Blair First And Second Term Uk Higher Education Reform

Since Britain Labor Party headed by Blair is in power, it has successively carried out some bold and resolute reforms in the fields such as economic pattern, welfare system and education system etc., attempting to find a middle strategy to rule a nation,"the third path"we can name, which seeks the new balanced point between state and market, individual and government, competition and cooperation, the right and the duty, fairness and efficiency, aiming at realizing remodernization, redemocratization and economical globalization in order to adjust to the challenge in the modern society and build a new powerful Britain full of vigor.Under the direction of"the third path", the Blair Labor Party government, proceeding from the goal of economic boom and social stability, emphasizes from various aspects the function of education in political, economic and social fields and also carries out a series of reforms, which strengthens the guidance and supervision from the government on one hand and on the other hand pushes the education into society, making the whole society participate in education with the government undertaking the main responsibility of education, thus education becoming a public service in a real sense.In responding to the choices in many aspects resulting from the globalization, Blair government all along regards education as the first goal. Education and training are the most important task for the politicians advocating"the third path", who view educational investment as the prime task of government and an important foundation for redistribution.Concerning the education, the Blair government regards increasing education investment, reforming educational system and improving educational quality as the priority target. Especially in the higher education field, the government enlarges the investment, expands the higher education scale and strengthens the cooperation between higher education and industrial sectors in addition to continuing"the double system"of higher education abandoned by the conservative party, and at the same time through various measures ensures the equalization and modernization of higher education, eliminating the traditional higher education malpractices of being conservative and complacent, attempting to accelerate the economic development and improve the economic competitiveness by education and training, positively getting involved in the trend of intelligent economy and welcoming the challenges of globalization with the highly technical and creative talentsThis paper can be divided into 4 chapters. The first chapter recollects the Blair government's developing process in higher education reforms in order to have an overall knowledge of higher education reforms. Then this paper offers an outline of Blair's educational thought and its political and economic background. Based on the above analysis, this paper presents a detailed description of the characteristics of Blair higher education reforms, elaborates the reforming process, having a deep knowledge of the influence brought by Blair's higher education reforms and summarizes the useful experience and enlightenment, which can be beneficial to our country's educational reforms.