A new politics for transforming education

Generally speaking, the language of politics is dominated by levels of funding, structural arrangements and accountability measures – and, where politicians do engage with a wider set of considerations, global windy rhetoric is rarely matched by domestic policy making or concerted efforts at change; rather like the approach to the climate emergency. This is an analogy to which we will return.

Currently, there are few signs that political agendas match either the aspirations of educators or the real needs of learners. A repeated lament from the educators with whom we have worked for the last ten years is that they want to engage in different approaches, but ‘the system’ will not let them.

This is the starting point from which CSE launched an international enquiry with a group of remarkable individuals who are distinguished by having been at the very heart of the politics of education in their various jurisdictions; whether as elected politicians with ministerial responsibility, or as advisers at the highest level, working in the political theatre. We set before them the above account, and invited them first to respond to that.

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