Post-Brexit Education in the UK: A Formidable Challenge But a Chance to Change Direction in Schooling

Abstract

Predicting the end of one age and the beginning of another baffles the skills of most contemporary commentators. So few in France in 1788 would really have expected the events of the following year: nor, in the early months of 1989, would the shrewdest of Berliners have expected that the Wall was about to come down. Both these events were the precursors to massive social changes whose rippling effects reached the education system in their own and other societies. It is therefore tempting to see the referendum decision to leave the European Union—so-called Brexit—as similar. In modern management speak the question to consider is whether Brexit represents for our education system a threat or an opportunity.The author argues that it is a threat for Universities but an opportunity for the schooling and college system and services for young people—not least to overcome weaknesses long neglected.