Opinion

'Unquestioning adherance to market dogma': the last 20 years of early years reforms

Management Viewpoint
Emeritus Professor Peter Moss, Thomas Coram Research Unit, UCL, spoke last week at an event to mark 25 years since the launch of Early Studies Degrees. Here is his speech in full

We are here to celebrate 25 years of Early Childhood Studies degree courses and the flourishing of this education over these years. It is also a period when early childhood education came in from the cold: after decades of policy neglect, in 1997 early childhood gained sustained government attention. It became at last a policy priority: responsibility for early childhood was integrated within education; entitlements, initiatives and regulations have poured forth; funding has grown.

Are the results a cause for celebration too? In my view, sadly not. Rather it is a story of missed opportunities, of failure to transform a deeply flawed and dysfunctional system and create something new and inspirational.

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