommendations to WAG in the form of an Action Plan. The Action Plan was entitled Behaving and Attending: Responding to the National Behaviour and Attendance Review. The intention of the Action Plan is to help to shape the direction of future developments on the management of attendance and behaviour in Wales over the foreseeable future. The Action Plan’s recommendations are sub‐divided into three: short, medium and long‐term solutions. The Plan’s strategy is broken down into eight key areas. These are on: attendance, behaviour, children and young people’s rights, early intervention, literacy, multi and inter‐agency working, school effectiveness and finally, on training and development. This paper outlines and considers these ideas, places the work into a UK‐wide research context and the Welsh educational policy strategy. It also indicates areas where future pilot projects and research will be necessary.     

Tackling behaviour and attendance issues in schools in Wales: implications for training and professional development

In 2009, the Welsh Assembly Government published its Report on the review of behaviour and attendance in schools in Wales. The National Behaviour and Attendance Review (NBAR) in Wales was chaired by the author of this paper. Both the Review and the Welsh Assembly Government’s response contained recommendations related to the training and professional development needs of staff in schools and local authorities (LAs). A paper on the professional development needs of staff on behaviour and attendance based on the NBAR recommendations is published in the same edition of this journal. This follow‐up paper focuses upon the Welsh Assembly Government’s response to these recommendations and its implementation plan on which the author acted as the professional adviser. The Welsh Assembly Government accepted with cross‐party support that the training and professional development needs of teachers and LA staff in behavioural management and school attendance had been neglected over many years. For the first time, coordinated new training and continuing professional development programmes on behavioural management and school attendance will be introduced in Wales soon. The next stage will be to evaluate the effectiveness of these programmes.     

Money for nothing: Estimating the impact of student aid on participation in higher education

Understanding how higher education (HE) finance policy can affect HE decisions is important for understanding how governments can promote human capital accumulation. Yet there is a severe lack of evidence on the effectiveness of student aid in encouraging HE participation outside of the US, and none at all for the UK. This paper exploits a reform that took place in the UK in 2004, when maintenance grants were introduced for students from low income families, having been abolished since 1999. This reform occurred in isolation of any other policy changes, and did not affect students from relatively better off families, making them a potential control group. We use a difference-in-difference framework to estimate the effect of the reform on HE undergraduate participation. We find a positive impact of maintenance grants, with a £1000 increase in grants leading to a 3.95 percentage point increase in participation.     

A systematic review of evidence on the effectiveness of interventions and strategies for widening participation in higher education

Widening participation (WP) in higher education (HE) is an increasingly important policy issue, with interventions to increase participation from minority ethnic, low-income and other under-represented groups undertaken in HE sectors in many countries. In the UK there is a large amount of WP activity but a lack of robust evidence of its effectiveness. This article presents a systematic review in the topic area of WP in HE. We included studies of systematic review, randomised controlled trial (RCT) and quasi-experimental (QE) designs, and assessed evidence of the effectiveness of university access strategies and approaches in relation to the participation of disadvantaged students at university. We searched for, quality appraised and synthesised the international evidence, that is, evidence published in any country, in the English language. The findings from 4 systematic reviews and 12 experimental studies (4 RCTs, 4 RDDs and 4 QEDs) are presented as narrative syntheses in a series of thematic sub-topics. We found some evidence of effectiveness for a number of university access interventions. ‘Black box’ WP programmes (those with multiple elements in a single programme) and financial incentives were found to be effective. However, much of the evidence had design limitations and the majority were conducted in the US. The article concludes with research recommendations in relation to UK interventions, including suggested designs for future quasi-experimental evaluation.     

Higher Education Participation in Northern Ireland

Higher education participation in Northern Ireland is higher than England and Wales and second only to Scotland. This paper charts the progress of participation and examines its social characteristics. Uniquely within the UK, approximately one-third of Northern Ireland entrants come from working class backgrounds. Catholic and female participation has also increased significantly but the participation of mature entrants is lower than in the rest of the UK. High participation levels have been achieved, however, by large numbers of entrants leaving to study in Scotland and England. There is a significant undersupply of higher education places in Northern Ireland when compared with either Scotland or Wales. With the costs of higher education being increasingly borne by individual students and their families there is already evidence that more students would prefer to remain in Northern Ireland to study. Increasing pressure on places is driving up A-level entry requirements and many students are forced to leave Northern Ireland to study or not to study in higher education. These developments threaten the advances made by particular social groups. Lifting the MASN cap in Northern Ireland is a significant policy objective.     

Higher education,participation and devolution: the case of Northern Ireland

This paper outlines some of the key changes in higher education participation in Northern Ireland from the mid-1980s onwards and places the discussion of participation in the evolving policy context of devolution in the United Kingdom. The paper draws upon research conducted on participation and the migration of students and graduates. Changes in student numbers by level and mode are complemented by a consideration of social class, religion, and gender. The analysis distinguishes between different reasons for migration or staying in Northern Ireland. The discussion highlights some of the early consequences of devolution in the UK for higher education participation and suggests that the UK system previously regarded as unified is set to become increasingly differentiated.     

Inequalities in Entry to Higher Education: a Comparison Over Time between Scotland and England and Wales

This paper uses data from the Scottish School Leavers Surveys and the England and Wales Youth Cohort Study to analyse changes over time in gender and social class inequalities in the opportunities of young people to participate in higher education (HE) in Scotland, England and Wales. The results show that in Great Britain, in the period from the end of the 1980s to 2001–2002, HE expansion has benefited more women than men, and in the most recent time points has led to a reduction in social inequalities. However, gender and social class differences persist at degree level and in the choice of subject studied. The results also show that higher proportions of working class students enter HE in Scotland than in England and Wales, but that social inequalities are more marked in Scotland. The larger availability of vocational routes in Scotland, at both sub‐degree and degree level, may explain country differences in HE participation rate of working class students.     

Education in England – a testbed for network governance?

Abstract

Since devolution in the late 1990s, education policy in England has diverged further from that in Scotland and also from policy in Wales and Northern Ireland. In this paper we review the roots and trajectory of the English education reforms over the past two decades. Our focus is the schools sector, though we also touch on adjoining reforms to early years and further and higher education. In so doing, we engage with various themes, including marketisation, institutional autonomy and accountability. Changes in governance arrangements for schools have been a defining feature of education reforms since devolution. This has been set against an evolution in national performance indicators that has put government priorities into ever sharper relief. In theorising the changes, we pay particular attention to the suggestion that the English education system now epitomises the concept of ‘network governance’, which has also been applied to education in a global context. We question the extent to which policies have in practice moved beyond the well-established mechanisms of ‘steering at a distance’ and undermined the very notion of an education system in England. We conclude by considering possible futures for education policy and how they may position England in relation to other parts of the UK and the wider world.     

Land of ‘My 9’: Welsh–English Bilingual Girls Creating Spaces to Explore Identity

Based on ongoing research into the literacy practices of bilingual girls from different UK communities, this article focuses on the experiences of 11‐ to 13‐year‐old Welsh–English bilingual girls in Wales. Examples of the girls' talk about their bilingual lives are explored within the social, political, educational and literary context of the Welsh language today. The position of these young Welsh speakers within both the wider dominant, English language context and that of the Welsh language and culture proves to be riven with paradox. However, the girls make creative use of their situation to explore and demonstrate their own identities. One way in which this is evident is in their use of electronic text, and examples are drawn here of their use of personal websites and Instant Messaging in order to provide an insight into their experience.     

Reviews

Post‐compulsory education in the UK is growing in complexity. A little explored feature of this complexity is the development of collaborative arrangements between higher education institutions and providers of sixth form education under which students can study university modules whilst pursuing their sixth form studies. This article reports the findings of a recent project designed to explore the feasibility of such arrangements. A range of existing provision is identified focusing on both academic high achievers and students from socio‐economic groups that are currently under‐represented in higher education. The article reviews such arrangements in the context of government policy, the changing nature of sixth form and higher education, and the boundaries that have been drawn between what have traditionally been viewed as separate elements of the English and Welsh education systems. It considers the impact of such provision on the two main groups of students studied and highlights some of the issues arising out of these partnerships between higher education and sixth form institutions.     

History in the National Curriculum: a lesson in curriculum devolution

This article will focus on an event in the educational history of Wales in the 1980s which still impacts both on school practice and on thinking about concepts of Welsh identity. That event was the creation of the History Committee for Wales which was charged with devising a history curriculum for Welsh schools in the wake of the 1988 Education Act. The story will be told largely by using evidence gleaned in elite interviews with the ministers, senior inspectors and civil servants most closely associated with the decision to support or accept the creation of this committee.

The significance of the decision will be assessed by charting the progress of curriculum devolution in Wales from the beginnings of state education and the implications of this for ideas of Welshness. This background will be briefly sketched, as will the background to the 1988 Education Act on a wider canvas. General reaction to that act in the Welsh Office will be discussed before the detailed implications for the subject of history will be explored in detail.

It will then be argued that wider discussions as to how schools should approach and reflect the history and culture of nations not only shed important light on devolutionary processes which were gathering pace at the time but also reflect the nature of Welshness as perceived by senior figures in the world of education policy-making.     

Current Issues and Perspectives on Second Language Learning of Science

In this paper we combine the findings from two recent studies relating to participation and attainment in school science – a re‐analysis of existing official data for England and a review of wider international research evidence in the literature relevant to the UK. Although the secondary data are drawn mainly from England, the comprehensiveness of these datasets, together with our inclusion of a review of international studies on maths and science participation provides a useful reference point for an international audience. The research was prompted by concerns over a reduction in the uptake of the physical sciences post‐16 and especially in higher education and interest in ways of encouraging the study of science by students from less prestigious socio‐economic status backgrounds. Such concerns are not unique to the UK. Using large‐scale official datasets we show that participation and attainment in science are stratified by socio‐economic status. Students from poorer families are less likely to take sciences at post‐16 than many other subjects and those who do are then less likely to obtain grades high enough to encourage further study of the subject. No conclusive evidence has been found to explain this satisfactorily. Plausible reasons suggested in the literature include the relative scarcity of local opportunities putting off those who do not wish to study away from home or the perceived time demands of studying science, and so the difficulties of combining part‐time study and part‐time work for those needing to continue earning while studying. Direct support from professional parents may also lead to greater participation in post‐16 science for students from higher SES. Perhaps the simplest explanation is that participation in science at any level is often predicated upon success at the previous educational stage. There are clear differences in science attainment at age 16 between students of differing backgrounds, which could explain the subsequent differential participation. However, these differences are not dissimilar to those for all subjects. The largest gap presented in the paper is between students eligible and not eligible for free school meals. We also show that these patterns appear early in the life of children. At ages 7 and 11, attainment in the three core subjects (English, maths and science) is negatively related to living in an area of deprivation. The paper ends with a discussion of suggestions for research, policy and practice emerging from this review of the evidence.     

One System or Four? Cross‐Border Applications and Entries to Full‐Time Undergraduate Courses in the UK Since Devolution

This paper uses Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) data on applications and entries to full‐time undergraduate courses to examine the changing flows of students across the boundaries of the four countries of the United Kingdom (UK), over a period (1996–2010) that embraces parliamentary devolution. It asks whether the emergence of more distinct administrative systems of higher education, following devolution, is reflected in more distinct social systems as reflected in reduced cross‐border flows of students. It reveals a declining tendency for UK applicants to apply to, and enter, higher education in another UK country. This trend is partly attributable to devolution and to consequent changes such as differential fees. However the detailed patterns vary widely across the countries of the UK, across categories of student and across types of institution and programme.     

Policy and Power: One hundred years of Local Education Authorities in Wales

The theme of this article is that, individually and collectively, the local education authorities in Wales have a distinctive history in the 20th century. The thesis is explored mainly by means of three case studies: the reaction of the local authorities to the Education Act of 1902, which eventually escalated into a national movement dubbed 'the Welsh revolt'; the response of some local authorities, particularly in industrial Wales, to the 1932 legislation which required them to replace their free secondary school places with special places; and the attempts of some councils to resist the largely clandestine attempts of the Ministry of Education and its Welsh Department to impose a tripartite system of secondary education against their wishes after 1944. This tradition of independent action in Wales bears on contemporary patterns of power and policy. The article concludes by suggesting that, in an education power structure now radically altered by the creation of the National Assembly for Wales in 1999, the local authorities are regarded more favourably than is the case in England and vested with significantly more responsibility, so making it likely that their future course will diverge increasingly from that of their English counterparts.     

The views of primary pupils on school attendance at Key Stage 2 in Wales

This paper provides new empirical evidence on primary pupils’ views on school attendance in Wales at Key Stage 2. The research was conducted as part of the specific evidence commissioned by the Welsh Assembly Government (WAG) for the National Behaviour and Attendance Review (NBAR) in Wales which was chaired by the lead author. The findings indicate that nearly every child and young person who participated in the specially convened focus groups, in practically every setting, had a good awareness of the benefits of attending school regularly. They were all acutely aware of the potential consequences of non‐attendance both within their current setting and as it could potentially affect their later chances in life. They also understood the law regarding school attendance. They were clear about the attendance regulations within their own school settings. They were however, particularly concerned about bullying in all its forms, the use of supply teachers and “boring” teaching styles. Rewards for good attendance were generally appreciated. The implications of the findings are considered. This paper is the first of its kind to be undertaken in Wales and in the field of school attendance and opens up considerable possibilities for further research.