Using material from Item A and elsewhere, assess the claim that the main aim of education policies in the last 25 years has been to create an education market

Educational policies have been introduced by the government in order to guide or inform schools on how to function through the laws and strategies provided. Over the last 25 years- since 1988 there have been many educational policies in order to improve education. Some sociologists would argue that although these policies have improved education, the main aim of this was for marketisation. Marketisation meant that schools had to compete in order to attract students to their schools. However, this appears to be somewhat questionable when the outcomes of these policies and others are taken into consideration.
Policies that have been introduced due to the 1988 Education Reform Act can be used to clearly show that the main aim of educational policies in the last twenty five years has been to create an education market. As item A states, policies such as league tables create an open enrolment to increase competition. The league table is where schools would post grades achieved by the students in their exams. This was introduced because it was able to give parents a choice in where they wanted to send their child based on what schools achieved the higher grades. Therefore this can be used as an example to support the claim that the main aim of educational policies have been to create marketisation, as league tables drive schools to compete with each other, in order to attract more parents. Due to the introduction of league tables schools have a reason to achieve, because if they do not then another school will have a better league table position then they do, which will result in decreased popularity. Also, schools now receive money for each pupil that they enrol at their school. Meaning, popular schools with a