In striving to offer a definitive judgement surrounding the role of neoliberalism in education, it appears evident that the nature of policy as an ongoing process (Maguire, Braun and Ball, 2015) determines the role of neoliberalism to evoke a similarly ongoing discussion. Nevertheless, whilst there have been clear advantages, namely an increase in efficiency and acknowledgement of the need to raise standards (Allen, 2010), such advantages have failed to translate to an improved education for all (Ballion, 1991; Ball, 2008; 2017), with only certain social demographics able to benefit favourably from the principals of neoliberalism (Dumay and Dupriez, 2014). Furthermore, in achieving such advantages, the collateral issues that have been created are arguably more severe than those gains (Hirsch, 2002) and are embedded in an oxymoronic manner that renders them seemingly impossible to address (Bridges and McLaughlin, 1994).

Ball (2017) offers insight into the mechanics of this issue, noting that as education is entwined with wider changes within the economy and the state, the frantic nature of UK politics means that long-term sustainability becomes consistently overshadowed by the demand of immediate impact in order to generate public support. Consequently, it can be readily suggested that the appointment of policy makers and political leaders is significantly reflective of the appointment of headteachers, discussed by Hill, Mellon, Laker and Goddard (2017), determining the efficacy of neoliberal principals to be an issue that reaches far beyond education (Simons, Olssen and Peters, 2009). Nevertheless, from the perspective of education, the resulting knee-jerk policies that are implemented and then replaced by following governments have culminated in a muddying of the waters around traditional educational values (Dunleavy and O’leary, 1987; Coffield, 2006) and what these mean to different stakeholders in the educational process.