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New Labour and Higher Education: Dilemmas and Paradoxes
Author(s) -
Brown Roger
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
higher education quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.976
H-Index - 42
eISSN - 1468-2273
pISSN - 0951-5224
DOI - 10.1111/j.0951-5224.2003.00245.x
Subject(s) - greenwich , set (abstract data type) , diversity (politics) , hierarchy , sociology , government (linguistics) , white paper , white (mutation) , political economy , public relations , political science , law , linguistics , philosophy , biochemistry , environmental science , chemistry , anthropology , computer science , soil science , gene , programming language
David Blunkett's Greenwich speech (2000) set out what have become the main themes of New Labour's engagement with higher education, themes which were elaborated in the recent White Paper (DfES, 2003a). This paper draws attention to the dilemmas and paradoxes which arise from the difficulties of simultaneously satisfying the objectives which were set out in the aftermath of the 2001 general election, and from the trade off solutions and policies actually identified. The most fundamental conflict is between the desire to expand the system and the costs of that expansion. The author also identifies a conflict between institutional diversity and hierarchy and between exclusionism and accessibility. The paper concludes by suggesting that exclusionism is still alive and well under the government of a party that still has ‘Labour’ in its title.