United Kingdom Education 1997-2001

This paper reviews the achievements of the Labour Government’seducation policy between 1997 and 2001. Tony Blair claimed that hisGovernment would make education a priority. The first part of thepaper reviews the scale of education spending in relation to theeconomy at large and within the education budget. The second part ofthe paper looks at the productivity of schools. How far have the changesthat have affected schools in the past ten years and the past five inparticular affected the quality of school achievements? The papersuggests there have been significant improvements not just on averagebut especially in the gains made in poor areas and in the least goodschools. Finally the paper discusses the funding of higher education, theintroduction of income related loans to cover maintenance and up frontfees. The paper concludes some serious errors were made in policydesign. Even so the use of the Inland Revenue as the collection agencywas a successful innovation and should be built upon.[...]