Conference Agenda

Very few countries were prepared for the disruptive effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on education. The school closures that happened as a response to the health emergency were unprecedented in length and duration. Policymakers, schools, teachers, parents and pupils, all found themselves having to deal with the uncertainties the situation created, at speed and with no good map to guide them (OECD, 2022; Thorn and Vincent-Lancrin, 2021; Thorn and Vincent-Lancrin, 2022). At this distance from the immediate crisis, this paper asks whether the policy convergence on “learning loss” and “remote education” as the key focus for educational research post-COVID, ignores the more pressing issues facing schools and pupils as the pandemic recedes. Not least, how growing up in poverty affects children’s lives; and the crucial role schools play in sustaining their communities during difficult times.

Drawing on data collected from a series of research projects looking at the immediate responses of English primary schools to school closures between 2020 and 2021 (Bradbury et al, 2022; Harmey and Moss, 2021; Moss, 2022), this paper will set out the very different priorities that steered schools’ and teachers’ responses to the crisis at the time, and their key concerns now. Recognising that their priorities were gaining limited traction with either policymaking or researcher communities at the time, our own research was designed to reframe the nature of the public conversation on COVID, its impacts and recovery strategies (Moss et al, 2020; Moss et al, 2022).

The dilemmas that the English case demonstrates will be used as a prompt for reflection on the contradictions in the logics of "governing at a distance" and the disconnects it creates in the knowledge-ecosystem (Krejsler, 2013). The paper asks whether different modes of critical engagement with a wider range of educational stakeholders might open up new possibilities for bridging the boundaries between research, policy and practice. Not least by building alternative avenues for education itself to knowledge-build on aspects of schooling that currently lie outside the outcomes and accountability frames that so many governments rely on to inform what they do. We argue that such research needs to start from community stakeholder knowledge of the issues that matter most in their context and adopt approaches that enable their perspectives to help set the agenda for future educational research.

The theoretical framework draws on key concepts in policy sociology and uses them to seek meaningful agendas for educational change. These include the concepts of policy trajectories and enactments and the contribution to understanding governane and policy effects that stems from Le Galès' conceptualisation of policy instruments as "the accumulation of devices and their interaction without clear purpose" that lead a life of their own (Le Galès, 2022)

Covid 19 disrupted education provision globally, highlighting and deepening inequalities. It prompted public demands for education recovery planning to go beyond a return to ‘normal’ in thinking about the future shape of provision, including recognition of the impact of poverty and poor mental health on educational attainment. Tensions between policy initiatives to address these challenges and developments that focus on a rapid return to ‘normal’ are evident in the publications of organisations such as the OECD and the European Commission. These global policy tensions are also evident, in contrasting ways, in each of the UK’s four systems. This paper explores these tensions through an analysis of key education recovery planning documents from each national administration and considers the extent to which the different national systems are adopting or adapting global and European templates for recovery.

The paper focuses on the following research questions:
(i) What are the key priorities in recovery planning in each UK administration?
(ii) What knowledge sources do they draw on?
(iii) Are these nationally embedded or transnational sources?

The objectives of the paper are to (a) compare and contrast recovery policy across the UK (b) illuminate the role of party politics in explaining difference (c) analyse the role of knowledge and expertise in recovery planning (d) contribute to analysis of the governing-knowledge relationship in education.

Differences in party political control across the UK are an important factor in explaining policy differences between Westminster and the rest of the UK (rUK). It is against that backdrop that we examine the policies for education recovery put forward by the four administrations: the UK (Conservative-majority) government, the Scottish Government (SNP-Green party in a co-operation agreement) the Welsh Government (Labour minority government) and the Northern Ireland Executive (currently suspended).

Theoretically we build on our previous work on the importance of governing narratives to explain differences in the construction of education as a policy field across the UK. We also draw on recent research on the management of the examinations crisis in the UK in 2020 when long-term school closures disrupted examinations across all four UK nations. That research identified differences between the UK government’s policy rhetoric in England and the policy discourse in the rest of the UK (rUK), showing how in rUK, education was presented to the public as an important societal resource. That research also highlighted the reliance of policy makers in England on consultants, think tanks and government agencies as sources of expertise, and the exclusion of academic expertise. Preliminary analysis of the key policy texts on education recovery across the four nations suggests that these differences are reflected in the current construction of recovery policy.

We pay particular attention to the differences in the sources of knowledge and expertise that are referenced and mobilised in these policy contexts. The emphasis on politics as central to understanding the workings of the knowledge-policy relationship in education recovery indicates our broadly interpretivist theoretical approach, in that we understand policy as enmeshed in politics, as made and (re) made in processes of enactment as contingent and mobile. Knowledge, in this perspective, is characterised by internal struggles that always return to politics and is shaped through the historical contingency of processes at work in its production, so that knowledge is understood as produced, accepted and contested in specific contexts. Expertise is relational, mediating between knowledge production and application, welding scientific and social capabilities.

This paper is part of a recent comparative and qualitative study of IB practices in the Southeast Asian contexts of Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. In Asian societies, such as Singapore, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, the number of IB schools has experienced a quick rise since the turn of the millennium. As a distinctive curriculum, the IB is gaining recognition and growing within the global education system. Over 7,500 IB programmes are offered worldwide, spanning 5,500 schools within 159 countries (International Baccalaureate Organisation, 2021). The number of IB programmes offered worldwide has grown by 33.3% between 2016 and 2020. Across the Asian Pacific region, there are 1,663 IB World programmes, constituting 22% of the global programmes.

The state governments have also incorporated international curricula into national education systems. This development in IB schools in the three contexts has been uneven, with some countries more advanced in their practices and others still at their infancy stage of development. Despite the varying conditions, IB’s links to the future of global capital, the internationality of education continue to grow in influence. The IB has also been marketed as a form of qualification recognised by universities worldwide, thus establishing a strong global brand.

The study highlights the reimagination of schooling emerging because of the covid pandemic and the tensions from the economic domains across the three contexts. It examines the nature of the neoliberal shift and propose a reassessment of the engagement and enactment of the neoliberal rule post pandemic. We argue that although the conformance to the neoliberal rule has taken on a new shape and direction within the current pandemic state, as shown in the data collected from three varying contexts, establishing positive shifts towards a more collective and connective stance within the countries’ practices did not fully eradicate the tensions that had to be overcome to ensure that schools were more equitable in their practices.

Within the European context, which have faced mass migration, one of the key challenges is catering to a diversified population and allowing for different groups to co-exist harmoniously with a common sense of identity. The adoption of an internationally minded curriculum is aligned with the practices of international schools and providers, which have faced myriad issues catering to diverse school populations (Hayden & Thompson, 2016). More recently, the IB curricula has also take precedence and is in competition with local curricula, offered to both the international cohort as well as the local students. Given its strong positioning within the European context as well as globally, the IB has built a reputation for “elite academically challenging” standards and this branding has appealed within a global front, competing with other international curricula and international examination systems by Cambridge University (Doherty, 2009).

The study involves 15 international schools across three different contexts: Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan. As the study explores the case study schools’ IB curriculum planning, establishment, implementation and adoption, a case-oriented approach allowed for a more interpretive analysis. The focus was thus on answering firstly, the “how” question, examining closely “How is the IB curriculum contextualised in Hongkong, Singapore, and Taiwan?”. The focus was on the following details :

It examined three domains, the planning and establishment, the implementation and adoption as well as the intercultural and international constructs.