Criticisms of New Labour policies

• Whitty (2002) sees a contradiction between Labour's policies to tackle inequality and its commitment to marketisation. EMA's encourage working class students to stay on until they are 18-tuition fees deter people away from university.

• Also critics point out that there is a continued existence of both selective grammar schools and fee-paying private schools. Despite the Labour Party's long-standing opposition to private schools as bastions of middle and upper-class privilege.

Policies relating to gender and ethnicity

Gender• The tripartite system has led girls to be

included in higher education.• Policies like GIST have reduced gender

differences in subject choice.Ethnicity• Policies aimed at improving achievement

of children from minority ethnic backgrounds have gone through several phases.

• Assimilation policies focused on the need for pupils to assimilate into mainstream British culture as a way of raising their achievement.

• Multicultural education (MCE) policies aimed to promote achievements from minority ethnic groups by valuing all cultures in the school curriculum thereby raising minority achievements. The MCE has been criticised on several grounds:

• Maureen Stone argues that black pupils do not fail for lack of self esteem, so MCE is misguided.

• The New Right criticise MCE for perpetuating cultural divisions.

• Social inclusion of pupils and policies to raise achievement of minority ethnic groups. Policies include:

• the detailed monitoring of exam results by ethnicity and help for voluntary 'Saturday schools' in the black community.