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The Education Policy collection is the largest of the Special Collections within the UCL Institute of Education Library. The collection relates directly to state education in the United Kingdom from its earliest origins in the 19th century to the present day, and it is an almost comprehensive collection of official reports, legislation and other publications on education and related subjects.
The UCL Institute of Education Library holds extensive print and online collections of official publications, and other grey literature that informs education policy. This includes items published by the UK Government, UK Parliament (including devolved assemblies), government departments, local authorities, and quangos. In addition, the collection holds publications produced by trade unions, political parties, and think tanks.These publications include codes of practice, statistics, and research papers. Highlights include items published by the Inner London Education Authority (ILEA) - the local education authority for the City of London and the inner London boroughs from 1965 until 1990.
With most government information published online, the Library now maintains an open-access repository of documents specifically related to education, training, and skills. DERA (Digital Education Resource Archive) was established in 2011 and holds over 36000 publications related to education, training, and skills.
The Education Policy collection at the UCL Institute of Education Library is held in print and online. Most of the printed collection is held in our library stores and need to be requested in advance via the online request form in UCL Explore.
The Library collects a wide range of official publications related to Education including Acts of Parliament, Command Papers, Statutory Guidance, Select Committee Reports, as well as Departmental statistics, strategies, and reports.
Official Publications can be a challenge to locate, but we encourage you to contact the Subject Liaison Librarian for Education Policy for help and support.
You can also find links to key resources in the reading list below:
DERA is a digital archive for born digital publications in the subject areas of education, training and skills, collected and maintained by UCL Library Services. DERA includes documents published by the UK Government, UK Parliament and devolved Assemblies, government departments, semi-official organisations (quangos) and think tanks.
Popular resources on DERA include:
To locate material not held by UCL you can use the Library Hub Discover site: an online catalogue with records of the holdings the top research libraries in the country.
Print Still Matters contains details on which Libraries in the United Kingdom hold print collections of publications issued by the UK Parliament, UK Government, and the Devolved Assemblies, Parliaments, and Administrations of Nothern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. This site was initiated and is maintained by representatives of the Standing Committee on Official Publications, which also publishes an informative blog on parliamentary and government publishing.
Grey literature refers to any information source that is not commercially published. As these sources are dispersed and not collected by centralised publishing platforms, they are sometimes difficult to find and can be tiresome to search.
What counts as grey literature?
Why use grey literature?
The Higher Education Statistics Agency collects a wide range of data from universities and other providers of higher education every year. Some publications are freely available in the HESA Archive.
Hansard provides an edited transcription of what is said in Parliament, covering proceedings in both the House of Commons and the House of Lords.
Other recommended websites for historical education policy and official publications:
For information on historical sources of UK education statistics, see Special Collections.
