Fundamental widespread changes affecting education's purposes, policies and practices have had transformational repercussions for school business across the developed world. Subsequently, school business demands and accountabilities continue to escalate in scope and complexity and governments, education authorities and school communities are…

Many supplementary and complementary schools operating in the United Kingdom and other countries have connections and relationships with religious organisations. However, there is considerable variety and complexity in these links and connections. Amidst some public concerns about these schools and as so little is known about them compared with…

This paper reports a study of permanent secretaries who served at the Department for Education (DfE) from 1975 to 2011. Located within a context of theories that explain how government bureaucracies operate, it focuses on Michael Bichard. Appointed in July 1995 when attempts were being made to open Whitehall to non-career civil servants, he…

There is an increasing requirement in higher education (HE) worldwide to deliver excellence. Benchmarking is widely used for this purpose, but methodological approaches to the creation of benchmark metrics vary greatly. Approaches require selection of factors for inclusion and subsequent calculation of benchmarks for comparison. We describe an…

The system of electing university presidents in Spain, Switzerland, Italy, and the United Kingdom has distinctive characteristics. Almost all university presidents are elected by teachers and students, either directly or indirectly through elections with government approval of the appointment a mere formality. Principles of these elections include…

In this article the author connects his own work with Brian Simon's writing on IQ (intelligence quotient) testing and selection and with the Learning without Limits project. He discusses the significance he gives to a values framework in the development of education and asks whether "Learning without Limits," in part, stands for a…

This reflection does not pretend to be a scientific survey of curriculum trends but is, as the title suggests, a personal reminiscence of governorship across different phases of education, with snippets about the curriculum that my memory recalls.

Our current curriculum and qualifications framework is a "fragmented mess" according to many of those who teach in, and lead, our schools. How can we change it with minimal disruption, particularly after four years of often destructive meddling from above? A number of individuals and groups at school level have been working to develop a…

The author is a long-time advocate inside the Labour Party for ending selective education and the 11-plus. She outlines how Labour Party frontbenchers routinely ignore or deflect calls from Party members to stand up for comprehensive education in both word and deed. As UKIP, whose policy is to extend selective education more widely, rises in the…

In the final eleven months of its five-year term, the Coalition Government placed much emphasis in the education system on what it called fundamental British values (FBV). The phrase had its origins in counter-terrorism strategies that were of dubious validity both conceptually and operationally, and the trigger for its introduction into the…

This paper provides an overview of the contribution of Professor Geoffrey Sherington to the study of the history of Australian education and immigration. His academic and leadership roles are summarised and the main themes of his work are briefly discussed. These themes comprise: Australia as an immigrant nation, British colonial values and…

Mobile technologies are becoming ubiquitous in education, yet the wider implications of this phenomenon are not well understood. The paper discusses how mobile lifelong learning (mLLL) may be defined, and the challenges of forging a suitable definition in an ever-shifting technological and socio-economic landscape. mLLL appears as a ubiquitous…

In the United Kingdom higher education environment, government may make efforts to encourage institutions to engage in governance structures to secure policy objectives through a steering approach. In this article connections between skills governance structures and the recent Higher Education Funding Council for England workforce development…

The business side of the Lancasterian system of mass schooling has been highlighted by some researchers. However, this feature is usually considered of minor importance compared to other dimensions of that system, namely the social control role of popular education in early nineteenth-century Britain. The present surge of projects and mechanisms…

This paper discusses the experiences of parents of deaf children with additional complex needs (ACN) in accessing cochlear implant (CI) services and achieving ongoing support. Of a total study group of fifty-one children with ACN, twelve had been fitted with a CI. The parental accounts provide a rich and varied picture of service access. For some…