Suchergebnisse

This article considers education policy under the SNP Governments from 2007–2016. It deals with aspects from primary, secondary and tertiary education. The main approach of the article is to examine the role of education policy within the broad context of SNP governing strategy. Education is treated as a key element of strategy throughout the policy period. The SNP's long-term strategic aim is independence for Scotland. The article examines ways in which governing strategy, and education policy in particular, were used by the SNP within the constraints of devolution during the period 2007–2016. The political background to that strategy changed significantly during the period. The article discusses the opportunities and challenges presented to the SNP in the context of diverging views on education and other elements of economic and social policy within the UK, particularly in the period after the 2015 General Election.

Politicians have returned frequently to the need to reform schools to achieve wider objectives of social reform and economic prosperity. Within the UK education systems, however, there have been differing experiences and approaches at both national (Scottish, English, Welsh and Northern Irish) and local levels towards school governance reform. School governance in Scotland remains distinct compared to the rest of the UK, both in terms of the pace of reform and the content. The pace of reform in Scotland has been slower and the content has been shaped to a greater extent by political and professional modes of accountability. This article argues that a new phase in school governance reform is likely to follow the election of the Scottish National Party (SNP) majority government in May 2011. A number of factors both external (international comparison of the school performance; the post 2008 politics of austerity) and internal (changes led by the SNP government to the policy-making process, namely outcomes-based policy-making) have placed debates about school autonomy and school governance on the political agenda. Adapted from the source document.

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Notes on the Contributors -- List of Tables -- 1. Centenary Blues: 100 Years of Scottish Conservatism -- 2. Sociability, Status and Solidarity: Scottish Unionism in the era of Irish Home Rule, 1886-1920 -- 3. Patriotism, Paternalism and Pragmatism: Scottish Toryism, Union and Empire, 1912-65 -- 4. More than a Name: The Union and the Un-doing of Scottish Conservatism in the Twentieth Century -- 5. Smithians, Thatcherites and the Ironies of Scottish Conservative Decline -- 6. 'It's Only a Northern Song': The Constant Smirr of Anti-Thatcherism and Anti-Toryism -- 7. The Wilderness Years -- 8. Why no Tory Revival in Scotland? -- 9. Refashioning Welsh Conservatism - a Lesson for Scotland? -- 10. The Press, National Identity and the Scottish Tories -- 11. 'Handbagging' the Feminisation Thesis? Refl ections on Women in the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party -- 12. Conservative Unionism: Prisoned in Marble -- Index