marketisation of education as the only legitimate device for promoting educational quality. in this case is defined in terms of efficiency, value for money and „Quality‟ meeting the demands of consumers”. “educational In seeking an alternative to this new rightist approach, Sayed contrasts and „idealist‟ for purpose‟ definitions of educational quality. The former identifies „fitness educational quality as a judgement of the level of achievement in some defined attribute relative to a standard a standard‟. In contrast, for purpose‟ – „gold „fitness approaches define quality in terms of the production of goods or services to fulfil perceived needs or to conform to specific criteria in their production two variants. – Described as consumer-oriented or producer-oriented approaches to quality. Sayed critiques both of these paradigms as providing only partial definitions of quality, where here means both incomplete and also relying on the judgment of only „partial‟ part of society. He goes on to suggest a resolution to this problem of the existence of these two distinct approaches by drawing on a model that appears in the ANC‟s Education And Training Policy document. This model is interesting in that it attempts to deal with what is commonly seen as a tension between the concepts of quality and equality in education. (See for example, the collection edited by Welch, 2000). This is done by using a notion of as entitlement‟, essentially including the idea of equity „quality within that of quality. A closer examination reveals that this does not actually remove the tension between quality and equity in practice but, it does ensure that notion of quality is disconnected from narrow concerns of costs which may „the
marketisation of education as the only legitimate device for promoting educational quality. „Quality‟ in this case is defined in terms of efficiency, value for money and meeting the demands of “educational consumers”. In seeking an alternative to this new rightist approach, Sayed contrasts „idealist‟ and „fitness for purpose‟ definitions of educational quality. The former identifies educational quality as a judgement of the level of achievement in some defined attribute relative to a standard – a „gold standard‟. In contrast, „fitness for purpose‟ approaches define quality in terms of the production of goods or services to fulfil perceived needs or to conform to specific criteria in their production – two variants. Described as consumer-oriented or producer-oriented approaches to quality. Sayed critiques both of these paradigms as providing only partial definitions of quality, where „partial‟ here means both incomplete and also relying on the judgment of only part of society. He goes on to suggest a resolution to this problem of the existence of these two distinct approaches by drawing on a model that appears in the ANC‟s Education And Training Policy document. This model is interesting in that it attempts to deal with what is commonly seen as a tension between the concepts of quality and equality in education. (See for example, the collection edited by Welch, 2000). This is done by using a notion of „quality as entitlement‟, essentially including the idea of equity within that of quality. A closer examination reveals that this does not actually remove the tension between quality and equity in practice but, it does ensure that „the notion of quality is disconnected from narrow concerns of costs which may
ENGE_MASONDORE_RESEARCH_REPORT_FD.docx