The government's education policy for schools has in recent years been painted in terms of the demands of a knowledge-based economy and the need for greater social cohesion, but in practice has been determined by what is often called ‘the standards agenda’, a commitment to improving the quality of schools, teachers and teaching in order to raise levels of student achievement. None of these policies was directly shaped by concerns about lifelong learning; but neither was any policy intended to damage lifelong learning. It is the contention of this book, however, that this has in fact been the effect of some of those policies. If we are to develop policies that intentionally and explicitly support lifelong learning, on what existing policies must they build? Can the changes be made in ways that nevertheless maintain a degree of continuity and coherence with past policies?

The worst crime a politician can commit is to make a U-turn: the media and opposition parties are unsparing whenever they spot or suspect such a lapse. So when ministers make changes or adjustments to their policies – a perfectly natural and reasonable activity for the rest of us in our personal, professional and public lives – they have to pretend that they are doing no such thing. It would be easy to conclude this book with a list of new policies that would create a radically different education service in a different, but unspecified, society. Doing so would avoid the irritating complication of having to specify what being ‘there’ would look like and what needs to be done to get from here to there.