By Appointment: governance, markets and managerialism in further education

Abstract

AbstractThis article examines the changing conditions of governance in the post‐incorporated further education (FE) sector. Six years on from the incorporation of colleges in 1993 (Further and Higher Education Act, 1992), the article considers the various ways in which FE governance finds expression in market and managerial reform in this expanding £4bn sector recovering from industrial conflict, low morale, mismanagement and, in some cases, sleaze. In this article the authors analyse the wider policy impact of corporate managerialism on forms of governance at college level, which mirror what, elsewhere, has been described as a crisis of standards in public life. Drawing on data from an Economic and Social Research Council [ESRC] funded project 1997‐99 [R000236713] undertaken at Keele, the article analyses the meaning of governance as it is interpreted by chairs of governors interviewed in the study. This article connects with wider findings from the Keele Study regarding the work of lecturers, senior and middle managers in FE. In particular, it focuses on the ways in which chairs mediate reform at college level and, in terms of their business acumen and ‘special relationship’ with chief executives, influence the institutional rather than pedagogic culture of FE. Given the lack of critical FE research in this area, the nature of this article is necessarily tentative, including its conclusions for a more public reconfiguration of FE.