The Erosion of the National Curriculum

Abstract

As we noted briefly in chapter 2, it was Margaret Thatcher’s truncated third administration (1987–1990) that saw the introduction of a national curriculum for all state primary and secondary schools in England and Wales. But it is often forgotten that the decision by Education Secretary Kenneth Baker (1986–1989), with the support of his senior civil servants, to include far-reaching curriculum proposals as part of the 1987 Education Bill did not have the wholehearted support of Conservative MPs at Westminster, nor indeed of the Conservative cabinet. The very idea of a centrally determined state curriculum was the subject of bitter dispute among the various sections of the so-called New Right, and there were many influential thinkers advising the prime minister who argued that a rigid program of study could have no place in a market system of schools, where a school’s unique curriculum framework could well be one of its essential “selling-points.”