In the public interest: post-compulsory education in a postmodern age

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With mass post‐compulsory education and training now coming on stream the question arises, whose interests does it serve? In addressing this question this paper examines aspects of the recent expansion of Post‐Compulsory Education and Training (PCET). It explores various ways in which a market, credit and contract culture find expression in the fast changing arrangements of Post‐16 Education Policy in the UK, and whether this reflects a transition from a Fordist to a post‐Fordist learning society. In looking at what sense can be made of this transition, the paper reflects on why the post‐Fordist ideal translates into the neo‐Fordist nightmare, and what can be done about it. It is argued that it is one thing to employ a post‐Fordist or post‐modern analysis of contingency and diversity in education, and quite another to confuse such analysis with the onset of a new post‐industrial order, at least in the UK. Drawing on earlier collaborative work with colleagues (Avis et al. 1996) this paper looks toward a fo...