Governments and international organisations have turned their attention to a return to normal, following the disruption of the pandemic. How context shapes governing narratives of education and education recovery in the four jurisdictions of the UK is explored in this paper. Our interest is in how knowledge is used and interacts with politics to create the governing narratives in each jurisdiction, as well as how these contrast between jurisdictions. Through an analysis of policy texts on education recovery in the four jurisdictions, we explore these relationships.

In Scotland, the SNP government’s political text and talk in education policy has promoted a policy narrative of joint endeavour and collaborative improvement, inflected with historically embedded references to fairness, ‘crafting the narrative’ of government that is (implicitly) nationalist in its references to a shared ‘project’ - a ‘journey to independence’ - though drawing on historically embedded themes. More recently, that narrative has focused more sharply on educational underachievement and on major curriculum and cultural change designed to support system-wide reform. That agenda is a departure from traditional reliance on a local ‘policy community’ operating consensually, with expertise and knowledge located largely within the system. In Wales, a narrative of ambitious reform has developed since devolution, and distinguishes Wales from the other jurisdictions. Its emphasis on local partnerships and ‘bottom up’ developments can be seen in its education recovery policies. Labour governments in Wales have also referenced OECD expertise to enable their ‘journey to reform’, while enhanced devolution following the Wales Act (2016) and the co-operation agreement between Labour and Plaid Cyrmu has encouraged distinctive education policy-making. From 2015 Wales has moved towards collegiate working focussed on social justice, inclusion and addressing inequalities. Northern Ireland has seen major alternations to the policy narrative with the creation of a single Education Board in 2015 and a recent review of the education system.

In England, the dominant policy narrative foregrounds individualistic goals and competition, striving for world class standards through, for example, reform of educational assessment. A qualification reform policy – the Advanced British Standard – was announced by the Prime Minister, to drive up educational standards. High standards are to be achieved through data-based governance involving performance assessment, curriculum control and inspection. This contrasts with the other jurisdictions who have sought to utilise education policy to promote the myth of education as creating a coherent, inclusive society that generates feelings of belonging, collective identity and purpose. England’s education system and policymaking is increasingly provided by private actors and reliant on outsourcing. Which expertise and knowledge are mobilised in the governing narratives for education recovery policy differs markedly across the four jurisdictions.

Following our analysis of key policy texts setting out plans for education recovery in the UK’s four nations we offer insights into the dominant education recovery narratives being constructed, the resources-including expert knowledge- that they mobilise or exclude in recovery planning, and the importance of party politics in shaping recovery responses. We adopt an interdisciplinary theoretical framework that drawing on political studies, education policy analysis and analysis of knowledge-policy relations in the governing of education in the UK and Europe. Our analyses show that the kinds of knowledge drawn upon in each jurisdiction is strikingly different, relating to the political and ideological values of the parties in power in each. In turn, this generates governance logics which frame distinct views of what a return to normal would look like for the education systems.

We seek to answer the following main research questions: (i) Do covid recovery plans reflect party political differences across the 4 jurisdictions of the UK? (ii) What kinds of expertise and knowledge are mobilised in these plans? The approach taken draws on theorization of governing as narrative, with attention to the social construction of practices of policy making through the ability of individuals to create and act on meanings. Narrative approaches connect to critical discourse analysis (CDA) through approaching policy text as persuasive, and as referencing particular contexts and connections to claim the legitimacy and authority of selected policy strategies. CDA enables scrutiny of how discourse creates and recreates the world by ignoring some possibilities and selecting and prioritising others. Importantly, discourses also represent possible worlds, and construct ‘projects’ to change the world in preferred directions. CDA interrogates policy texts to illuminate the resources that are being mobilised, and their role in creating governing narratives-in this case, narratives of education recovery. We analysed key policy texts from the four administrations, for example the Covid 19 Education Recovery Group (Scotland), DfE publications on Education Recovery, the Independent Panel Review of Education in Northern Ireland, the Renew and Reform plan in Wales and the Covid Inquiry. We also carried out text analysis of selected, relevant speeches by key policy actors across UK. We understand policy as a site of interaction of actors and agendas in education -an interaction revealing the relationship of knowledge, expertise and politics. We understand policy as made and (re) made in processes of enactment, as requiring policy work that depends on the alliances that actors build, the interests that they accommodate, and the extent to which agreement can be brokered about the direction of any policy process. Such perspectives stress attention to the ways in which policy and policy actors are embedded in social and cultural worlds, and to the extent to which expertise is relational, mediating between knowledge production and application, welding scientific and social capabilities. We ask what resources are identified and seen as useful, explore how they are mobilised, and examine the extent to which politicians select from them, emphasise some rather then others-in order to try to navigate competing values and interests.

Our findings show England as exceptional amongst the four nations, with the neoliberal rationale of marketisation and privatisation framing the governing narrative of education policy in the return to normal following the pandemic. In Scotland, there is a strong narrative of education as important to societal cohesion, with recognition of education professionals and their contributions to community. A number of reviews of aspects of the education system in Scotland drew upon local expertise and consulted widely across the education sector and beyond. Wales’ policy narrative also showed a co-construction narrative, with a vision of renewal. Teachers are seen as key to the revitalisation of the country’s education system. In Northern Ireland, the governing narrative focussed upon integration and collaboration. Economic development, tackling inequalities and improving health were identified as key priorities. The exceptionalism of England is a curiosity that requires an explanation. We pose some potentially explanatory factors regarding the nature of the functioning of the state in England. In addition to party political agendas, there are politics internal to political parties which have influenced the recovery plan governing logics.

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