IEA Featured Publications
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Dr Stephen Davies
13 August 2020
Research
Reshaping the UK's Higher Education for the post-pandemic world
Summary Covid-19 is bursting the bubble in universities and higher education (HE), exposing the fundamentally unsound nature of the policy of successive governments and of the entire array of HE institutions. Many institutions were in a weak financial position prior to the pandemic. They are now facing a massive cash-flow crisis. The present difficulties could ...
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Dr Stephen Davies
13 August 2020
4 July 2019
Research
...and the lessons we can learn
Education reforms that allow new educational providers to supply schooling into a state system can improve parental satisfaction and raise learning outcomes through consumer choice. Private school choice programmes in the US have been shown to strengthen the civic virtues of young citizens. Choice provides children with schooling that matches their interests. A child engaged ...
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4 July 2019
Terence Kealey
3 November 2017
Research
The Dubious Case for Free School Breakfasts
Summary: The Conservative Party’s manifesto for the June 2017 general election included a policy to replace free school lunches with free school breakfasts for all school children. After the election, the policy was abandoned. The Conservative manifesto justified the policy by appealing to research into the educational effects of free school breakfasts conducted by the ...
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Terence Kealey
3 November 2017
James Tooley
27 October 2017
Research
Embrace private sector education in post-conflict states to improve standards
Summary: Low-cost private schools are ubiquitous across the developing world. This book explores their nature and extent in some of the world’s most difficult places, three conflictaffected states in sub-Saharan Africa: Liberia, Sierra Leone and South Sudan. The accepted wisdom of international agencies on education in conflict-affected states acknowledges that some kinds of low-cost private ...
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James Tooley
27 October 2017
Ryan Bourne & Len Shackleton
6 February 2017
Research
Many families now spend a third of their net income on childcare
Summary: Decisions on childcare arrangements were largely a private matter until the 1990s. A political consensus has since arisen that government action is needed to raise the quality of provision, to make it more affordable and to support parental labour market attachment. Childcare and pre-school policy is accordingly a fast-growing area of state intervention. The ...
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Ryan Bourne & Len Shackleton
6 February 2017
Professor J. R. Shackleton and Professor Philip Booth
23 July 2015
Research
New research from the IEA outlines the serious shortfalls of the REF scheme as a way to fund higher education.
Summary The Research Excellence Framework (REF) assesses the research generated by UK universities. Most recently conducted in 2014, it is used by the national higher education funding councils (HEFCE in England) to help in allocating Quality Research (QR) money. It is likely that the REF directly influences the distribution of less than £1.5 billion, representing ...
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Professor J. R. Shackleton and Professor Philip Booth
23 July 2015
Peter Ainsworth
23 October 2014
Research
Levy on graduate earnings should replace state funding of universities
Summary: · Although graduates tend, on average, to earn more than non-graduates, the ‘graduate premium’ varies greatly by subject and by year of graduation. It also varies significantly between individuals. · There is considerable uncertainty about how the graduate premium will evolve for the coming generation of students given rapid technological change and its impact ...
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Peter Ainsworth
23 October 2014
Sir Douglas Hague
13 September 2013
Research
Universities in the UK have traditionally operated under a common system which institutionalises important restrictive practices. They have operated in a cartel whose output had been regulated by government. The individual firms (ie universities) are allocated quotas of students by government, and fees and salaries are set in ways that are typical of a classic ...
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Sir Douglas Hague
13 September 2013
Gabriel H. Sahlgren
10 April 2013
Research
Education reforms must go further
Incentivising Excellence considers the conditions that need to prevail for school choice to fulfil its promise in relation to improving educational outcomes. It contends that without attention to system design and supporting reforms geared to fundamentally altering the incentive structure in education, there is little reason to suggest that choice will generate significant gains. The book ...
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Gabriel H. Sahlgren
10 April 2013
Edited by James B. Stanfield
19 July 2012
Research
Education reforms at risk unless government allows for-profit free schools
Executive Summary: The criticism of the ‘profit motive’ in education is unjustified: we should not be concerned about the corporate structure of organisations that provide educational services. Furthermore, while people are disparaging about the profit motive they ignore other self-interested motives operating within the education sector, such as those within teachers’ unions, government educational bureaucracies, ...
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Edited by James B. Stanfield
19 July 2012
