Running ever faster down the wrong road

Since 1998 the education system in England has been subjected to wave upon wave of radical change, and a more intensive model of reform is now being applied to all the public services. Drawing on his own research and that of other specialists in the post-compulsory sector, Professor Coffield concludes that, despite significant investments and some successes, the programme of reform contains so many serious weaknesses that it is doing more harm than good. It should therefore now be fundamentally redesigned, and Frank Coffield proposes the outlines of a new system. But first, he emphasises, before any new programme of reform is introduced, we must stop running faster and faster down the wrong road.