This paper performs a critical examination of the Ofsted Education Inspection Framework (EIF), which was accompanied by an Inspection Handbook for Further Education and Skills, and argues that this policy document reinforces the neoliberal project in education. Drawing on concepts from Michel Foucault's analysis of the nature and effects of…

This article exposes the fear that is at the heart of the Ofsted inspection process. It presents a challenge to Ofsted's Chief Inspector, Amanda Spielman. She must tread carefully if she is to reform Ofsted and our broken accountability system.

Purpose: As the international society faces unprecedented challenges associated with resource scarcity, governance scandals, increasing injustice and inequality, new opportunities for higher education institutions are emerging. This paper aims to investigate the association between national governance standards and education quality across nine…

Since their introduction in the 1990s, explicit standards documents have pervaded higher education assessment--success likely linked to their compatibility with constructive alignment and quality assurance regimes. Researchers, however, criticise that such documents are based on a misconception of standards as explicit and absolute, when in fact…

A National Education Service has to fix the multiple problems created by a fragmented and fractured system which has been completely undermined by academisation. This article argues there can be no ambivalence about bringing academy schools back into a local authority system, but that a future Labour government must also reinvigorate what…

Just as surveillance in general has become more sophisticated, penetrative and ubiquitous, so has the surveillance of teachers. Enacted through an assemblage of strategies such as learning walks, parental networks, student voice and management information systems, the surveillance of teachers has proliferated as a means of managing the risks of…

Competence frameworks and standards are increasingly used by professions in the UK, driven by pressures for professional accountability, and particularly by the trend towards assessing practice before fully-qualified status is granted. A review of 40 UK frameworks indicated that most are concerned primarily with the ability to undertake work…

Historically, for a period of a hundred years or more from the 1860s to the 1960s, assessment developed as an educational technology for selecting and certificating small numbers of individual students. This process was largely focused on excluding the majority. Over the last 30-40 years, the focus and purpose of assessment has changed. The…

In this paper, we explore some of the keywords around which the practice of school inspection is ordered in England. As part of a project that explores the role of inspection in governing schooling in England, Scotland and Sweden, we have examined some of the key sources through which Ofsted (The Office for Standards in Education, Children's…

Despite claims made for them, many current education policies have perverse consequences. If all our children are to benefit from the good education they deserve, we need: forms of accountability that do not rely on school performance tables of test results; a focus on standards that embody high expectations for all; the urgent creation of a…

The concordat to support research integrity sets out five commitments that will provide assurances to government, the wider public and the international community that research in the UK continues to be underpinned by the highest standards of rigour and integrity. Developed in collaboration with the funding and research councils, the Wellcome…

This study aimed to investigate teachers' perspectives on the practical implementation of the standards agenda and its impact on their professional identities. Q-methodology was used alongside semi-structured interviews with UK primary school teachers. The study explored the views of 25 teachers in six schools, selected through purposive sampling…

There are lessons for Australia in the key approaches to the development, approval, maintenance and quality assurance of qualifications adopted in countries overseas. This research takes into account a range of approaches used in selected European Union (EU) member states (Germany, Finland and Sweden), the United Kingdom (England, Northern Ireland…

The opening-up of the market for education and training, including vocational education and training (VET), has increased the importance of regulation and quality assurance mechanisms in ensuring the integrity of qualifications. This report investigates approaches to the regulation and quality assurance of vocational education and training in a…

In this article, a deconstructive "survol" of the term "standards" suggests that the concept contributes to an "outside-in" professionalism masquerading as "inside-out" professionalism. In examining a case of "standards" in action, the authors point out the inadequacy of "standards" as…