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This is a reply to John Hopkin's article in this number of "FORUM" on "Re-energising subject knowledge" (Volume 54, Number 2, 2012). It argues that Hopkin does not provide sufficiently cogent reasons for continuing the tradition of a subject-based curriculum. It favours starting from defensible general aims of school education and seeing what these require in the shape of more specific aims. How far the result coincides with or diverges from a subject-based curriculum cannot be prejudged. This article also questions Hopkin's almost exclusive emphasis on knowledge aims and provides a historical perspective on this way of thinking about education and on its shortfalls. (Contains 2 notes.)

This paper examines New Right argument on educational provision, including the establishing of a voucher scheme and the introduction of elements of a 'free market' into public sector education. The paper examines the right-wing allegation that educationalists have 'captured' the school curriculum and the argument on the need for 'consumer capture' of education. It discusses the New right tactic of privatization by stealth, and the argument that gradualism provides the most effective means of securing educational reform. The paper discusses arguments put forward by the right on the idea of a General Teaching Council (GTC) and argument on the need for the development of a teacher labour market freed from national salary scales. It goes on to examine Mary Warnock's proposals for a GTC and her views of teacher education. The paper examines the likely effects of the implementation of right-wings education policy, concluding that the 1988 Education Reform Act will prepare the ground for the privatization of education and the development of a teacher labour market of the kind proposed by the New Right. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 1997 there have been two concerted attempts to expand the number of medical school students in England: by increasing the size of existing medical schools, and by creating new medical schools. These initiatives have been a direct result of government policy, although policy implementation was delegated to the state apparatus. They also led to a struggle between higher education interests and the General Medical Council for knowledge control. The aim of this article is to offer an analytical framework for this conflict, and to draw attention to consequent shifts in university governance and the epistemological framing of higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author reflects on the changes in higher education particularly on the quality of teaching in biochemistry and the threats posed by the disruptions caused by enforced institutional organisations. He comments on the efforts of the British government to address national indifference to education. He highlights the findings of a report made by the Royal Society of Medicine on the public understanding of science. He cites the need to maintain the standards of learning through expanding and lengthening of degree courses.

This article presents information on the German education system. It cites some recent references to the strengths of various aspects of the German education system. A number of these systems are to be grafted on to the British system as a result of the Education Reform Act of 1988. Excellence in German education, tends to be characterized by indicators as the reduction of youth unemployment and the stimulus to the economy and understandably warrants consideration in the light of Great Britain's social and economic problems. It is further noted in this article that consideration of the origins of the educational system of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) and attempts to conceptualize its evolution lead to examine the post-World War II period of denazification and reconstruction. Similarities to the British tripartite system resulting from the 1944 Education Act will be apparent to any observer of the German federal school system. As education in the FRG is a matter for the individual, it is a mistake to refer to a national curriculum in the German context.