Session Information
23 SES 13 C (JS), Schooling and Education after Neo-Liberalism
Symposium, Joint Session NW 14 and NW 23
Contribution
The authors, being nationally and internationally involved at policy and professional levels in lifelong learning and the emerging co-operative response to the structural redesign occurring within the English education system, ask if co-operative schools provide a logical democratic alternative alongside the neo liberal policies and growing engagement of for profit providers in the education system. Whilst co-operative schools are well established in many parts of Europe they are a recent phenomena in the UK. By January 2011 over 150 schools had converted or were about to convert to multi stakeholder co-operative trust models. We examine the model in the context of the co-operative movement’s principle of co-operative education, critically discussing the experience to date of engaging key stakeholder groups, parents/carers, staff, learners and the local communities in the life of the schools. Reporting on what is distinctive about the curriculum and methods of co-operative schools we ask: could this make a real difference to communities, locally, nationally, internationally? Does the engagement of such stakeholders develop wider lifelong learning? And what real contributions locally and globally can be made to overall provision of socially just learning opportunities across the generations? Finally, what changes in ‘professionalism’ would follow as a consequence?
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