How can policy-shapers get their ideas across to those who decide? How to be sure that policy-makers are provided with the relevant material that they need? These questions were under discussion in Coventry and what has been observed is that there is often a discrepancy between these two different worlds and the connection between the shapers and the decision-makers is difficult to establish.

The policy-making process often consists of policy-shapers trying to get their message across to a policy-maker whose job is to decide and make pragmatic recommendations to ministers. But policy-shapers may not have the necessary leverage to impose their ideas. On the other hand, policy-makers are subject to diverse forces and conflicting interests, which force them to fit long-term policies into short-term agendas. This often results in losing the original intent of a proposal.

Some reflexions have been conducted in order to change this, and shift policy formulation out of ministries, into agencies responsible of its implementation, with the minister retaining the final say on policy propositions. The farther away a centre of decision, the more difficult it may be for the decision-maker to deal with small problems or issues of a local character which arise in the course of implementation and maintenance. A decentralized governance framework would enable the definition of better adapted policies, but it implies a redistribution of the roles within the policy-making process, and in particular an increase of all potential policy-shapers that goes not without raising further questions, notably concerning the profile of these new policy-shapers.

The issue of a particular training for those in charge of defining policies was indeed challenged during the meeting: if we recognise the need for training in leadership, why do we not recognise the need for training in policy-shaping? This idea is nevertheless still difficult to admit for most of people, convinced that policy-shaping is more an ‘art’ than a technique that could be taught. However we could perfectly consider a peer-learning approach, similar to what is already done in the context of PIC. In the same way the idea of a certification of competencies is most of time rejected.

All these questions are intrinsically related to that of democracy and of legitimacy. If policy-shapers and policy-makers can follow differing agendas and priorities, what about the legitimacy and the credibility of the policies adopted? This was one of the main issues tackled by the members of the PIC during this meeting. A way of procuring legitimacy lies in building policy on users’ needs, employing consultation processes, modified forms of market research, validation and usability testing. The discussions were enriched by presentations provided by Doug Brown (BECTA), concerning the introduction in UK of interactive whiteboards, and Jordi Vivancos (Catalonian Ministry of Education), about the formulation of suggestions for the educational reform. PISA was also briefly discussed, notably as regards to its implementation in Switzerland, where the results of PISA evaluation were taken into account to rethink the educational system. All these examples underlined the importance of assigning a more active role to educational authorities at all levels of the decision-making process – from definition to implementation and evaluation.

Parts of the meeting were also dedicated to discussing EUN activities. Some changes in the orientation of EUN were evoked, in particular a move towards an organisation more driven by ministries and consequently more focused on their needs. The workings of PIC were also questioned, notably regarding the relationship of PIC with the Steering Committee (SC). Different means of improving their collaboration were proposed such as inviting SC members to PIC meetings or establishing regular contacts between these two institutions.

More:
http://insight.eun.org
http://p2v.eun.org