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Taking Care of Business:vocationalism, competence and theenterprise cultureTerry Hyland aa Department of Continuing Education , University of Warwick ,Coventry CV4 7AL, United KingdomPublished online: 06 Jul 2006.

To cite this article: Terry Hyland (1991) Taking Care of Business: vocationalism, competence andthe enterprise culture, Educational Studies, 17:1, 77-87, DOI: 10.1080/0305569910170106

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Educational Studies, Vol. 17, No. 1, 1991 11

Taking Care of Business:vocationalism, competence and theenterprise cultureTERRY HYLANDDepartment of Continuing Education, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL,United Kingdom

SUMMARY The impact of the enterprise culture on education has resulted in a closeridentification with industrial and economic activity. This has brought about an ideological andvalue shift which has given primacy to the efficiency of the education system in meeting theneeds of the economy, and a corresponding vocationalising of the curriculum to serve thisprocess. Competence-based learning, popularised through National Vocational Qualifications,has aided this process and now shows signs of filtering down from the post-compulsory to theschool sector. A critique of the trend towards vocationalism and competency is put forward,along with a critical examination of recent attempts to provide an ethical justification of theenterprise ethos in education.

Introduction

When the study of the economics of education was in its infancy, Blaug (1969) wasable to make the assertion that education could be "conceived of as an industry"(p. 8) in the knowledge that most educators would regard this as a purely figurativeexpression. Nowadays, after a decade or so during which the enterprise culture hasradically altered the prevailing climate of educational opinion, Blaug's statement ismore likely to be interpreted by many educators at face value.

The thesis put forward by Bowles & Gintis (1976) that schooling in capitalistsocieties displays parallels and correspondences between educational practices andeconomic means of organisation and production is regarded, perhaps justifiably, bysome commentators (e.g. Gibson, 1986, p. 48) as being rather crude and mechanical,but its application to the current educational scene in this country is strikinglyapposite. The links between educational processes and economic concerns have beenprogressively strengthened to the extent that educational activities can now belegitimately analysed and evaluated as if they were forms of industrial and economicactivity.

There are two main interrelated strands in the development of this radicallyaltered state of affairs.

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(1) There has been a sea change in prevailing attitudes about the function ofeducation in contemporary society the upshot of which is that schooling (especiallysince the introduction of local management) can be analysed and appraised as if itwere just another form of business activity.

(2) Paralleling this trend there has been a progressive vocationalising of thecurriculum leading to a narrowing of the educational enterprise; a conflation ofeducation and training in the pursuit of instrumental vocational objectives. All thishas brought about the rise to pre-eminence of the 'management' perspectivedescribed by Hartnett & Naish (1986) as that which accords primacy to the"requirements of industry and commerce" (p. 185) and regards schooling as a directpreparation for work and a means of providing a service for industry and commerce.Against this, a 'social' view of education regards schooling as the preparation of asociety's young "to enable them to become full members of society... and, accord-ingly, to enable them to live valuable and satisfying lives in it" (ibid., p. 3).

It is worth examining the course of development of this management view ofeducation in terms of the two main areas outlined above before offering a criticalanalysis of recent attempts to provide a social legitimation and moral justificationfor the new educational ethos.

The Vocationalisation of Education

It is instructive to reflect nostalgically upon former times when philosophers ofeducation were able to propose accounts of the concept of education within whichvocational preparation had only a subsidiary place in relation to the primary positiongiven to the development of general intellectual, aesthetic, cultural and moralqualities, D. J. O'Connor (1957, pp. 8-9), for instance, lists five chief aims ofeducation, only one of which is concerned with vocational preparation, and R. S.Peters' well known normative analysis of education (1966, p. 45) insists that theprocess must involve initiation into activities designed to foster knowledge, under-standing and cognitive perspective. In a similar vein, Hirst & Peters (1970) speak ofthe "ideal" of the educated person and assert that:

It is natural, therefore, for those working in educational institutions toconceive of what they are doing as being connected with the developmentof such a person. They have become very sensitive to the differencebetween working with this ideal in mind and having more limited andspecific goals, for which they use the word 'training', (p. 24)

What a difference twenty years makes in the evolution of educational ideas!The end of the liberal consensus and the re-assertion of the economic and

vocational function of education in recent times is typically dated from the time ofthe Great Debate following Callaghan's Ruskin College speech in 1976 (Whitty,1985, ch. 5). Throughout the years that followed, the role of education in helping toimprove industrial performance and increase national wealth was taken up by publicfigures and politicians and was subsequently reflected in various DES publications.

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Taking Care of Business 79

Arnold Weinstock, then head of GEC, could be confident of a warm reception forhis charges of "anti-industry bias" and preference for "the life of the mind over thepractical life" levelled at the teaching profession in 1976 (Weinstock, 1976, p. 2). Inthe struggle for the curriculum during the late 1970s and early 1980s the vocationallobby gradually gained a perceptible edge. By 1984 Sir Keith Joseph, in his North ofEngland Conference speech, was urging the adoption of a curriculum with a"practical element" which was "relevant to the real world"; the "technical andvocational aspect of school learning should have its proper place" and "all pupilsshould be introduced to the economic and other foundations of our society" (Joseph,1984, p. 4).

The Green Paper Education in Schools: a consultative document (DES, 1977)had stressed the vital role of education in aiding Britain's economic recoverythrough the improvement of manufacturing industry, and the change of ethos isclearly reflected in the DES publication Better Schools which recommended acurriculum from 5 to 16 which would encourage:

the qualities, attitudes, knowledge, understanding and competences whichare necessary to equip pupils for working life. With this aim in view theGovernment has established the Technical and Vocational EducationInitiative (TVEI) which explores how best to fit work-related skills withininitial full-time education. (DES, 1985, p. 6)

From the outset TVEI schemes were guided by the Manpower Services Commis-sion's (MSC) definition of vocational education as that "in which the students areconcerned to acquire generic or specific skills with a view to employment" and wasintended ultimately to affect the "whole curriculum including such areas asmathematics and English" (Pickard, 1985, p. 23).

The influence of this new vocationalism has been widespread and pervasive,perhaps most noticably in the post-compulsory sector in which the MSC, at astroke, took control of 25% of work-related non-advanced further education in1985/6 (Statham et al., 1989, p. 177). In subsequent years the (now defunct)Training Agency, through its one hundred regional Training and Enterprise Coun-cils effectively took control of most of the TVEI, youth training and enterpriseschemes around the country (Jackson, 1988).

The National Curriculum, introduced with a whole package of radical changeswhich are incorporated in the 1988 Education Reform Act, does not, at first blush,appear to be straightforwardly in line with this trend towards vocationalism. Therewas, after all, a consensus within the profession that a national framework for thecurriculum specifying entitlement and access for all pupils was desirable. Whatemerged, however, in spite of the apparently H.M.I, inspired language of the earlysections of the Act which refer to a 'balanced and broadly based curriculum' (ERA,ch. 1, Sec. 1(2)), was rather different from what most teachers and educationalists(few of whom had been consulted) would have wanted. Questions of ultimate scope,purpose and implementation have still to be settled but even at this early stage thesections of the Act concerned with local management of schools (LMS) andassessment procedures are giving cause for concern.

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Wadd (1988) views the move towards a national framework for the curriculumin 1987/88 as being motivated by a desire to raise standards in order to meet thecompetitive challenge of rival industrial nations, but the detailed and subtle analysisof the political and cultural background provided by Lawton (1989) indicates thatthere were more factors than this at work. According to Lawton the NationalCurriculum can be seen as a response by Mr Baker to a state of affairs in which anumber of contending ideologies were making rival and contradictory demands fromthe system. The result was a fairly confused, backward-looking and incoherent setof provisions, with the 'privatisers' (those opposed to state intervention in educa-tion) and the 'minimalists' (those favouring concentration on basic essentials) bothfinding something to please them (Lawton, 1989, pp. 48-52).

Broadfoot (1979) has suggested that if we wish to understand a national systemof education we must investigate its assessment procedures, and it is, perhaps, in theassessment package associated with the National Curriculum that the influence ofthe 'management' perspective is most clearly discernible. The specification ofsubject criteria and the insistence on national tests at key stages 7, 11,14 and 16 wasfully in line with bureaucratic demands. Thus, although the initial work of the TaskGroup on Assessment and Testing (TGAT) was not to the liking of the DES, it wasfinally accepted, according to Lawton, because it promised the politicians andbureaucrats a system which could 'deliver' the required data "that is, pupils' scorescan be aggregated to show results for a class, a school and a whole LEA forcomparative purposes" (Lawton, 1989, p. 59). All in all, the assessment mechanismof the National Curriculum, taken in conjunction with other developments such asthe apparent rejection of the Higginson proposals on 'A' level reform and DESbackpedalling on records of achievement, can be taken as characteristic of anexamination structure which for years has tended to "exaggerate the vocationalfunction of secondary schooling" (Lawton, 1989, p. 81).

In addition to all this, the LMS provisions of ERA have accelerated thetendency to view schools as businesses and education as a form of commercialactivity. In certain educational circles the new enterprise ethos has been embracedin a rather naive and uncritical manner. Max Morris (1990), incensed by the reportthat a Welsh school had established itself as a trading company, has recently takenteachers to task for their collusion in the process of subverting education. The headteacher of the school in question declared, apparently without any sense ofembarrassment, that "turning schools into income-generating businesses is the wayahead for education in the 1990s" (Smith, 1990, p. 6). In a similar critical vein,Mike Carney, the new president of the National Association of Schoolmasters/Union of Women Teachers, has condemned the use of "marketspeak" in educationand lamented the fact that teachers now talk glibly about "inputs and outputs, ofclients, of units and modules, skills, strategies, delivery, consumer choice" (Ward,1990, p. 2).

The application of input/output efficiency measures are nowhere more appar-ent than in the further education sector (Minihane & Richards, 1989), and it is inthis area that the trend towards vocationalism has been most marked. The rise ofcompetence-based learning pioneered by the National Council for Vocational

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Taking Care of Business 81

Qualifications (NCVQ) over the last few years can be regarded as the ultimatevictory for those favouring strict vocationally-based assessment and, since thiscompetence approach shows every sign of filtering down from the post-compulsoryto the school sector, it is worth examining the phenomenon in more detail.

Competence-based Learning

Following the publication of the White Paper Working Together: education andtraining (DOE, DES, 1986) the NCVQ was set up with a remit which included thedesign and implementation of a new national framework for vocational qualifica-tions. The aim of securing national standards of vocational competence can bediscerned in the early activity of the MSC later the Training Agency and was aprominent feature of the New Training Initiative published by the Department ofEmployment (DOE) in 1981.

The origins of competence-based learning can be traced back (ironically) toresearch and development in performance-based teacher education in the USA inthe 1960s (Tuxworth, 1989), though its transfer to the British vocational scene hasbeen accompanied by a much more circumscribed and task-specific notion ofcompetence. National Vocational Qualifications (NVQs) are concerned with com-petence in an occupational sense. Competence is to be understood in terms ofspecific "performance criteria" laid down by leading employers in their respectiveoccupational fields. These criteria are arrived at by means of "functional analysis"which involves examining "the expectations in employment as a whole.. . breakingthe work role for a particular area into purposes and functions" (Tuxworth, 1989,pp. 58-59). Moreover, NVQs, insofar as they are concerned solely with theassessment of outcomes, are not necessarily linked to any course or learningprogramme. As Stanton (1989) makes absolutely clear: "the means by whichcompetence has been gained is irrelevant" (p. 95).

The spread of competence-based approaches has been rapid and pervasive,fully deserving the epithet "quiet revolution" (Burke, 1989, p. 1) for, in just a fewshort years, the new approach has completely changed the face of vocationaleducation and training in this country. The NCVQ is now a very powerful force anda likely candidate to take control of many of the functions now held in abeyancesince the recent demise of the Training Agency (Jackson, 1990a). The NCVQdirector, Gilbert Jessup, prophesied in 1989 that the new model of vocationalismwould "impact upon the mainstream of school and academic education" (Jessup,1989, p. x). He was quite correct. Levels 4 and 5 of the NVQ framework areintended to incorporate higher national diplomas and professional institute qualifi-cations, and funding for staff development can be applied for in these areas(NCVQ, 1988). More significantly, the National Curriculum Council which iscurrently considering the introduction of attainment levels and targets into 'A' and'AS' levels has recently been instructed by Mr MacGregor to consult with theNCVQ (Jackson, 1990b). Almost anything remotely educational can now, it seems,be re-interpreted in terms of vocational competence, and even that pillar ofestablishment values, the Scout Movement, is to consider asking the NCVQ to

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endorse its scout proficiency tests such as cooking, organising and problem-solving(Jackson, 1990s).

Vocationalism and Competence: a critique

The idea that education should prepare young people for working life is unexcep-tionable; so is the notion that vocational preparation should be related in some wayto the sort of work people might actually have to do in contemporary society. Anyattempt to claim that this is the only or even the chief aim of education, however,needs to be resisted. Such a view is both educationally and morally indefensible and,indeed, is open to criticism on the grounds that it fails to meet the NationalCurriculum prescription of a "balanced and broadly based curriculum". If compe-tence-based learning is adopted as a general model for vocational preparation thenthe whole educational endeavour will be impoverished and irreparably damaged; the'management' perspective would, indeed, achieve ultimate victory by turning awhole system of schooling for the majority of pupils into a training programmedesigned to meet the needs of employers.

Criticising the triumph of vocationalism over the concept of education for allover the last forty years, Wymer (1988) chooses to call the process a subversion ofidealism. This is, indeed, a justifiable moral critique if we recognise the claim that,except for the 25% or so who proceed to higher education, three-quarters of theschool population might be exposed to a curriculum tailored to meet employer'srequirements. In addition to the failure of such a system to meet ordinary demandsof social justice, however, such a vocationalism can be condemned for its educa-tional short-sightedness.

The National Curriculum calls for the promotion of the "spiritual, moral,cultural, mental and physical development of pupils" and a preparation for the"responsibilities and experiences of adult life" (ERA, ch. 1, Sec. 1(2)). Once westart to consider education is this sense, as a preparation for life rather than workinglife, the vocational/academic divide breaks down. Such a general (we might evensay 'liberal') conception of the task is all that is required.

Wadd (1988) is correct in suggesting that a good general education is all thatmost employers are asking for, and the recent CBI proposals for a "core curricu-lum" for 16-19 year olds (Jackson, 1989) seems to confirm this. Whether suchproposals amount to 'putting education back into training' (NATFHE, 1990a, p. 3)will depend on how determined practitioners are in pursuing a broad 'social' view ofthe enterprise.

Certainly a programme based solely on the competences and performancecriteria of the NVQs will fail to meet the requirements of such a social perspective.NVQs are informed by a behaviourist model of learing, and it is worth rememberingthat such an approach has never been able to gain much purchase on the curriculumin this country. From the demise of the Revised Code in the nineteenth century tothe failure of the few attempts to apply behavioural objectives to aspects of thecurriculum (Kelly, 1982, pp. 99ff.) teachers have shown a reluctance to view theirtask solely in terms of the achievement of sets of pre-specified learning objectives.

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Taking Care of Business 83

Bull (1985) has advanced a number of moral objections to the behaviouristposition that underpins competence-based learning, the chief of which is that pre-determined objectives stress only the instrumental value of knowledge and thusfoster an impoverished conception of human learning. Systems using such objectivesare based on a "controversial theory of human activities" the validity of which ishighly questionable. Behavioural objectives:

cannot and do not adequately represent the structure of knowledge—ob-jectives are limited, knowledge is open; they are inherently ambiguous,with insoluble levels and gradations of specificity; they inhibit achieve-ment of anticipated outcomes... and imply a limited model of teacher-student interaction... At its worst the use of behavioural objectives mayborder on indoctrination rather than on education, (p. 79)

The specification of units of competence based on performance criteria has anobvious attraction for those already committed to the value of pre-specifiedoutcomes and input/output efficiency in course planning. Concentrating only on theobservable and quantifiable aspects of behaviour, however, will not bring about theachievement of wider vocational goals. Moss (1981) points out that the observableparts of tasks describe neither their complete nor even their most significantelements in many cases. Moreover, the research by Haffenden & Brown (1989) onthe implementation of competence-based education in further education collegesrevealed a good deal of confusion about aims and a "plethora of opinions aboutcompetence and its definition" (p. 139). This finding rather takes the edge off anyputative precision and objectivity claimed for the system.

A theoretical perspective which apparently recognises knowledge and under-standing only to the extent that these can be seen to underpin occupationally-oriented performance is also epistemologically suspect. Wolf (1989) has tried tosalvage the NVQ position in this respect by suggesting that knowledge andunderstanding are not "divorced from performance" but are "constructs which haveto be inferred from observable behaviour, just as much as competence itself"(p. 45). This claim is true but unexciting. We can never assess learning itself, onlyits products or manifestations. There is a world of difference, however, betweenassessing the knowledge and understanding we hope to develop in, say history orscience which takes account of a range of cognitive abilities, skills and values, andconcentrating only on that knowledge which can be displayed as competence inperforming various sorts of occupational tasks.

This crucial distinction between educational competence (satisfying agreedcriteria in maths, science, English, etc.) and vocational competence (satisfyingperformance criteria linked to specific occupational fields) needs to be rigorouslymaintained if the National Curriculum promise of entitlement and access for allpupils to a broad range of curriculum subjects is to be realised.

Education, Morality and the Enterprise Culture

The impact of the enterprise culture on the theory and practice of education has

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brought what has been called the 'management' perspective to predominance ineducational policy and decision-making. Specifically, this has led to a vocationalis-ing of the curriculum, an emphasis on input/output efficiency in the management ofschools and colleges, and the promotion of a value system in the service of all thiswhich gives pride of place to the pursuit of economic goals and material wealth. Afew years ago Enoch Powell described this drift towards economic utility ineducation as a "modern barbarism" (1985, p. 4), and just recently the President ofthe National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education (NATFHE),Brian Downie, summed the whole process up succinctly when he expressed regretthat "a valued service to the community is being converted into a commodity to bemarketed" (NATFHE, 1990b, p. 13).

Educational objections, not the least of which is that such a perspective cannotfulfil the entitlement requirements of the National Curriculum, have been putforward above, but there is also a need to question the value foundation of this newbusiness ethos. Of course, schools and colleges, like hospitals and prisons, must bemanaged efficiently and be accountable to public criteria, but it needs to be stressed(as I have tried to elsewhere, Hyland, 1990) that educational institutions were notestablished to make profits or generate income. Faced with financial constraintsresulting from local management anomalies, committed professionals will no doubtgive due attention to financial matters, but the crucial difference between businessactivity and educational activity must be maintained at all times.

The aim of industry and commerce is to make profits by selling goods andservices; there is no other aim. Educational establishments, on the other hand, mustperform a complex range of functions including the provision of expert andappropriate tuition for pupils in a broad range of curriculum subjects. Education is aservice not a business, and the making of profits is no more the concern of teachersthan it is of nurses or prison officers.

The need for this kind of moral critique of the changing educational ethosbecomes even more urgent at a time when, in response to perceived undersirableproducts of the enterprise culture, attempts are being made to provide morallegitimacy for the new cultural perspective. Much has been heard recently about theneed for 'education in citizenship' and there are now proposals to introducecitizenship programmes into schools. A city technology college committed to thestudy of citizenship is to be opened in Docklands next year (Dean, 1990a), and aSpeaker's Commission on Citizenship recently reported after a two-year investiga-tion into how best to promote active citizenship in schools, among employers, publicauthorities and during retirement. A scheme for developing and monitoring citizen-ship across the curriculum was one of the key recommendations (Dean, 1990b).

This process of moral re-alignment and re-armament has political origins whichcan be traced back to Douglas Hurd's New Statesman article (27 April 1988) inwhich he attempted to argue that the qualities of enterprise and initiative which areessential for the generation of material wealth are also needed to build a family, aneighbourhood and a nation. Mrs Thatcher's disbelief in the idea of 'society' onlypermitted her to offer a rather more oblique message when, addressing the GeneralAssembly of the Church of Scotland in May 1988, she suggested that there was a

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Taking Care of Business 85

spiritual dimension to social and economic arrangements founded on the acceptanceof individual responsibility. More recently, Mr MacGregor, through the NationalCurriculum Council (NCC, 1990), has sought to emphasise the importance heattaches to promoting entrepreneurs with social and moral consciences.

We can assume that these political messages are intended as a response towarning signs of a social malaise but none mentions the possibility that the sicknessmay actually have been caused by the very culture they are seeking to legitimate.Social harmony and a caring society are, no doubt, partly dependent upon a certainlevel of material wealth but the motive for acquiring wealth is normally self-regarding and economic rather than disinterested and altruistic. Moreover theenterprise culture implies that seeking material wealth is good in itself whereascommon sense and experience tell us that this self-interested disposition is parasiticupon and could not exist without a society in which the moral values of honesty,promise-keeping and respect for property still have some currency.

It is true that what Tawney called the "protestant ethic" is essential to themaintenance of the market economy, but it is not this instrumental notion ofmorality which lies at the heart of good citizenship but something far less pruden-tial. It is the values of truth-telling, respect for rights, promise-keeping, and so on,which are themselves important to foster in citizenship programmes, not theimportance of such values to the smooth operation of business and commerce.Making gadgets for disabled people and campaigning for the re-siting of pelicancrossings—two of the acts of citizenship commended by the Speaker's Commission(Dean, ibid.)—are highly laudable projects but it is to be hoped that they areultimately located within an educational and value framework which gives meaningto such socially aware and caring sentiments. Such a moral framework might even(if the 1986 Education Act will allow for this) result in some young people adoptingquestoning and critical attitudes towards a society which has witnessed an increasein homelessness, relative poverty, alcoholism, drug addiction and youth suicide overthe last decade or so.

A recent project designed to explore the role of moral education in the furthereducation sector was introduced with the claim that the "moral health of a nationdepends on the moral commitment and competence of its individual citizens"(Wright, 1989, p. 1). This is indisputably true. However, bolt-on programmesbased on lists of 'moral competences' will not produce active and morally healthycitizens without challenging the moral bankruptcy of a society in which the pursuitof personal wealth and the stockpiling of material possessions have such pride ofplace.

If such a challenge forms part of a programme of educational reform aimed atfostering the full, all-round development of pupils, up to 18, then the promotionof a morally healthy nation is even more likely to be achieved. The NationalCurriculum for schools and the core skills proposals for 16-19 year olds provide aframework for the achievement of such an aim, but not without a radical valueshift which replaces the rampant individualism of the enterprise culture with another-regarding morality based on benevolence, trust, and community values andinterests.

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