Drawing on a lifetime’s experience and research in education, Frank Coffield brings together some of his previously published papers to assess the impact of a wide range of national educational policies and to examine the role of the state in public education.

He concludes that damage has been done to education by political parties of both right and left and that damage will not be reversed until: further, vocational and adult education receive the same levels of commitment and resource as other sectors; serious steps are taken to tackle Britain’s unacceptable levels of poverty; and the powers of the state are reduced.

Among the unresolved challenges highlighted are the plight of young people from deprived estates; their tactics in dealing with unemployment; the task of improving learning, schools, inspection, and system governance; the failure to increase productivity being blamed solely on education; and the dysfunctional and undemocratic political framework on which education reform is forced to depend.

An essential read for anyone in education, this provocative criticism of our past and current educational 'system' provides an accessible as well as a humorous critique of educational policy and politics.