政治主導改革の可能性

――イギリスにおける「学校教育の水準と枠組みに関する1998年法」導入を題材に――

抄録

This paper consider the issue of educational professionalism and political intervention focusing on the registration of the “School Standards and Framework Act 1998” in the UK. The paper argues that the crucial issue in the present circumstances for this theme is the institutional fatigue, and its maintenance. The paper suggests that political intervention can be an effective method to recover the institutional fatigue of the system based on educational professionalism.

The School Standards and Framework Act 1998 enabled LEAs to intervene into schools and the Secretary of State to intervene into LEAs, when they find failures there. Although the question was raised wheather this act would further enforce the power of the government, no substantial oppositions was raised in the Parliament Debates. This was because this registration intended to deal with a specific case of failure, and this intention was shared among the House members as a reasonable ultimate solution. The case was that of the London Borough of Hackney. As the local authority itself was already assessed as failing in Hackney, arguments were focused on Article 8 of the act, which gives the Secretary of State the power to take over the failing local authorities.

Hackney Council had been struggling to improve its education since the previous Conservative government revealed the troubles Hackney had in the early 1990s, but there were no significant improvements. The new Labour government, in 1997, immediately launched a series of powerful actions to support Hackney including dispatching the Hackney Improvement Team, whose recommendations, however, the Council would not implement entirely. This was the background to the introduction of Article 8 of the act.

As soon as the act was enacted, Article 8 was adapted to Hackney, and its school improvement services and its ethnic minority achievement service were taken away from the Council and transferred to a private company Nord Anglia in 1999. Three years later, in 2002, all educational services were taken away and transferred to the Hackney Learning Trust, which was a non-profit private organisation established in Hackney specifically for this purpose, with a 10-year contract. Thus, time-related powerful political intervention was employed as a tool to repair the institutional fatigue. This project has turned out to be successful.

This paper interprets this registration of the radical article and its adaptation to Hackney as an emergency method for educational governance reform, which means a governance reform adjusting custommade tools with a non-regular governance logic, but effective to recover the damage. The reason why the Hackney case was successful is because two factors: first, radical but effective tools were successfully programmed for Hackney, second, the case where the radical tools would be applied was clearly targeted and shared. Without these factors, the tools would not be effective but could cause harm, because the logic of the time-related radical tools and the actual education situation are not necessarily compatible.