Analysing the present: drawing on the legacy of Vere Foster in public policy debate on futures of schools

Abstract

This paper sets out a framing analysis for a public policy debate on the future of schools that resonates with practitioners in teaching and teacher education on the island of Ireland, north and south, but also in other countries. This is informed by a democratic impulse to facilitate public policy debates, particularly on the ways schools and higher education institutions are directed and constrained by budget cuts and the shrinking of public funding in this age of austerity and gross inequalities. This is also informed by a need for policy learning about global neoliberal agendas, free-market capitalism and its push towards profit-making schools in systems that are deregulated but experience tighter centralized control, which can result in the domination and control of teachers’ work by politicians, corporate-funded think-tanks, entrepreneurs and business managers. Even though Ireland boasts checks and balances in the form of current structures and education legislation in both jurisdictions, the global financial crisis and the collapse of the ‘Celtic Tiger’ together with the ‘troika’ bail-out and Ireland’s exit from the troika in tandem with the unravelling of the common economic model built up over the last three decades have troubled the constituent social and political settlements with regard to teaching and teacher education. The authors also take inspiration from Vere Foster (1819–1900), an Anglo-Irish gentleman, philanthropist and ‘social worker’ with the poor in post-famine Ireland, as well as a significant social campaigner renowned for his contribution to emigration and education. His ideas, generated at a time of great social upheaval, can be reworked to be appropriate in the Ireland of today to address the neoliberal agenda that has brought the Republic of Ireland economy to the brink of disaster. It is argued that imaginative responses about future possibilities for teaching and teacher education, their form, regulation and accountability are but a few of the terms needed for public policy debate that engages the profession on the type of schooling that would best meet the needs of Irish society now and into the future.

Introduction

Of current concern in Ireland, north and south, is not only the major restructuring of the school systems but also teacher education. This is best exemplified in the policy agenda for teaching and teacher education as articulated by the former Minister for Education and Skills from 2011–2014, Ruairi Quinn, in the Fine Gael–Labour Coalition in the Republic of Ireland, during a phase of economic and social development following the ‘Celtic Tiger’–Global Financial Crash, the ‘troika’ bailout ¹ and Ireland’s subsequent exit from it (see Leahy, 2013; Hardiman, 2012). Quinn (2012) published his reform agenda in an article ‘The future development of education in Ireland’, which included calls to embed quality in schools at all levels, and in teacher education and higher education; to respond to changes in society with regard to inclusivity/diversity; and to attend to structural/infrastructural changes given available resources. ² Quinn (2014) updated this agenda in a speech ‘Reforming education, building a better future’, which revised his calls (now cast as personal priorities in education) to include: improving quality and accountability in schools; supporting inclusion and diversity; and creating opportunities for Irish adults.^3,4

Quinn’s (2012, 2014) initial intentions for schools, teacher education and higher education institutions, later extended to embrace the further education and training sector, have remained steadfast. In this regard, his focus was on modernising and consolidating the role of the Irish education system for future economic growth and social reconstruction. For many reasons this policy agenda, as originally conceived and then revised, requires public debate and professional engagement. It is imperative to give voice to different ideas about the contribution of teaching and teacher education to social and economic development as part of Ireland’s reconstruction. It is also important to air different conceptualisations of Ireland’s economic, social and cultural modernisation and the concomitant modernisation of schools and teacher education, nationally and regionally. This is crucial given the sort of society that is being fashioned in the wake of a catastrophic period for Ireland, going from the banking crisis and credit crunch of 2007–2008 (see Hall et al., 2012) to a period of major readjustment ostensibly to facilitate then consolidate national recovery. Another reason for public debate is to open up some major lines of communication not only between governments north and south and the teaching profession in schools and teacher education institutions, but also between political parties, professional associations and teacher unions.^5,6 This will ensure that there is ample opportunity for policy-makers to seek grassroots professional advice on schools policy and practice from teachers and teacher educators, a crucial factor with regard to a serious consideration of a strategic – and democratic – way forward.

The authors of this paper cross national divides, with one located in Ireland and one in England, but we have forged a working relationship in which we can learn from each other about what it takes to build a professional learning community of research-active practitioners across the island of Ireland, north and south, to engage with each other and with educational politics. Against this background, we are both keen to look back in history, not just to the earlier clerical, nationalist, and social democratic settlements (O’Sullivan, 2005; Lee, 1989; Ó Buachalla, 1988) that pre-date current neoliberal trends (Mooney Simmie, 2012), but to elements of the complex history of schooling in Ireland, pre-dating partition and stretching back into the 19th century (Lee, 1989; Ó Buachalla, 1988; Coolahan, 1981). We both share a concern to uncover the history and legacy of Vere Foster’s life and work in post-famine Ireland (McVeigh, 2011; Colgan, 2001; McNeill 1971; McCune Reid, 1956), ⁷ an era of major social upheaval, to inform our deliberations on the possibilities for advocacy of schools policy in the present, another era of austerity and gross inequalities. ⁸ At the same time, we both appreciate the need to draw on the theoretical capacities and research contributions of globally-located academics. ⁹ Finally, we recognise the importance of the voice of teachers and teacher educators across the island of Ireland in policy and practice development in light of the goals they wish to accomplish in partnership with students, parents and other stakeholders.

The Vere Foster Trust

The Vere Foster Trust (VFT) was established as an entity to operate, in part, as a policy think-tank that facilitates the intellectual and political work of the teaching profession in Ireland. ¹⁰ The questions that guide the work of the Trust include the following.

What are the policy-practice stories of teaching and teacher education in Ireland?

Who writes the stories, and why?

What are the ideological and political messages in Quinn’s (2012, 2014) policy agenda?

Such questions were inspired by the ideological and political legacy of Vere Foster himself (1819–1901). Vere Foster was an Anglo-Irish gentleman, philanthropist and ‘social worker’ with the poor in post-famine Ireland, as well as a significant social campaigner renowned for his contribution to emigration and education. His life story was ‘a record of unselfish devotion to the cause of humanity’ (Belfast Newsletter, 22 December1900, quoted in Colgan 2001). He was actively engaged in school improvement to realise the ideals of a mixed system of Irish schooling combining secular and religious education, which was quite remarkable in 19th century Ireland, where Foster readily identified a link between schooling and the profound influence it had on the lives of girls and boys. ¹¹ He gave unqualified support to the mixed education system despite the lack of concern and antagonism that existed among the ranks of the rich, the level of apathy that was prevalent amongst the poor, and the manipulation of the system by clerical interest for their own ends (McNeill, 1971). In his efforts to equip them with knowledge and skills for employability and emigration, the twin strategy in post-famine Ireland, Foster recognized that the Irish national school system had both economic and social functions for generations of the poor of Ireland.

We want to acknowledge Foster’s commitment to teachers and the efficiency of teaching, his contribution to the formation of national policy on education (McNeill, 1971), his promotion of mixed schooling in line with the national school system established in 1831 in Ireland (Coolahan, 1981), and his contribution to the establishment of the Irish National Teachers Organisation (INTO) in 1868 (McNeill, 1971; O’Connell, 1969). His motto that ‘A Nation’s Greatness Depends upon the Education of its People’, printed as strap-lines on school copybooks, reflected the importance that he attached to the link between a developing nation and the education of its citizens, underlying his profound belief that ‘Irish education must at least equal the best standards found elsewhere’ (McNeill, 1971). In drawing on his legacy, we took inspiration from McLaren (1994):

We need to develop a praxis that gives encouragement to those who, instead of being content with visiting history as curators or custodians of memory, choose to live in the furnace of history where memory is molten and can be bent into the contours of a dream and perhaps even acquire the immanent force of a vision. (McLaren, 1994:218, cited by Mooney Simmie, 2012)

This foreshadows our shared vision for the work of the Vere Foster Trust to activate public debates marked by professional engagement with policy-makers. In this regard, a public lecture series was initiated by the Vere Foster Trust to create a new kind of local/national policy discussion space and bring new voices into Irish policy–practice conversations on modernization and the future of Irish education in an age of austerity and gross inequalities. ¹² Further, the Vere Foster Trust supported the establishment of a cross-border educational research community network for research-active practitioners in schools and higher education, identified as the Institute of Educational Research in Ireland (IoERI), to draw on and support research in teaching and teacher education. ¹³

These initiatives by the Vere Foster Trust are expected to encourage the flow of knowledge and discourses and to ensure Ireland capitalises on policy learning, and thus feed into the collective professional analyses of political parties’ policy intentions and/or social imaginaries (Lingard and Rizvi, 2010; Taylor, 2004). The ambition is for the teaching profession in Ireland to become more centrally involved in moves to chart new lines of schools policy, including strategies for disadvantaged schools. ¹⁴ Clearly, schools policy aligns with government budget battles (see Leahy, 2013), themselves connected to deficit reduction and taxation decisions, but we argue that issues of this sort are of public interest and professional concern, and need a framing analysis. In this article, we endeavour to chart some terms to address the macro levels of policy-making in the Irish educational systems and also the micro levels of teaching and teacher education, practitioners’ time and policy pressures.

Policy reforms of teaching and teacher education

In what follows, we engage first with elements of Quinn’s (2012) policy agenda, which he categorised under three main headings – quality; inclusivity/diversity; and structural/infrastructural changes – and the policy thinking behind it. Second, we also engage with corresponding elements of Quinn’s (2014) revisions, which he cast as personal priorities: quality and accountability; inclusion and diversity; and opportunities for Irish adults. This not only facilitates a critical interrogation of the ideological and political agendas for the modernization of teaching and teacher education, but also indicates some opportunities for grassroots policy advocacy informed by research, including investigations of different approaches to teaching and teacher education. This is imperative if the teaching profession, together with policy-makers and stake-holders, is to consider different ways of working, and confront and counter challenges to research-informed modernising project/s in the interests of Ireland’s economic and social reconstruction.

Quinn’s (2012) rationale for his policy agenda was reform, in effect a major structural overhaul, in line with his view that ‘Education is universally regarded as a key driver of social and economic progress’, and in response to calls from international bodies such as the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), to improve educational outcomes, in the context of the economic constraints imposed by the bail-out conditions (Quinn, 2012).^15,16 More pertinently, these reforms were tied to social reconstruction. As he stated it, ‘The new society we will construct, as we regain our economic sovereignty, will be totally different to the Celtic Tiger model which failed us so dramatically’ (Quinn, 2012). At the outset he acknowledged Ireland’s place in the new, 21st century integrated, global economy. This was coupled with a prescient recognition that reform is not only about boosting economic growth, but also the need to help students reach their potential and prepare for citizenship in a rapidly changing society, reflected in major positive developments like peace with Northern Ireland, changes in religious practices and beliefs, and immigration.

This original rationale suggested a twin focus on the Irish economy and society and portends some different tensions in this policy text. On the one hand, the Irish school system was being engineered to interface not only with Ireland’s economic recovery as the country regained its economic sovereignty, but also with globalised education policies that reflected global neoliberal economic policy rhetoric (see Lingard and Rizvi, 2010; Olssen, 2004; Olssen et al., 2004). Quinn (2012) named both the OECD Education Directorate and the reports by McKinsey and Company as major influences, which is significant in terms of policy advice. He took the OECD directions on schools’ preparation of students for the 21st century, characterised by jobs not yet created, technologies not yet invented and problems not yet known, as the preface to his ideas for school reform. He also took reform elements highlighted within the McKinsey 2010 report (Mourshed et al., 2010) that are deemed to be replicable for school systems in a number of selected countries (as their education systems move from poor to fair to good to great to excellent) particularly in relation to achieving improvements relatively quickly through unique state interventions, enhancing learning experiences of students in classrooms, and the emphasis that systems place on mandating as opposed to persuading stakeholders to comply with reforms. On the other hand, Quinn (2012) intimated that the school system was to be developed responsively to changing social formations, which mirror emerging socio-cultural configurations marked by different class, race, ethnic, religious and gender relations in diverse urban and rural locations.

These different emphases highlight some conflicting policy tensions which formed the basis of discussion at the Vere Foster public lecture series in 2012 and 2013. Ball (2013a) cited the OECD and agencies such as the World Trade Organisation and the European Union as a set of very powerful and very persuasive agents and organisations that legitimise, disseminate and sometimes enforce neoliberal reform. Similarly, Lingard (2012) cited a predominant set of purposes embedded in globalised education policies: schooling for the knowledge economy, human capital, and productivity. The aforementioned McKinsey report noted that good systems improved by ‘increasing responsibilities and flexibilities of schools and teachers to shape instructional practice ‘with ‘collaborative practices becoming the mechanisms both for improving teaching practice and making teachers more accountable’ (Mourshed et al., 2010). This flags our concerns with central policy control of education, which often translates into a managerial form of governance that contrasts markedly with local professional autonomy. In turn this speaks to another set of purposes for schooling in globalised education policies, cited by Lingard (2012): for opportunity, social justice and citizenship, which echo Vere Foster’s views on schooling and education, and which provoke debate about Chief Inspector of Irish Department of Education and Skills Harold Hislop’s challenge to schools to conduct their own evaluations transparently and accurately, and for the inspectorate to visit these schools to evaluate the school’s own self-evaluation. ¹⁷

Mandating quality

Two examples are now isolated from policy–practice stories of teaching and teacher education to tease out the ideological and political messages in Quinn’s (2012) emphasis on quality in the original policy reform agenda. The first example examines quality at a school level and the second quality in teacher education.

With regard to schools, quality was linked in Quinn’s (2012, 2014) policy to:

the taught curriculum;

professional education provided to all staff, including leaders and managers;

the facilities and resources available;

support for learners with special needs;

the support provided to school management; and

the educational experiences for all learners.

Clues as to what such quality meant were encapsulated in his stated concern about what needed to be done to foster a reflective evaluative culture in school communities, the introduction of school self-evaluation, effective external inspection, and improving standards. It is imperative here that policy-makers and practitioners interrogate the research evidence. As a case in point, high quality teaching is widely acknowledged to be the most important factor influencing student achievement, which has implications not only for teacher education but also the policy and professional knowledge bases that inform teacher preparation and professional development (see BERA–RSA, 2014; also Gleeson, 2012; Darling-Hammond and Lieberman, 2012; Darling-Hammond, 2000, 2006).

Yet here Quinn (2012) indicated further policy tensions, for instance, with regard to quality in Post-Primary Schools. His proposed reform of the Junior Certificate curriculum was intended to promote active learning, creativity and innovation, purportedly to address rote-learning and curriculum overload. The declared aim was to make the learning experiences more student-centred, but this was counterbalanced by the call for standardised tests in core areas of Literacy and Numeracy, state examinations and school assessment, albeit alongside information on student participation in activities such as debating and school sports. Lack of space here prohibits a thorough interrogation of the Junior Certificate curriculum reform, but suffice to say the focus on high quality teaching was implied at this point in Quinn’s paper, even though its definition was in abeyance. While Quinn’s (2012) focus on student-centred learning indicated a desire for meaningful learning experiences, there was a glaring policy contradiction because a concern for performance and accountability dominated, a hallmark of neoliberalism (Ball, 2008a, 2008b, 2009, 2013b; Ball and Youdell, 2008), and which is inevitably steered by specifications of teaching (Beckett, 2013).

Quinn’s (2014) revised policy reform agenda clarified the matter of quality to the extent that it was to be framed within the parameters of curriculum reform to the Junior Certificate, this latter to be abolished by September 2014 and replaced with the Junior Cycle Student Awards (JCSA). Significantly, the proposed reform of the Junior Certificate curriculum sparked industrial action, which seemingly fails to take advantage of a creative policy tension in the Minister’s latest statement. ¹⁸ The declared aim was to see less focus on exams and rote learning, and more on the provision of young people’s skills for life and learning. These skills would include tteamwork, communication skills, creativity, and an ability to manage information. It was recognised that quality was not confined only to the curriculum, and note was made of high quality teaching in all classrooms, which would give teachers an opportunity to embed research-informed practice. Quinn’s (2014) only stipulation was that teachers must be qualified, and reference was made to the Teaching Council Act, which precipitated mention of criminal record checks and the Teaching Council’s broader range of actions to prevent below-standard teaching. In turn, the Minister indicated that such actions were to supplement the improvements to initial teacher education, previously discussed in parliament.

These concerns with initial teacher education coincide with our second example from policy–practice stories of teaching and teacher education. Quinn (2012) also elaborated a notion of quality under the sub-heading of Teacher Education, and here controversially claimed that studies showed quality of teaching to be more important than smaller class sizes in terms of shaping educational outcomes. He went on to indicate the need for a radically reformed teacher education programme, spanning the career continuum, marked by an early-years professional development plan to develop and extend teachers’ skills. At the same time there was to be programme development for teacher education, given the stated aim that courses for primary and second-level teachers would change radically in order to equip teachers with the necessary pedagogical skills for the 21st century. Moreover, teachers’ on-going registration would depend on regular involvement in professional development, which featured lifelong learning, overseen by the Teaching Council. The Minister indicated that these changes would be underpinned by a review of the structures for teacher education, as part of the National Strategy for Higher Education.

Space again prohibits a thorough interrogation of Quinn’s (2012) concerns with quality in teacher education, but even a cursory critical reading suggests some cause for anxiety in terms of his underlying rationale and agenda in the reform of education. The Minister did not cite the studies that purportedly prioritised quality of teaching over class size in improving educational outcomes (which suggests the absence of strong evidence for this claim); and, furthermore, there is implied criticism of the teaching profession’s ongoing industrial concerns about class sizes within the report. ¹⁹ At the same time, Quinn did not articulate any definition of quality other than to intimate that it is implicated in shaping educational outcomes. This, apparently, was to be the predominant feature of teachers’ work, to be emphasised in his proposed skills-based reform of teacher education and presumably in any likely structural changes to provision. A reading of the research literature would have indicated that teachers need not only skills but also to be intellectually engaged, to ascertain different and diverse students’ learning needs, among other things (see Beckett, 2013). While teachers’ knowledge and the professional knowledge bases did not warrant a mention, Quinn’s direction on teachers’ ongoing professional development hinted at neoliberal ideologies of power and control. Lynch (2013) pointed out in her Vere Foster Trust public lecture that these ideologies can masquerade as ‘development’, ‘restructuring’ ‘innovation’ and ‘lifelong learning’ but, going further, these reforms would most likely be mandatory given that the Teaching Council would be compelled to oversee the implementation of such initiatives. ²⁰ Significantly, Quinn (2012) struck another contradictory policy note with mention of teachers’ pedagogical skills, although another reading of the research literature would have shown the development of pre-service teachers’ and practising teachers’ pedagogical repertoire as crucial for working towards more equitable outcomes from schooling (Mills and Mitchell, 2013). In fact, Mills and Mitchell (2013) argued that the focus on pedagogy in teacher education has to be grounded in notions of teaching as an intellectual activity, a point reiterated by Mills (2013) in his Vere Foster public lecture.

This concern for teacher education as a highly competitive and intellectually demanding career choice was the corollary to a well-performing public education system in the opening gambit in Sahlberg et al.’s (2012) Review of the Structure of Initial Teacher Education in Ireland commissioned by the Department of Education and Skills. Education was identified as a national strategy in Ireland’s economic and social structures, with teachers and how they are educated at the core of the implementation of national programmes for sustainable economic growth and prosperity. Other components of teacher education were recognised, notably curricula, policy, funding and Continuing Professional Development, but the focus was on structural change to the provision of Initial Teacher Education, given the terms of reference. The springboard for their recommendations for the structural reconfigurations of institutional provision was a belief that Ireland needed to invest more in the continuous improvement of the quality of teaching, the role of research in teacher education, and international cooperation in all of its teacher education institutions. Crucially, quality was articulated in the light of the European Commission’s work on teacher education, with a focus on teachers’ knowledge, attitudes and pedagogic skills; reflective practice and research among teachers; the status and recognition of the teaching profession; and the professionalization of teaching.

A thorough interrogation of Quinn’s call for the structural reform of teaching and teacher education, including the DES report by Sahlberg et al. (2012), has been undertaken by prominent Irish scholars. For example, Sugrue (2013) expressed grave concern about systems increasingly borrowing from one another as organisations such as the EU and the OECD join forces to determine performance indicators that are already being used to control and regulate the work of teachers and teacher educators. He took issue with the assumptions that teacher educators cannot be trusted to prepare the next generation of teachers; that by holding the profession to account by the imposition of specified criteria or learning outcomes student teachers will be better prepared; and that those who make these decisions and specify these criteria for the audit of teacher education seemingly know best or have a monopoly on what is ‘best’ for student teachers. Of significance to our argument in this article, Sugrue posited a definition of quality as ‘not about high standards but those which are uniform, predictable and verifiable’ (Power, 1999, cited by Sugrue, 2013), and went on to argue the case about the logics of accountability versus professional responsibility (also see Conway and Murphy, 2013; Conway, 2012). This distinction is crucial to the profession if in fact it is to take responsibility for its own research-informed practices and procedures in reply to the importation and enforcement of global neoliberal policies, including austerity measures. To this end, the profession needs to take advantage of the different tensions in Quinn’s (2012) policy reforms and engage in professional policy advocacy on the strength of research evidence; but here we take heed of Sugrue’s (2013) conclusion that without investment in building capacity any likely funding shortfalls and resultant rationalisation will be at the expense of strengthening research in teacher education.

Neoliberal dictates

Any previous glaring policy contradictions with regard to quality were seemingly eliminated in Quinn’s (2014) revised agenda, because quality was conjoined with accountability and it was categorically stated that increasing the accountability of schools to their communities was to be the key mechanism for continuous school improvement. The intention was to build on previous announcements about parents’ receipt of detailed end-of-year reports on their children’s progress, including the results of standardised tests in Literacy and Numeracy at periodic intervals. The plan was to extend this assessment and reporting into secondary schools to coincide with the introduction of the new curriculum reforms. This was to be accompanied by more frequent school inspections, albeit inclusive of parent and student voices, and the publication of national analyses of inspection findings by the Department of Education and Skills’ Chief Inspector. This was also to be informed by the apparatus of a School Self-Evaluation Report in tandem with a School Improvement Plan, with summaries to be provided to parents based on the argument that such initiatives would broadcast school improvement, empower parents, and consolidate school accountability.

In the terms of our framing analysis we are alarmed that, preceding any substantial public policy debates and professional engagement, Quinn’s (2012, 2014) policy reform agenda is apparently intended to keep pace with the global neoliberal reform agenda (see Mooney Simmie, 2012; Lingard and Sellar, 2012; Limond, 2007). The global neoliberal reform agenda is often devoid of research evidence and marked by governments’ dictates of teachers’ work and comes in the form of a national curriculum, strategies for teaching and learning, and rigorous testing, all tied to behavioural outcomes, national benchmarks and school results (see Beckett, 2013). As another case in point, school improvement and school effectiveness is widely acknowledged as a contested field, but the weight of professional opinion comes down in favour of ‘contextualised school improvement’ which recognises the likely impact on school processes and student achievement of ‘school mix’ – the social class composition of a school’s student intake (see Thrupp, 1999; Lupton, 2004, 2006; Wrigley et al., 2012). Any School Improvement Plan must be informed by teachers’ action inquiries into factors that contribute to student achievement and showcase evidence-informed classroom practice (see Beckett, 2014).

However, Quinn (2014) seemed determined to follow directions on accountability, which is borne out in Chief Inspector Harold Hislop’s (2013) paper, Applying an Evaluation and Assessment Framework: An Irish Perspective. It explored the usefulness of the OECD model of evaluation and assessment for improving school outcomes, ²¹ guided by the overarching themes of governance, design and procedures (the ‘how’ of assessment and evaluation, including tools and approaches), capacity (the ability of the systems, institutions and individuals to operate the arrangements), and the use of results. Hislop’s stated task in his paper was to raise questions and matters for consideration in Ireland, given an acknowledgement that the OECD framework required a much broader conversation. This too is indicative of a creative tension in this policy text. In fact, Hislop called for a national dialogue about the relevance of the OECD suggestions and policy recommendations, which needed to be considered by both the political and educational systems and wider Irish society.

In the first theme of governance, for instance, Hislop (2013) described the peculiarities of the Irish system in the form of Ministerial concentration of power over decision-making, which is tempered by a history of consultative practices, national consensus, degree of stakeholder buy-in and teacher professionalism. A critical reading suggests it is as though these were caveats to an exploration of a potential institutionalisation of stock-in-trade neoliberal approaches to teaching and learning. This was evident in Hislop’s discussion of the weaknesses of a system of policy-making and governance that seeks to achieve consensus, notably with regard to a concern about the responsiveness of the system. It was argued that agreement to policy on setting curriculum standards, evaluation arrangements or student testing is slow, while Irish business interests registered their concerns about the low level of preparation of Irish students for the knowledge society and the workplace. This is seemingly pandering to the populist position espoused by public commentators such as Martin Murphy (2010), whose article ‘What we must do to move education into the fast lane’ charted a reform agenda for schools in line with business needs. ²² A further weakness was noted in the discussion about the concern about advice received from bodies influenced by sectoral interests [business interests notwithstanding] and cited the example of the advice received with regard to proposals for a competency-based 21st century-style curriculum and the Minister’s decision in relation to radical change to curriculum and assessment arrangements. A notable absence in this discussion was the professional disquiet among teachers for these reforms, which eventually precipitated industrial action. ²³ This seemingly did not dissuade Hislop from indicating that Departmental policy on evaluation and assessment would be forthcoming, guided by the Government’s Literacy and Numeracy Strategy, marked by specific targets for improvement in students’ learning and considerations of teacher appraisal, and in line with the OECD report.

It is clear from Hislop’s arguments that there was another creative tension in his concluding discussion of the implications. On the one hand, there was support for what can be described as neoliberal dogma on evaluation and assessment: on the other hand, he gave voice to educationalists’ concerns about, for example, measurement of educational outcomes, student testing, performance, accountability, standards, and international competitions such as PISA. Most telling was his citation of Ball (2010), who expressed concerns about use of performance information, and his naming of PISA and accusations of ‘a malign, “neoliberal” and economically focussed effect on schooling’ (Hislop, 2013). In his final comments Hislop unequivocally disagreed with the critics of neoliberalism and expressed his full support for the OECD framework, but he intimated this would be in terms that suggested further exploration of the challenges and questions for Ireland.

In her Vere Foster Trust public lecture, Lynch (2013) tackled the issue of governance as a cornerstone of neoliberalism and framed it within a critical discussion of the Europe 2020 plan. This has salience for a critical reading of Hislop’s paper, because Lynch maintains that in this plan education is defined as central to reviving the economy of the EU, given that key objectives are to develop ‘new skills and jobs’; to ‘modernise’ labour markets by facilitating labour mobility; to develop skills throughout the lifecycle and increase labour participation; and to have better matching of labour supply and demand. Lynch described the OECD and EU as regulatory mechanisms that employ soft language, and noted that the soft rhetoric conceals the controlling intent. She cited Nóvoa (2010), who claimed Europe is governing without seeming to govern, given that an ‘Open Method of Coordination’ implies voluntary compliance in EU governance in education but that there is growing pressure to make the curricula of all education markets relevant. Further, she argued the OECD and EU are governing by measurement, for example, PISA, League tables, Rankings, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and Citation Indices, etc.

Lynch’s (2013) concern that regulation and control of public sector professionals are central to the neoliberal new managerial project lends weight to our concerns about the specifications of teaching often coupled with the government’s dictates of teachers’ work. These were shared by Leitch (2013) who, in a response to Lynch, noted that Lynch’s presentation unpicked the lived experience of the education spaces inhabited by the profession in Ireland (and elsewhere). Pointedly, Leitch’s analysis and critique of the neoliberal-inspired new managerialism articulated the profession’s discomforting felt-sense about many issues and changes represented by terms such as ‘marketisation’, ‘accountability’, ‘improved educational standards’, ‘students as consumers’, and ‘global competition’, which have reframed education (Leitch, 2013). Leitch drew parallels with Lynch’s evidence of neoliberalism as the political ideology underpinning new managerialism in the south of Ireland, and showed evidence from Northern Ireland to illustrate an analogous political scenario. This comes as no surprise, given globalised education policies, which attract analyses and critique in different national settings. Writing in the USA, Cochran-Smith et al. (2013) reported on their critical analysis of increased forms of accountability in a framework they named the ‘politics of policy’, a conceptual tool for making sense of ostensibly intractable public and political debates about teacher quality and teacher preparation.

Quinn’s speech eliminated any real contrasting position to neoliberalism as he reiterated the Coalition Government’s record in terms of its facilitation of the national recovery and regaining economic sovereignty and its record in education mostly through a legislative programme of reform (Quinn, 2014). It followed that in his subsequent discussion of the Coalition Government’s priorities for the coming year, the focus was seemingly on economic recovery, mostly through job creation, although note was made that not all the Fine Gael–Labour achievements have been economic. He cited examples of social reform: abortion reform, gender quotas and same-sex marriage – curious examples of human rights at issue in the EU.

Conclusion: future possibilities?

Both the contradictory and the creative policy tensions in Quinn’s (2012, 2014) policy texts discussed in this article needed to be resolved, and best done through dialogue between politicians, policy-makers and the professional workforce in teaching and teacher education. However, we take the twin points made by Ball et al., (2012) about the dangers of seeing these texts as nationally-driven prescriptions and insertions into practice, while marginalising or not recognising other moments in the processes of policy and policy enactments that take place in and around schools. We do not want to see the erasure of ‘policy activity’ of negotiations and coalition building that somehow links texts to practice (Colebatch, 2002, also cited by Ball et al., 2012). We want to see the profession actively engage with Quinn’s (2012, 2014) policy agenda, which is underway, to institutionalise the modernisation of teaching and teacher education and which is vital if the present industrial disputes such as the conflict regarding assessment are to be settled.

While the work to realise this modernisation is only just beginning in the south of Ireland, the neoliberal ideological elements of Quinn’s reforms are not new. These are replicated by governments committed to the profound reshaping of schooling and social life modelled on Margaret Thatcher’s ideological–political project and global neoliberalism (Hall, 1988, 2011, cited by Beckett, 2013). Without professional engagement in charting future possibilities, Quinn’s (2012, 2014) reforms will provide mandated directions to embed a marketised and privatised system of schooling in Ireland (see Lynch, 2013; also Leitch, 2013). This paves the way for global private sector involvement by, for example, corporate elites, coupled with the major loss of professional control in schools and universities, the result of the prescription and rigorous inspection of the work of teachers and academics (see Beckett, 2013). Alternative conceptualisations of teaching and teacher education were simultaneously refracted in Quinn’s (2012) policy thinking about a new society different to the Celtic Tiger model, and in the appointment of Sahlberg et al. (2012) to review teacher education – which was significant, given that they cast Initial Teacher Education as the single most important factor in a strong public system and promoted the contribution of research to teaching and teacher education.

We are keen to reiterate Vere Foster’s own ideological and political message that ‘A nation’s greatness depends on the education of its people’ and revitalise his contribution to Irish educational politics. Rejecting the prevailing market-led economic notion of laissez-faire as the remedy for poverty in Ireland, he single-handedly set about transforming the National School system through the refurbishment of over 2000 dilapidated schools, and supported setting up the Teachers’ Journal which he subsequently used to great effect to exhort teachers to come together in order to raise their status and improve the efficiency of teaching. He accepted the position of President of the newly formed Irish National Teachers Association (Colgan, 2001; O’Connell, 1969), forerunner of the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation, which gave him a platform to become a ‘medium of inquiry’ for teachers to facilitate their contribution to the formation of national education policy (McNeill, 1971). He provided resource material for teachers through the ‘Vere Foster National Copy Books’ with the fourfold aim of teaching legible writing, spelling, thinking and character formation, and he demonstrated that education also happens despite the presence of dominant ideologies.

Like Vere Foster, we are equivocal in our support for teachers’ professional learning and development in order that they can make a robust contribution to the local/national Irish society, culture and economy in the interests of the Irish people in our school communities, who are required to confront an immediate challenge. We posit that the task is either to put back together again that which has failed the different and diverse school communities so drastically in the recent past, or to reset the economy for the benefit of the many instead of the few, the disadvantaged as well as the privileged, and to create a future that many of the present generation may not see but in which their children and grandchildren will live. This requires a self-conscious acceptance or rejection of the market-led systems of the past, with all the inherent resource implications and what this means for the public provision of schooling. This task was imperative, especially in the run-up to the last elections: the general election in the Republic of Ireland in February 2016 with local and European elections in May 2015; and elections in Northern Ireland as part of the UK in May, 2015. The task holds for subsequent rounds of elections. The common issues – the current crisis of global neoliberal capitalism, the restructuring of the Irish economy and society, the reform of the school systems – provide a platform for the Vere Foster public lecture series, a showcase of policy learning that encourages practitioners to build research-informed teaching and teacher education and share their policy–practice stories at local/national levels. The engagement of teachers, teacher educators and other stakeholders in discussions on key issues in public fora such as these is critical in terms of informing and enhancing education policy and practice in Ireland.