Purpose and quality of education in England inquiry launched

30 November 2015

The Education Committee launches an inquiry into the purpose and quality of education in England.

Call for written evidence

Written evidence is invited addressing the following points:

What the purpose of education for children of all ages in England should be
What measures should be used to evaluate the quality of education against this purpose
How well the current education system performs against these measures

Send a written submission through the purpose and quality of education in England inquiry page.

The deadline for receipt of evidence is midday on Monday 25 January 2016.

Get involved

Alongside the formal call for evidence, a new online forum is available on the Education Committee website, with the Committee encouraging people to comment on the inquiry and submit their views on what the purpose of education should be. A short video has been produced to start the discussion, and you can also join the conversation on Twitter by using #EduPurpose.

Chair's comment

Launching the inquiry, Chair of the Education Committee Neil Carmichael MP said:

"In this inquiry we want to ask the question, what is education for? What is the purpose of our educational system? Is it, for example, to prepare our young people for the world of work? Is it to ready our children for adulthood and provide them with the skills to lead fulfilling lives? Is it to provide them all with broad academic knowledge, based on a shared culture and values? We can expect to hear diverse answers to this question but it's important we get an agreed sense of what education is so we can then ask the right questions about how we evaluate the quality of our education and how well it is performing against those measures.
As a society we all have a stake in whether our education system delivers for all children and we're really keen to hear from parents and students, as well as from those who work in the education world or employ young people after they leave school. We hope people will engage with this inquiry and we look forward to hearing their views.
As a Committee, we want over this Parliament to explore the fundamentals of education in England. Approaching this basic question of the purpose of education will pave the way for the Committee to examine whether our curriculum, qualifications, assessment and accountability systems really are fit for purpose."

Further information

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