Making school admissions fairer? 'Quasi-regulation' under New Labour

This paper examines reforms to secondary school admissions in England since 1997. In particular, it focuses on the new ‘quasi-regulation’ that has been introduced to make the process of admissions fairer and more transparent. Our analysis reveals that the quasi-regulation has had some impact on the process of admissions to secondary schools. In a number of authorities with highly developed secondary school quasi-markets, the policy changes have resulted in some inequitable admissions criteria being removed. However, there are still problems with school admissions and policy recommendations about how the system can be made fairer are presented.