WMD and Education Research
FE, HE, In The News, League Tables, Politics, Research Sunday, October 25th, 2009
Recent headlines have highlighted how education research findings must be treated with a little suspicion.
Contrast the findings of the government-funded UK Commission for Employment and Skills (Ukces) review into further and higher education, which calls for yet more league tables – this time in FE – with the Cambridge Primary Review that calls for formal learning to begin later than at present.
The first is funded by the Government and lo-and-behold it is full of praise for existing Government policy and in the Guardian the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills is quoted as saying: “We work very closely with Ukces and warmly welcome their valuable insight on improving the skills system.”
The latter isn’t funded by the Government and, unsurprisingly, its findings are rejected.
This whole corruption of education research is reminiscent of Tony Blair at the time of the Iraq war fabricating intelligence to fit his own messianic designs. Look where that got us.