aspects of education
Bob Harris, Ralph Holmes Sandra Wynn
young fabian pamphlet 26 40p
young fabian pamphlet 26 aspects of education
Ralph Holmes	1	direct grant schools	1
Ralph Holmes	2	independent and public schools	7
Sandra Wynn	3	comprehensive education and the end of selection	19
Sandra Wynn	4	selective principles operating within schools	24
Bob Harris	5	religious instruction: education or indoctrination ?	31
Bob Harris	6	moral education, not indoctrination	36
Bob Harris	7	education for autocracy— or democracy?	39
this pamphlet, like ail publications of the Fabian Society, represents not the collective view of the Society but only the view of the individuals who prepared it. The responsibility of the Society is limited to approving the publications which it issues as worthy of consideration within the Labour movement. Fabian Society, 11 Dartmouth Street, London SW1 H 9BN. September 1971 SBN 7163 2026 6
1.	direct grant schools
Ralph Holmes
At the beginning of the century less than 1 per cent of our children of secondary age had a secondary education and virtually all of them were educated in private schools. The 1902 Education Act made it possible for local authorities to begin their own secondary schools and for the central government to give grants to help both local authorities and voluntary bodies run such schools. It was between the wars that the majority of the existing direct grant schools opted to continue to receive their grants from the central government rather than from the local authorities who, during this period, established a network of secondary grammar schools of their own. In 1944 the Fleming committee recommended that fee paying should cease, or at least be phased out, in all state supported and most other independent day schools. Indeed, many people argued that the direct grant schools should join the local authority network. R. A. Butler, then President of the Board of Education, ignored this advice, and the direct grant schools were allowed to continue to enjoy their special position. Under the 1945 Labour government the direct grant list of about 70 schools was formed. Some of the richer ones became independent and some of the poorer ones chose to become voluntary schools. In 1957 the Conservative government reopened the direct grant list and 15 extra schools were added from the private sector. Today we have 178 direct grant schools. The only recent change in the list took place in August 1968 when the Trinity Schools, Croydon, became independent.
In many respects these 178 schools sit half way between the state system of education and the independent sector. Although predominantly middle class institutions they do provide more of a social mix than most independent schools. Although some pupils pay fees, these are subsidised by the government, and others do not pay fees at all.
Although they are subject to considerably more government control than independent schools on matters such as religious education, fees, building programmes
and the appointment of governors, they nevertheless value highly their greater independence of action compared with most local authority schools. In one respect they tend not to sit between the public and private sectors; that is on their degree of selectivity. In the main, although it is not universally true, they are rather more selective on academic grounds than the average maintained grammar school and even more so than the average independent school. Although not under the control of the local authority in whose area they are situated, they usually include pupils from this local authority and others in the area. The schools receive from the Department of Education and Science (des) a per capita grant of £32 per pupil (£52 until the economy measures of August 1968), plus a further £84 per sixth former, plus a grant to cover the employer’s superannuation payments. In return for this the schools accept a certain amount of government control and agree to offer 25 per cent “free places” to the relevant local education authorities (lea). Although no lea is obliged to take places, most, including many which are Labour controlled, in fact do, or have done so until recently. If it does the authority has to pay for these places and the school must try to fill them with lea pupils. In addition the authority has the right to purchase a further 25 per cent of the places; these are known as “reserved places”. The remaining “residual places” can be offered in any way the governors like, but the des pays a part or all of the fees on a sliding scale if parental income is too low.
Pupils are only allowed to take up a “free place” if they have spent at least two years in a maintained primary school, but this should not lead to the conclusion that these places are all being offered to the poor and needy. Indeed, the middle classes benefit considerably from these places, as many as 7 per cent of the “free places” go to parents who have been paying fees at the preparatory department of the same school, according to the public schools commission. For the “reserved places” there are no such restrictions, and in all
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some 50 per cent of the pupils having their fees paid by the local authority are from social classes one and two whilst more than 20 per cent were not from maintained schools. Even these schools’ supporters realise that quite often those having their fees paid by the local authority come from richer homes than those who pay their own fees. This led Mr. Allison, ail ex-head of a direct grant school, and the Dean of Windsor to sign a note of dissent in the public schools commission’s second report proposing that all should pay graded fees according to parental means. Taken over the country as a whole some 60 per cent of the pupils are from local authorities. Most of the rest are fee paying, but a quarter of them gain some remission of fees and even those who pay “full” fees are subsidised by an average of £52 per pupil. Up to the economies of August
1968	parents were only paying a little over half the true fees, and the school as a whole was receiving about 80 per cent of its income from public sources. It would appear that parents are now paying a little over two thirds of the true fees, and that schools are still receiving approaching three quarters of their finance from public sources. Despite this up to two thirds of the governors can be appointed by people other than the des or the lea concerned, so that a permanent majority “against” the lea can always be assured.
With one exception the 178 direct grant schools are grammar schools. Taken as a whole they tend to be more middle class and more academically select than maintained grammar schools, but costs and staff/pupil ratios are similar, whilst on paper at least the staff are slightly less well qualified. It would be quite wrong, however, to regard the direct grant schools as a homogeneous category. Most of them in fact fall into one of the following categories: —
(a)	Super selective schools such as Manchester Grammar School and Bradford Grammar School catering for the top
1	per cent or so of the ability range, with estimated intelligent quotients (iq) of 135 or more at the time the pupils arrive at
the school. These schools usually have a very wide catchment area, creaming the grammar and comprehensive schools of a number of authorities. There are probably around ten or a dozen fully super selective schools, but there are at least another 30 or 40 that are decidedly more selective than maintained grammar schools. Most direct grant schools are considerably more selective in respect of the places paid for by the leas than those bought by parents.
(b) Denominational schools. Nearly a third of all direct grant schools are Roman Catholic and there are also 39 Anglican, seven Methodist and one Congregational school. The non-Roman Catholic schools cannot be seen as a homogeneous category, but are often the same as one of the other categories. The Roman Catholic schools, however, do form a distinctive group with an average 86 per cent of the pupils having their fees paid by the lea, compared with 47 per cent in all other direct grant schools, for example at St. Michael’s of Leeds some 99 per cent of the places are paid for by local authorities. These Roman Catholic schools often have a wide catchment area, but in terms of social class and academic selection, they are much less exclusive than most other direct grant schools, having about 16 per cent of their pupils from the semi-skilled and unskilled working classes compared with only 5 per cent in the remaining direct grant schools. Or to look at the figures from the other way, only just over a third of their pupils are from social classes one and two compared with over two thirds from those professional and managerial classes in the other schools. These schools are in fact fulfilling the function of a voluntary aided school rather than that of a direct grant school. Such schools are particularly common in the North West.
(c) Quasi-public schools. About a quarter of the direct grant schools are much more like public schools than the rest. These include 14 schools with less than 25 per cent of the places paid for by leas, including Kent College, where the percentage has fallen as low as 4 per
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cent. Also in this group are a number of boarding schools. There are 15 where more than 50 per cent of the pupils are boarders and a further 15 where more than 25 per cent are boarders. Most of these schools cater for boys. A further group of schools within this section are the 23 members of the girls public day school trust. All these groups of schools tend to be more middle class that other direct grant schools, but many of them are rather less selective, especially for the boarding and residual places.
(d) Quasi-grammar schools are probably the smallest of the four sections. These are direct grant schools which take the great majority of selective pupils from an lea which may have no grammar schools of its own in a particular area. The direct grant grammar school is acting then as a local grammar school. This sort of situation occurs to a greater or lesser extent in Rutland, Oldham, Ly-tham St. Anne’s and Bedford for example. Compared with ordinary grammar schools, these direct grant schools usually have a larger proportion of pupils of high ability, but among the fee payers have in addition quite a number below the ability normally accepted by grammar schools. The quasi-grammar schools pose great problems to leas when they are planning comprehensive schemes.
Direct grant schools are then a very diverse group of schools ranging from sectarian religious schools to elitist super selectives and state subsidised public schools. Not only do they differ in kind but they are unevenly spread about the country. They tend to be in large towns, especially those of the North. There are 46 within the geographic county of Lancashire with a further 15 in the neighbouring West Riding and a further nine in neighbouring Cheshire. The only other considerable concentration is in Greater London with 20 schools, but amongst others the six in Newcastle the five in Bolton and the seven in Bristol pose great problems to those towns in their comprehensive reorganisation.
Tf the direct grant schools are to continue to select from and cream the main-
tained sector during a period in which grammar schools will be disappearing, a very special case needs to be made. There is no doubt that the direct grant schools include some such as Manchester Grammar School, King Edward VI School in Birmingham, and Bradford Grammar School, with some of the finest academic reputations in the country. It is certainly true that such schools feature very well in measurable terms such as General Certificate of Education examination results and Oxbridge entrance; but the main reason for this has nothing to do with direct grant status or even to do with the quality of the schools. It is entirely due to the degree of their selectivity and has come about because it has been a deliberate policy of British education to make the direct grant schools centres of excellence by sending many of the brightest children to them. The public schools commission found that more than a quarter of the pupils are in the top 2.5 per cent of the ability range with a verbal reasoning quotient of 130 or more and that 60 per cent were in the top 9 per cent. Manchester Grammar School boasts that 75 per cent of their pupils go to university, but, considering the ability of their pupils, it is perhaps surprising that the proportion is so low. Sir Alec Clegg has shown that, in the West Riding at least, boys of similar ability do just as well in maintained grammar schools whether super selective ones or ordinary ones, as they do in super selective direct grant schools. Indeed in their second report the public schools commission stated “there is some evidence . . . that pupils in some of the most highly selective schools do less well in public examinations than might be expected” (pi 29).
It is frequently argued that one of the unique advantages of the direct grant schools is that “they are the finest social mix in the country” (Kenneth Lewis mp in an interview on 15 March 1970). It is held that the pupils come “from widely varied social backgrounds” (Direct grant school, memorandum from the head masters’ conference, March 1968, p6) with “a social range wider than that of many comprehensive schools” (Peter
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Mason, high master of Manchester Grammar School in The Times, 23 March 1970). Although relatively liberal Tories like Lord Boyle and Lord Butler seem to share such views, there is absolutely no doubt that the whole idea is a complete myth, as has been shown on many occasions. The public schools commission in their second report state quite clearly, “the direct grant schools are predominantly middle class institutions” (p51).
The commission shows that 60 per cent of the pupils are from the registrar general’s social classes one and two and that, if the Roman Catholic schools are excluded, the proportion from these professional and managerial classes rises to nearly three quarters, compared with under one fifth in the nation as a whole. In addition to these, there are children from the while collar section of the lower middle class. There is no doubt that these are in fact some of the most middle class schools in the country and the few working class children who do find places in them are expected to absorb and conform to the values and norms of the middle class. Indeed a depth study of the working class entrants may show similar tendencies to those found by Jackson and Marsden in their grammar school study, where the successful working class children were often fallen middle class or in some other way untypical.
In their fight for survival under Labour direct grant schools claimed that the present system gives their governors and heads a greater freedom and efficiency. The greater efficiency is hard to prove and difficult to believe, when advantages such as bulk buying and in service training are not so readily at hand, but greater freedom is more real. However, what have_ the direct grant schools to show for it? Certainly little in the way of startling innovations in educational practice. In the main they have been far too concerned with the gce and the university rat race to move forward educationally. Although some have been concerned with curriculum changes, the most exciting developments in education in the last
two decades have come from the maintained sector. In practice all schools need to be free from petty interference and petty regulations from the local education office. The best authorities already give their maintained schools a free enough hand and this must be fought for for all schools, not just a few privileged direct grant schools. “It is clear that there is nothing sufficiently distinctive about this group of selective schools to justify treatment which differs from that applied to other selective schools” (Public schools commission. Second report, pl34).
their progress to comprehensive education
Circular 10/65 asked leas to get direct grant schools involved in their plans, but the public schools commission confirms that progress has been most unsatisfactory. By September 1969 only St. Anne’s, a Southampton Roman Catholic School, had a comprehensive intake and the only other school to agree to follow has been St. Anthony’s in Sunderland. Of the 178 schools, 170 were still receiving at least some of their lea pupils on the old basis and only 31 had revised arrangements operating for any of their pupils. In some cases these arrangements only apply to the children from one of the leas feeding the school and in most cases the changes are relatively slight. In the House of Commons on 4 March 1971 it was reported that only 23 schools were participating to any degree.
Suggestions for change from the direct grant schools include: (a) In October
1969	those that belong to the headmaster’s conference proposed zoning schemes to cut comprehensive creaming to the minimum and also showed a willingness to take up to 35 per cent of the ability range, (b) Mushroom schools with an entry at 14, or more likely 16, from the local comprehensive school to join those already at the direct grant school. These, in terms of circular 10/65 are really only interim schemes. They are unlikely to be fair in terms of status and resources on the lea schools with which they are competing for at least part of the age
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range. Dauntsey’s School in Wiltshire is operating a scheme like this at sixth form level, but for boys only. In Preston the Roman Catholic 11 to 16 schools use the Roman Catholic direct grant schools in Lancashire as “sixth form colleges” for their pupils, (c) At Loughborough the Leicestershire County Council has agreed to double places from 25 to 50 per cent in return for a widening of the ability range to include those with an iq of 100.
(d)	At Bedford, where the Harpur Trust dominates secondary education with its two direct grant and two independent schools, compared with one lea grammar school, the trust has offered to take 60 per cent of the ability range at 13 years of age.
These schemes do not form an exhaustive list, but they are typical of those incompatible with a comprehensive system. To widen the iq range or increase the numbers going to the direct grant schools is to strengthen such schools at the expense of the comprehensives. This is especially true when the transition is at sixth form level. The comprehensive trying to build a strong sixth form must suffer. Except perhaps for some Roman Catholic schools, it seems unlikely that much progress towards comprehensive education will be made by direct grant schools, unless there is government action. The only reason that direct grant schools are so popular with some sections of the middle classes is that parents are gaining what they believe to be a privileged education for their children either at no cost to themselves or at least with a state subsidy. If the direct grant school were genuinely comprehensive it would1 differ little from the local authority’s comprehensive, so parents would not be so prepared to pay fees for it. Direct grant schools will not sign their own death warrant in this way, so government action is essential
what should happen to them ?
Conservatives see direct grant schools both as a bridge building link with the private sector and as the sort of good grammar school that should co-exist with
the comprehensive system. The rejection of this principle of co-existence should apply to direct grant schools as much as maintained grammar schools. The Conservative spokesman on education, Margaret Thatcher, went farther, and during the pre-election period proposed that the direct grant list should be re-opened and thus extended as it was by the Conservative government in the ’fifties. Their 1970 election manifesto merely talked about “encouraging direct grant schools” and Mrs. Thatcher has kept to this in the House of Commons.
The public schools commission correctly believed that it would be illogical and unjust to allow the direct grant schools to continue selection or fee paying when grammar schools were being brought into the comprehensive system. They must be treated in the same way and this means the next Labour government should end their present status. The commission was divided and proposed two different ways in which this might be done. Scheme A would give schools a full grant status, they would still receive their grant from the central government but it would cover all their expenses. It is hoped that such a scheme would make direct grant schools more willing to participate in comprehensive schemes, as they would still retain some of their independence. It is a scheme that would leave them in a privileged position and for little real reason. On the day the report was published the association of municipal corporations made it clear that such a scheme would not be acceptable to the leas. Scheme B would allow the schools to enter the local education system as either fully maintained schools or as voluntary controlled or aided schools. This alternative is slightly better. However, there would only be a genuine improvement if selection was simultaneously outlawed. The voluntary controlled schools still maintain a high degree of autonomy similar to direct grant schools and the law would have to be changed to make them easier to include in a comprehensive system. Even control over governing bodies would not provide a long term solution including more wide ranging community involvement.
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If independent schools are to be allowed to continue then the Donnison report is probably correct in suggesting that direct grant schools should have the right to opt out of the maintained sector and become completely independent. How many would do this is an open question; press reports vary from 25 to 75. Many of the better known schools, such as Manchester Grammar School, Bradford Grammar School, Hymers College, Hull, and the Newcastle Royal Grammar, made it clear as soon as the Donnison report was published that they would do so rather than become comprehensive. At the same time the girls’ public day school trust announced that their 22 schools would do the same. The following day The Times contacted many of the direct grant schools and their evidence would suggest that the higher figure is more likely. Most of the Roman Catholic schools would probably join the state system, but most of the super selective and quasi-public schools would probably become independent.
A large number of schools opting for independence would certainly strengthen the private sector of education and this may be sufficient reason on its own for complete municipalisation. The exact role the direct grant schools would play in local authority comprehensive plans would vary enormously from area to area and from school to school. Some such schools still have excessively large playing fields within urban areas and may thus be very well suited for expansion into 11 to 18 all through compre-hensives, but in many cases the land may not be available and in others the school places may not be needed. Newcastle, for example, could more or less manage without any of its direct grant places, although neighbouring Northumberland needs the places its uses in Newcastle. Bristol has established comprehensive schools covering the 11 to 18 range for 85 per cent of its pupils. Bristol’s direct grant and independent schools are in the declining urban interior of the city, where there are insufficient children and space to warrant expansion. In York it is proposed that the direct grant school should become a middle school, else-
where they may cover the age range of
14	to 18 or 16 to 18 for example. The latter suggestion of a sixth form college sounds an attractive possibility, but it may not always be as obvious as many believe, if there are other schools in the area with established sixth forms.
It is clear, then, that the way in which a particular direct grant school is to change its status must depend on the locality and the nature of the neighbouring schools. However, any school which has not chosen to remain completely independent should by law have to co-operate in every possible way with their local communities to become an integral part of the state comprehensive system. Direct grant schools have no automatic claim to favoured treatment. They must take their place alongside other schools as a part of the lea’s comprehensive network, which will eliminate the injustices and waste of a selective system.
2.	independent and public schools
Ralph Holmes
The one thing that all independent schools have in common is that they are not public at all, but are private. Independent schools do not normally receive grants or money for maintenance from public bodies, but some, such as Dulwich College, St. Paul’s and Sevenoaks, have a large number of pupils whose fees are paid by the local education authorities (lea). There is some confusion as to what is and what is not a public school. In common everyday useage it often refers to any fairly good school in the locality outside the lea network. Others equate public schools with membership of the headmasters’ conference, but this is not very satisfactory because it excludes all girls’ schools, but includes 59 out of the 81 boys’ direct grant schools, as well as a handful of state schools. The most satisfactory definition of a public school is probably that given to the public schools commission in their terms of reference. That is, those independent schools that are members of one of the following: the headmasters’ conference, the governing bodies’ association and the governing bodies of girls’ schools association.
The independent schools are even more heterogeneous than the direct grant ones. The 426,000 pupils in the private sector attend a little over 3,000 schools, which can be placed in one or more of the following categories: (a) the public schools, of which there are some 300; about 240 of these have at least 25 per cent boarders, 38 have no boarding places at all;
(b)	a further 250 or so schools also have at least 25 per cent of their places for boarders, but their size and quality varies a lot; (c) the preparatory schools account for some 1,850 schools (again their size and quality vary a lot); (d) the independent secondary day schools, of which there are nearly 600, including 65 public schools. Only about half of these have so far been recognised as efficient, and among the unrecognised or registered schools the quality varies widely. Such schools are usually small with under 300 pupils and often many of the teachers would be classified by the des as unqualified. (Speaking at Keswick on 3 October 1969 Edward Short, the then Secretary of State for Education, indi-
cated that the new major education bill that Labour was then planning, would include powers to regulate the qualifications of teachers in private schools. Margaret Thatcher has stated in the House of Commons that she will not seek such powers.) (e) A number of schools are fulfilling the functions of direct grant schools either as super selective schools, or as denominational schools, or possibly by serving as the grammar school for a certain area. There are seven schools in which more than 75 per cent of the places are taken up by leas and a further 49 where they take up more than 25 per cent. At Dulwich College, an example of a super selective school, 50 or more new places a year have been bought by the Inner London Education Authority (ilea) alone in periods of both Labour and Conservative control. Each place cost £279 per annum in 1969-70, compared with £186 per annum in maintained secondary schools in 1970-71 (latest figures available). During the spring of 1970 the newly returned Labour controlled ilea decided to stop buying such places with public funds.
post-war development
Public schools have been conscious of their isolated role in our education system for a considerable time. To try and build some bridges with the state system there have been many suggestions of free places or scholarships for nonfee paying pupils from the state sector. At their 1969 annual meeting the headmasters’ conference were told by their chairman that they themselves should make a start with 300 or 400 such scholarships. Certainly the existing 900 or so scholarships are not of this kind. Glen-nerster and Pryke (Young Fabian pamphlet 3) found that about 90 per cent of existing scholarships were won by boys who had attended first class preparatory schools. Various suggestions have been put forward about leas or the central government providing free places in independent schools; the most authoritative and best known of these was the Fleming report of 1944. This proposed that day pupils in public schools should
cease to pay fees, or at least have a remission of fees on a sliding scale to ensure that the schools were open to all. In hoarding schools they proposed that at least 25 per cent of the pupils should be supported by grants from the central government and that this percentage should gradually rise. Critics of such Fleming type schemes have always argued that they would do little to alter the ethos of the public school and that, anyhow, the minority are likely to be carefully selected, academically able and similar to those already present, but now sent there at the expense of the state.
In practice very few local education authorities have participated in such integration because they have been more concerned to use their relatively scarce resources to build up the state system. John Hipkin (New wine in old bottles, p99) quotes one lea as finding the total cost of the scheme as £790 per integrated pupil in 1966-7. His research has found only 31 schools receiving integrated pupils, and only four of the schools can be regarded as integrated. They have over 20 per cent of such pupils, but at least one of these arrangements will cease in the early ’seventies with the implementation of comprehensive plans. John Hipkin found that the integrated pupils in these four schools were more carefully selected academically that the fee payers. They were, for example, much more likely to have passed the 11 plus. They were, also, from broadly the same strata of society as the fee payers; none being from social classes four or five and only 10 per cent from the manual section of social class three. The majority were from social classes one and two, but the integrated pupils were more likely to be from the lower end of social class two than the fee payers. As many as a third had been educated outside the state system. John Hipkin concludes that “there seems to be little evidence that the principle of assistance in vacuo will do much to end the socially divisive character of the schools” {op cit, pl24). During the late ’forties and ’fifties the total number of pupils in the private sector had remained stable at around half a million, but this was a period dur-
ing which the school population as a whole was expanding and the private sector contracted from 8.8 per cent to 6.7 per cent of all pupils. In the ’sixties actual numbers fell by about 80,000 and the proportion fell to 5.3 per cent, that is in January 1970 some 0.4 million pupils were being educated in the private sector, out of a total school population of 8.3 million pupils.
In their prospectuses a number of schools boast of being registered by the Department of Education and Science. This is in fact only an indication that they reach certain very minimum standards of accommodation without which they would not be allowed1 to operate under part m of the 1944 act. About half of the independent schools are not only registered, but also recognised as efficient. This means that the standards in the schools are at least equal to those of a state school, after making allowance for the fact that the educational philosophy might be different, and that teachers in independent schools do not have to be qualified. Schools recognised as efficient tend to be larger and account for about three quarters of the pupils in the private sector. In 1967, following the imprisonment of William Byrd, head of Cholderton College, for cruelty to pupils, Patrick Gordon Walker introduced a programme of inspecting unrecognised independent boarding schools, which initially it was hoped would be complete by 1972. Gross abuses are less likely to remain undiscovered in day schools, but Labour hoped to extend the scheme to them later. In January 1971 Margaret Thatcher announced that, although she would continue the inspections and was hoping gradually to raise the standards to registered schools, she would cease the system of insisting that all schools reached the standards of recognised schools as this “was wrong in princple”. It is very hard to understand the principle at stake. Indeed this Conservative move is very similar to the closing of the consumers’ council, as the system of inspection was in no way an attack on private education, because of Socialist political principles, but merely an attempt to protect the consumer.
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During the period from 1967 to the end of 1970 of the 314 independent unrecognised boarding schools only 40, including six completely new ones were recognised ; 83 closed down voluntarily and nearly 60 stopped taking boarders. Most of the rest were not inspected. Clearly standards in certain independent schools are low. In the dast three years of the ’sixties, including day schools, 91 recognised schools and 440 registered schools closed down. In January 1970 the secretary of the head masters’ conference (hmc) described this situation as grave. Even so there is absolutely no question of the independent sector withering away in the foreseeable future. The decline in the number of schools is likely to continue and there is evidence to suggest that schools are tending to have a smaller catchment area as nearness to home increases to be thought desirable. The better independent schools find no problem at all in filling their places. Indeed registration for entry at birth is quite a common habit among upper middle class parents. It is the smaller fringe schools that are on the decline due to increasing fees, increasing expenses such as salaries and selective employment tax (set), Labour’s changes in the tax laws, the rising status of state grammar and comprehensive schools and the demand for higher standards.
the divisiveness of independent schools
The public schools commission was set up at the very end of 1965. Its terms of reference assumed that public schools were divisive and they were instructed to see that this divisive influence was reduced in any plans they might put forward. Some people objected to the assumption that the independent sector is divisive, but the public schools commission accepted it as true, and indeed argued the case most ably in their first report, which was published in July 1968.
In their very organisation the independent schools are divisive. Until recently the standard age for transfer within the state system was eleven, whilst in the independent sector, preparatory school
would begin at eight or nine with transfer at 13 to senior school. Not only do these age differences put up a barrier between the systems, but the systems also differ in outlook as to co-education. Less than 1 per cent of independent schools are mixed and segregation can begin at eight or younger. Compared with this co-education is virtually completely universal to the age of eleven in maintained schools and to the age of 13 in those areas introducing middle schools. Indeed even beyond eleven over one half of state schools are mixed and this is a growing proportion. Similar divisiveness can be seen in the provision of boarding education. Although only 5 per cent attend independent schools, the public schools commission found that these schools had six times more boarders than all maintained and direct grant schools combined. These organisational differences may not be very serious in themselves, but they help to keep the sectors apart. In a similar way the teaching staff, especially in boys’ schools, tend to keep apart. Dr. Kalton has shown that 70 per cent of the staff at hmc schools with boarding provision had themselves been education at an hmc school and that 80 per cent of the staff had taught only at hmc schools. Again this in itself may not be serious, but when one begins to examine the ratio of staff to boys the heart of the divisiness is being reached. Maintained schools have one teacher to 23 pupils, whilst public schools have one to eleven. The public schools commission weighted these figures to allow for the greater proportion of boarders and the greater proportion of senior pupils in the private sector. The result of these calculations was that maintained grammar schools had one teacher to 21 pupils and public schools one to 16.
There is also evidence to suggest that the independent schools, or at least the better ones, attract better qualified staff. Dr. Kalton showed that at hmc schools they tend to get £50 per annum or more above the Burnham salary for equivalent work. In the hmc schools there is usually a higher proportion of graduates, and they tend to be from “better” universities, and with higher degree qualifi-
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cations than their counterparts in grammar schools. Not only is the teaching staff better qualified, but the grounds are usually more spacious (averaging 113 acres in boys’ public boarding schools) the libraries better stocked and these days (in the better schools at least) modern science blocks are the rule. To what extend these superior facilities actually make the public schools better is a very different question to answer. Of those at public school who were known to have taken the 11 plus about 15 per cent had failed. In Kalton’s sample there were about a thousand such pupils and their gce results were about equal to those obtained at grammar school. Taking hmc pupils as a whole Kalton believes that these schools do better in the gce than grammar schools, but Dale in the January 1968 edition of Where challenged this evidence. There is little to choose between the two sectors once social class has been allowed for. Upper middle class children are invariably the improvers and it is from these homes that one is most likely to find parents who can afford to buy public school places.
So far it has been shown that the independent sector is different and in some respects superior to the maintained one; but who are the children whose parents opt for private education? They are mainly those who can afford to pay the fees. This is the essence of the divisiness of private schools, because only the well to do can afford to go there, especially to fill the boarding places in public schools, which are the most divisive and most privileged part of the private sector. At Marlborough the average parental income in 1967-8 was £4,700 according to research by the Lambert team. Selection is not made by the 11 plus, nor by those in need, nor by chance, but by fee paying ability and, in the case of the better known public schools that favour the children of old scolars, by chance of birth. The public schools commission found that boarding fees in January 1967 averaged very nearly £500 per annum, excluding uniform, travel and equipment. In all, extras could easily add at least another £100 and possibly £200 per annum. Average fees have certainly
risen since 1967 and by July 1971 there were at least 12 schools with annual fees of over £700 and at Millfield they amount to £1,000. The Where supplement on public schools compared examination results with fees and there was a general trend to higher results in the more expensive schools, but amongst the exceptions were Harrow, Eton and Charterhouse, which had poor results for the fees they charged. With fees of this magnitude the social class composition of the schools is hardly surprising. The public schools commission found that over 90 per cent of the places in the boys’ boarding schools were given to the children of parents in social classes one and two, that is professional and managerial.
Dennis Marsden, in a survey he reported in the Autumn 1962 edition of Where, found that the majority of the families who used boarding schools were from the upper reaches of the middle class and regarded the state system as quite a separate one. Over half of the children had not even been entered for the eleven plus. There is plenty of evidence, such as that from Douglas, Wiseman, and the various reports of the central advisory council, to support the thesis that social background is very important to educational development and that as a consequence the children of the professional and managerial classes are more assured, better supported at home, and already have a “head start”. It is not they that require better facilities, they are already privileged. If our scarce educational resources are to be shared unevenly it is the unprivileged to be found for example in Plowden’s educational priority areas who should gain. In a similar way the children of the privileged who take up the majority of the nation’s boarding places are not usually those in greatest need of boarding education.
The detailed sociological research of Royston Lambert and his team from King’s College reveals beyond doubt that the ethos of most independent schools, and more particularly the boarding public schools, is not only quite different from that of the state day schools but also different from the maintained board-
11
ing schools. The boarding public schools do vary from one another on matters such as denomination, but collectively they are a distinct system, having “fundamental similarities of structure, operation and, above all, values” (Lambert, p21). Lambert shows that the public schools are much more total institutions than the maintained boarding schools. The pupils are much more likely to be sheltered from both the abolescent subculture and the general culture of the outside world on matters such as friends of the opposite sex, clothes and even television. Instead they will conform to a greater or lesser extent to the values and organisation of the school, including its wide range of compulsory games. The organisation is much more hierarchical in the public school, although alongside this there is a closer relationship with the staff. Loyalty, a powerful prefectorial system, the stiff upper lip and various adult like attributes are amongst other features of the ethos found by Lambert.
Although research by Lambert’s team suggests that public schools do not change their ethos rapidly, there is no doubt that there have been changes. Many of these involve a lesser emphasis on some feature that has been characteristic of the public schools in the past. Compulsory cadets, corporal punishment, friends of the opposite sex, homosexuality, prefects and compulsory games, are all part of this category. In some schools even limited experiments in co-education are to be started ; for example in September 1970 Felsted admitted 12 sixth form girls, but they are not allowed to wear mini-skirts and may only wear a limited amount of make up.
In a similar way there are changes on the academic front, but again these are not dynamic pioneering changes, but adjustments to bring the independent sector more in line with the circumstances of the present age and following, or at the best moving parallel, with the state system rather than leading it. Classics may still be too important, but at least science has been given its rightful place, partly with the help of £3 million from the Industrial Fund for the Advancement
of Scientific Education in Schools, given by British firms a decade ago. Certainly with the younger children the state primary school system has put Britain at the forefront of educational change in the world, and the middle school may begin to do this with post 11 year olds. Some of this has washed over to the preparatory schools, but others are still struggling to rid themselves of Latin, which has only recently disappeared as a compulsory subject in the common entrance examination. At their 1970 conference the incorporated association of preparatory schools was told by its chairman that preparatory schools were still the servant of the common entrance examination, which amongst other things assumed that pupils would do an hour a day of the classics from the age of eight onwards.
The divisiness of the public schools continues well after the child leaves school, indeed this is the whole point of the system. Public school products manage very well to get to the top. The 1944 Fleming report pointed out “that nothing could have been better devised to perpetuate” class distinctions that the separate public school system. Geoffrey Johnson Smith, the Tory mp for East Grinstead, correctly described it as educational apartheid. According to the first report of the public schools commission, one of the greatest advantages to be gained from an investment in school fees is the success of the public schools in Oxbridge entrance. Almost half of those in hmc boarding schools obtaining a place at university find one at Oxbridge, whereas over 90 per cent of students from maintained schools obtaining a university place do so elsewhere. The appendices to the Robbins report show that Oxbridge applicants from independent schools were more likely to be accepted than those from maintained schools if “a” level results were not too good, and the proportion from independent schools at Oxbridge may be rising. However, individual colleges have quite different policies. Some have over two thirds from independent schools. This is not by chance alone as some colleges have much the same proportions year after year.
12
The bias towards public schools in selection reveals itself in the final degree results. Newfield’s paper to the 1963 meeting of the British Association shows that about one third of public school boys obtain good degrees and about half poor. From maintained schools the figures are reversed.
Both Glennerster and Pryke (Young Fabian pamphlet, no 3) and the public schools commission publish tables to show how very successful public school boys are in getting to the top. This applies particularly to the top six public schools, Charterhouse, Eton, Harrow, Marlborough, Rugby and Winchester. The success of these schools in getting their old boys to the top was analysed separately in the commission’s first report. In the 1971 Conservative cabinet 44 per cent were from the top six public schools and 77 per cent were from one public school or another. In the 1966 parliament a third of the Conservative mps were from the top six public schools and over three quarters were from one public school or another. In the bye-elec-tions of the late ’sixties, Conservative old Etonians did particularly well in securing their party’s nomination for the vacant seats. Worse still, nearly a quarter of Labour mps, and nearly half the last Labour cabinet were from outside the maintained sector. These Labour Party figures show more bias to the public schools than before the war. No wonder the parliamentary party seems more willing to abolish the grammar school than the much more divisive private school. Outside politics similar figures can be produced, showing for example that over 80 per cent of army officers reaching the rank of lieutenant genera! or above were at public school, as were over 70 per cent of the directors of prominent firms, over 75 per cent of Anglican bishops and of governors and directors of the nationalised Bank of England and some 80 per cent of judges and qcs.
To most of these figures we can also add those who have attended direct grant schools and the lesser independent schools. Glennerster and Pryke reviewed the various evidence at some length and
concluded, “The proportion of public school boys in the traditional seats of power has changed very little ... In the new centres of power in our society, the giant companies, public school influence has grown” and “their hold on industry is almost certain to continue to grow” (pp 19-20).
purchasing privilege_______________
Parents who pay out £500 or more per year per child for education are doing it as they see, as an investment in the long term interests of the child. They are opting to buy a privileged education, which in effect is buying their child a privileged position. The class ridden schools to which they send their children are taking more than their share of scarce educational resources. All this is being done at the expense of the other 90 per cent of the population. To deny the substance of this argument is to suggest that parents are wasting large sums of money in school fees. The majority of children are not sent to independent schools because they are in any particular need of boarding or academic education. Figures in the first report of the public schools commission make it clear that the great majority of boarders are not in need of boarding education. The commission found that about 15 per cent had parents abroad and that about 17 per cent were being assisted by the state, but this latter figure includes grants made to serving officers and civilian employees of the central government serving abroad, to cover their child’s education at home. It must be emphasised that there is a considerable, but unknown, degree of overlap between these two figures, and between them they must cover the majority of children at boarding public schools who are in need of boarding education. Equally it is clear from the work of Dr. Kalton that, at least until the recent growth of comprehensive schools, the great majority would have found places in maintained grammar schools. Despite claims from time to time about the comprehensive nature of public schools, he found only 2 per cent with iqs below 100 and almost no boarding pupils from
13
social classes four or five, and only a limited number from the clerical part of social class three.
It could be argued that these people get to the top because of their personal qualities and their favoured social background, rather than because of the school they attend. Dennis Marsden (Where, Autumn 1962) quotes a father as saying, “I was on the regular officer commission board after the war, and when we started interviewing we were given a list of 20 or 30 boarding schools, and if anyone had been to one of these schools they automatically started with ten points plus ten”. Such formal discrimination must be very rare, but parents are only paying out thousands of pounds per pupil in school fees because they are expecting the child to get an unfair advantage from this move. If the child’s personal qualities and social background were enough to get him to the top there would be no need for this extra expenditure ; however, one should also question whether the privileged should have better resources, and whether it is good for anybody that so many of these boys should be segregated at such a small number of schools. They have to live and work in a much wider society. Particularly alarming is the number of people at the top from the top six public schools. If these reached the top by merit alone it could be expected that large numbers of pupils from super selective schools like Manchester Grammar School would be there as well, but they are not.
Indeed three of these public schools, Eton, Charterhouse and Harrow have a rather poor academic record in terms of “a” level results, according to the Where survey. It is all the more alarming when it is realised that the top public schools usually give preference to the sons of old boys. Gennerster and Pryke quote 60 per cent of Eton boys as having Old Etonian fathers. No wonder we have a ruling class in this country. This whole system of purchasing a top place in society for one’s children is quite wrong, and is as indefensible as buying a place in the civil service or a commission in the army.
After appearing to drag its feet on both comprehensive and public schools during much of the ’fifties, the Labour Party entered the ’sixties with a firm line on both issues. The 1964 election manifesto said that Labour would “set up an educational trust to advise on the best way of integrating the public schools into the state system of education”; 14 months after the election the public schools commission was set up, but after six years in office Labour had done nothing to integrate the public schools. It had received two reports from the public schools commission but had commented on neither. Indeed Labour’s 1970 election manifesto almost completely evaded the issue.
The terms of reference of the public schools commission made it clear that “the main function of the commission will be to advise on the best way of integrating the public schools with the state system of education”. It was clear that a far more radical solution was expected from them than that of Fleming. Their analysis of the divisiveness of public schools is first rate and their decision to treat all independent schools the same, whether public schools or not, is also praiseworthy. Their main mistakes, however, seem to have been: (1) They were too anxious not to offend the independent schools. They seemed to search for a compromise, which the independent sector would, in the last resort at least, find acceptable. (2) In their first report (1968) they were mainly concerned with boarding provision, and in their second report (1970) they were mainly concerned with direct grant schools. At no time have they really faced in depth the basic decision as to whether private education is right or wrong.
The basis of the commission’s recommendations is that a new type of school should emerge known as an integrated school. Such schools would accept at least half of their pupils from maintained schools. These pupils would be in need of boarding education or something else the school could offer. The state would pay the full tuition fees, but the boarding fees would be subject to a means test.
14
The commission recognised that many of the schools were too small to become full comprehensives, but all should take an ability range that at least included cse work and schools would have to adjust their age range if they were too small for this. Those refusing were to adapt themselves to the new pupils rather than expecting the opposite. In the last resort the secretary of state could force a school to become integrated, but no school would have the right to become integrated. Thus a private sector might well continue alongside the integrated schools. These private schools, however, should receive no pupils at all from the maintained sector and no longer enjoy various tax advantages. Under these proposals integrated schools would be more selective for their fee paying pupils, so it is probable that this 50 per cent would be of even higher academic ability and more socially exclusive than the present fee paying entry.
What will happen to the 50 per cent that will be displaced to make way for the assisted pupils? It is not impossible that some of them will go to completely new independent schools, thus swelling the private sector, or they may instead go to day public schools which the commission wished to see untouched, even though compulsion may be used with the boarding schools. In practice, however, it is likely that many of them, by one device or another, will become the assisted pupils. Indeed, according to the commission’s own figures, about half of their assisted entry are already in independent schools with either assistance from local education authorities or, in the case of army officers and senior civil servants overseas, with central government assistance. So at the most there will be about 25 per cent of the boarders from a new background. These lea boys will probably include some who would have been fee paying and will probably be largely middle class. In being allowed to exclude those of below cse standard, the schools will be able to find an excuse to preserve a largely middle class intake. Anyhow there is little doubt it would be the middle classes who would press the hardest for assisted places. Indeed
Royston Lambert’s research “indicates that working class children may not figure prominently at first in any voluntary integration chemes” (New wine in old bottles pl2). Perhaps it will be the lower middle class parent who will benefit the most, with his children being given a state assisted passport to the upper middle classes.
The more closely the public schools commission's own figures are studied the more Fleming like and unsatisfactory the whole scheme appears. In public schools over 42 per cent are day pupils and in the remaining schools it is nearly 80 per cent. Virtually no proposals at all have come from the commission to deal effectively with these day places. So the only schools which are likely to alter very much would be those with a very large proportion of boarders, and even in these the changes will be relatively slight. Out of a total of 130,000 boarding places, 20,000 are already assisted by local authorities or by the central government, and the commission’s proposals are that only an additional 25,000 places should be assisted. It thus seems unlikely that these proposals would lead to any dramatic change in the ethos or divisive role of the public school. It is more likely that they will be strengthened by the injection of public money and they may even increase in numbers if there are quite a number of displaced fee paying pupils looking for places. Opportunities for a privileged education for the privileged will continue and it is certainly not socialism to subsidise privilege and, as The Economist suggested, it is not even practical politics to bail out the least successful boarding schools and the least successful middle class parents at public expense.
Back in 1956 Tony Crosland wrote in The future of socialism that the public schools were “the strongest bastion of class privilege” in this country and that “it would be absurd from a socialist point of view to close the grammar schools, while leaving the public schools still holding their privileged commanding position”. It was he who was the minister responsible for drafting the very
15
radical terms of reference of the public schools commission. The commission, however, failed to produce a plan which would lead to the full integration of these schools. One of the most effective criticisms of the report came from one of its own members, John Vaizey, in a note of reservation. He argued that the commission did not differentiate adequately between boarding demand and boarding need and got too concerned with the problem of filling beds. They did not consider sufficiently the principle of education for a select social group in select schools. He believed that the answer to this would be found in the second report on day education. Unfortunately for this and other reasons Vaizey was expelled from the commission and when their second report came out little was said about this principle.
The second report was mainly concerned with integrating the direct grant schools, but it did suggest that independent day schools should be encouraged to integrate on similar terms to direct grant schools. It did not believe in compulsion, but did suggest that leas should cease to buy places in independent schools. It is hard to imagine that more than a handful of independent schools would come in under these terms.
Perhaps the greatest flaw of all the work of the public schools commission is that the integrated status, argued in the first report, is rather similar to the direct grant status so soundly rejected in the second. Indeed very few people ever expect to see the integrated status implemented. In their second report the commission confirmed that “the most famous of our independent schools . . . play a ' more significant role in the country’s class and power structures than the independent schools of most other countries” (p22), but they made few proposals in either report which would do anything to alter this situation. They failed to live up to their terms of reference, which made it clear that the commission should “recommend a national plan for integrating the schools with the maintained sector”. They have instead offered a Fleming type proposal which
is what the Socialist Education Association feared as soon as they saw the questions that the commission sent out to interested parties early on in their investigations.
recommendations: end, mend, or leave well alone
In their first report the commission at-tempted to reform the boarding schools. The problems associated with trying to modify the private sector in this way were almost bound to lead to a continuation of the divisive elements coupled with state financial help. The direct grant schools have indeed shown this, and in their second report the commission went for ending the system of direct grants, but in the main decided to do little about the independent schools. Attempting to mend the independent schools is the worst possible answer. The government was left with the choice of either completely integrating the independent sector, which must mean completely controlling it, in a similar way to that by which maintained schools are already controlled, or of leaving it well alone. If the latter course were to be adopted the government should have completed the commission’s recommended changes in the tax laws. The government took action to prevent parents getting a hidden subsidy on fees by income tax relief on fees paid by covenant, endowment policy and other means. However, the schools still enjoy charity status, which excuses them half their rates and all the tax they should pay on endowed incomes as well as excusing them from set and allowing them to regain tax on money covenanted to them. There is a hidden subsidy here that The Guardian estimated at £6.5 million per year (6 January 1970). This is greater than would be the total cost of taking over the direct grant schools. Of course Edward Heath’s government have restored some of those tax dodges that help public schools, which the Wilson administration had abolished.
It is frequently argued that an attempt to end the independence of these schools is to be deplored as this would be a reduction in the personal freedom of
16
people to spend their money in the way they wish. Any such reduction in any sphere of life at any time is regrettable, but there are often conflicting gains. In the case of the stricter rules about drink and driving the gain has been a fall in the accident rate. In the case of the independent schools the social effects are injurious to society. The remaining 95 per cent of the population suffer from an unfair share of scarce resources whilst at school and unfair competition for the rest of their lives. Anyhow public schools can only be seen as freedom of choice for a minority; a minority who have the money to buy public school places.
So it is a privilege for the rich. Buying a privileged position is something quite different from buying a luxury. Moreover, some of the most articulate and influential members of the community, especially mps, cabinet ministers, press lords and ecclesiastics will be much more concerned about state education and its standards when they are using the system for their own children. Ford has shown that the beginning of the comprehensive movement co-incided with the bulge reaching secondary school, when the growing middle class found more and more of their children excluded from the grammar school. It is sometimes thought that the best answer would be to concentrate on improving the state system until it is so good that independent schools die a natural death. Even if the state could find sufficient resources to do this, it is unlikely to happen because not only are the privileged minority likely to remain rich enough always to be able to opt for something better, but it misses the fundamental point that public schools are socially as well as educationally divisive. Tt is not so much a question of buying education, but buying privilege to ensure that the family will remain at the top.
Supporters of the independent schools often stress their excellence and, in particular, the way in which they develop qualities of leadership rarely found in products of the state system. It is certainly true that public school boys appear to be more self assured, but is this
only a facade? Certainly countries like Sweden, Japan and Israel have developed far more dynamic leaders in recent years than this country. Indeed, lack of dynamic leadership is to many a major fault with this country over the last half century. The timid conservative approach followed by a leadership containing a very high proportion of public school boys has not been the right one. Leadership in public schools is largely based on rigid age differences and often associated with fagging and beating. The led of today within the school are the leaders of tomorrow, but neither has much chance of getting to know the people they are destined to lead in the big world outside. The more democratic atmosphere in state schools, especially the emphasis in primary and some secondary schools on discovery and activity methods, may well provide a better type of leadership than that found on the playing fields of Eton; a leadership which is certainly likely to be more imaginative and sympathetic and have better developed hearts.
Many would feel that one disadvantage of the abolition of the private sector would be the consequent uniformity of education. Certainly it would be a pity to see distinctive schools such as Darting-ton Hall, Beadales, and Summerhill lose their character, for such schools have played a useful role. Clearly more experimentation into teaching methods and curriculum is essential, but many, including some of these experimental independent schools, would concede that the most useful advances of the last two decades have in fact come from the state sector.
The enormous changes in primary education show how in our system, where each head in a maintained school has considerable freedom in the running of his or her school, uniformity need not occur in state schools. In the secondary sector there has been more uniformity in both state and independent schools because of the straight jacket of the examination system. A uniform state system is most undesirable and experimentation and diversity must be encouraged. There can be many different types of
17
comprehensive school and in many cases parents would be free to choose between them. The only barrier would be that no school would be allowed to become selective in terms of class or intellectual ability.
In a socialist education system there can be no room for a sector so undemocratic as the British public school. It is a caste ridden system, which denies the equality of opportunity that socialists believe in. The next Labour government must give high priority to ending fee paying in education, as one step towards achieving a socialist society. The authors of Signposts for the ’sixties were “convinced that the nation should now take the decision to end the social inequalities and educational anomalies arising from the existence of a highly influential and privileged sector of education outside the state system”. The next Labour government should announce that no independent or direct grant school will be allowed to continue to accept fee paying students.
The present pupils should be allowed to work their way out of school, but all new entrants would be part of a fully comprehensive intake agreed with the lea. The terms offered should be similar to those proposed for direct grant schools by the commission in their second report, except that they should apply to all fee paying schools, and should be compulsory. As when the hospitals were taken over, the question of compensation does not arise as virtually all the schools are non-profit making bodies. Once the transitional arrangements for existing pupils had been completed, fee paying education would be outlawed in the uk.
Some of the schools would probably move to Ireland or the continent, but these would be a minority and within 40 years or so private fee paying education would seem strange to Englishmen.
The exact use to be made of the buildings will vary considerably from area to area. The independent schools will be treated in exactly the same way as any other schools being incorporated into the lea comprehensive network. In more
rural areas some may become short stay residential centres, such as those already run by the ilea to give urban children the chance of a residential stay in a rural area. Other such rural schools might be useful for esn or handicapped children, or as short stay adult education centres. A few may be sold off as being surplus to educational requirements. The Comprehensive Schools Committee outlined their detailed suggestions in about nine areas in their evidence to the public schools commission entitled Public and comprehensive schools. The use of what is now boarding accommodation will also vary considerably from area to area. In some cases it might be appropriate to adapt it for teaching purposes, but in other cases it may still be used for boarding purposes within the state comprehensive system. Indeed there are already some 151 maintained schools with boarding places, but only 21 of these have over half of their pupils in residence and many have quite small boarding houses. In all there are a little oyer
11.000 boarding places in local authority schools, but in addition to this leas assist a similar number of places in direct grant and independent schools. The central government assists 18,000 places, although 5,000 of these have already been accounted for as they are also assisted by the lea. There are thus some
35.000 pupils who are assisted with their boarding education. The vast majority of these are in need of boarding education, although there are probably 3,000 to
4.000 in maintained schools who desire rather than need boarding education and a few local authorities will assist in such circumstances at independent schools.
R_oyston Lambert (The state and boarding education) has shown that the probable demand for boarding education is much greater than this. He bases this on: (a) The very wide disparity of assistance given by different authorities, even though 90 out of the 136 keep roughly to the Martin report’s suggestions of 1960. In counties the proportion receiving assistance with boarding varies from nearly 4 per cent of all pupils in Norfolk and East Sussex to 0.05 per cent in Warwickshire and 0.02 per cent in Durham.
18
In the towns it ranges from nearly 2 per cent in Hastings to 0.01 per cent in Newport and no provision at all in Bury. Northern towns in particular are poor in providing assistance, (b) The poor provision for children under 11. Although the case for keeping children under 11 at home is stronger than for those over 11, in most cases of genuine need this will not be possible. The number of children of primary age requiring boarding education is approximately the same as those of secondary age, but there are eight times more children of secondary age being assisted, (c) The poor assistance for the non-academic child. In 1964 only 15 per cent of the maintained schools with boarding places were non-selective and some of these catered within the boarding section mainly or entirely for the academic child. In the same way most of those that are assisted in the private schools are academically more able, (d) The fact that twice as many boys as girls receive assistance.
The public schools commission and Roy-ston Lambert have done independent calculations to show that by 1980 there will be a genuine need for some 80,000 boarding places. At the present time there are some 130,000 boarding places in all, which leaves 50,000 places which could be converted for other purposes or made available for those who desire such an education. The value of boarding education is debatable. It is also difficult to estimate the desire for it. Royston Lambert, in a survey in Cambridgeshire, found that about 15 per cent of parents expressed some desire for boarding education but not all of the traditional type. It would be perfectly acceptable for local authorities to meet this desire providing that the school was genuinely comprehensive, the boarding house and the education in no way privileged and that the parents paid boarding fees, possibly on a sliding scale. In these circumstances the desire for boarding education would probably be well under
15	per cent, as most people probably associate it with a privileged education. The extent to which a lea wished to meet the desire for boarding education would be for it to decide.
The full integration of the independent sector in order to achieve social justice should be regarded as urgent, but should wait until after local government re-organisation is under way, especially as the distribution of independent schools is so patchy. Some would argue that these reforms should be long delayed, as there are more important priorities like improving standards in maintained schools, particularly primary schools in culturally deprived areas. The commission felt that the extra financial burden on the state of educating the existing fee paying pupils free of charge in maintained schools would be about £60 million per annum plus a further £5.2 million for the direct grant schools. It is certainly true that there are greater priorities in education than the integration of public schools if this involved new national expenditure, but it does not. It is simply a transfer of expenditure from the private sector to the public sector, which is a very different thing. No new national resources will be used up, although there would, of course, have to be marginal adjustments to tax rates.
Robin	Pedley	(in	The comprehensive
schools pl2) has compared the British education system to a race track. He points out that the educational race differs from the 400 metres because the public	school	boy	in lane	one is not
staggered to start behind the grammar school	boy in	lane	two and	the modern
school	boy in	lane	three as	in the race.
The public school boy starts with the advantages and has the shortest distance to go. This injustice should be brought to an end and a more equal opportunity given to all. Perhaps the Winchester of the future will again cater for the “poor indulgent scholars” mentioned in the school’s foundation, rather than act as a stronghold of the elite of English society.
3.	comprehensive education and the end of selection
Sandra Wynn
It took the Labour government one year to issue circular 10/65, which stated its intention to end selection at eleven and end separatism in secondary education. It waited five years before attempting to introduce legislation to enforce its intentions of replacing the tripartite system with a comprehensive system of secondary education. Margaret Thatcher had been in office less than three weeks when she issued circular 10/70 which both withdrew circular 10/65 and stated that the Conservative government “believe it is wrong to impose a uniform pattern of secondary organisation on local education authorities by legislation or other means”. The circular therefore withdrew restrictions on secondary building projects and gave the leas the freedom to finance new grammar schools if they wished.
The education bill introduced by Labour in 1970 to make comprehensive re-organisation a statutory obligation was primarily aimed at the leas who had either refused outright to submit plans for re-organisation of secondary schools in their areas along comprehensive lines, or who had failed to submit new plans after rejection of earlier schemes. However, a large number of leas (49 out of 110 in February 1970) with plans approved for all or the greater part of their area, had given no definite date for the implementation of these plans. In addition many of the approved plans were merely interim measures unaccompanied by long term proposals. A large number of plans submitted and approved by the des, were concerned with a “lesser part of the area” and of these 13 out of 19 (in February 1970) did not include a date for impiementation. It seems likely that circular 10/70 will have the most regressive effect on those areas with undated plans and those operating interim schemes as the impetus for reorganisation is removed. The latest official statistics (Statistics of education, vol 1, 1969) show that of secondary school age children in maintained schools, 26 per cent attended comprehensive schools, 21 per cent attended grammar schools, and 44 per cent attended secondary modern schools. From her own survey of
comprehensive schools (Comprehensive reorganisation 1971, the Comprehensive Schools Committee) Caroline Benn calculated that in 1971, as about 50 per cent of all comprehensives co-exist with grammar schools, only 12 per cent of the secondary school population attend schools “operating in anything like fully comprehensive circumstances”. Under these circumstances it seems difficulty to justify the laissez faire policy adopted by the Conservative Party (“Authorities will now be freer to determine the shape of secondary provision in their areas. The Secretary of State will expect educational considerations in general, local needs and wishes in particular and the wise use of resources to be the main principles determining the local pattern,” circular 10/70). By her approval in May 1971 of Walsall’s selective plan, Margaret Thatcher has shown that where in an area there is a strong lobby to retain the grammar schools outside the comprehensive plan, she will agree to this. It is a pity that Mrs. Thatcher did not take into account “educational consideration” when formulating her own policy. It was not for example considered necessary to consult the National Union of Teachers before the publication of 10/70, instead the rather hysterical voices of the misinformed contributors to the Black Paper appear to have been her guiding voice, along with a seemingly irrational adherence to elitist principles in general.
grammars and comprehensives: survival of selection
In her first major speech as Secretary of State for Education on 8 July 1970, Margaret Thatcher indicated that she could see no reason why the co-existence of grammar schools and comprehensives was incompatible with a comprehensive system of education. (See the nut resolution passed in 1969 to the effect that “the continued existence of the grammar schools completely nullifies all attempts to create a fully comprehensive system”.)
There are, however, many reasons why the two are incompatible. The grammar school system is rooted in the belief that academic ability is of primary import-
20
ance, therefore, the main purpose of the educational system is to select those with high academic ability and ensure their progress. The whole system is geared to producing an academic elite who are labelled “successes”, which inevitably means the remaining pupils are labelled “failures”. Uneasiness about the accuracy of the selection procedures in the post 1944 tripartite system led to “wastage of talent” arguments in favour of a comprehensive school system. It has been estimated that the 11 plus allocation procedure resulted in at least one in ten children being sent to the wrong school, with very little possibility of transfer. In Richmond, for example, which still retains the 11 plus, there is only a 2 per cent transfer rate and the parents most successful in obtaining transfers are those who are .most vocal and persistent. The accuracy of the 11 plus examination as a predictor of academic achievement was largely discredited by the early ’sixties, the authorities who retain it are relying on theories of intelligence which were discarded over a decade ago (see for example P. E. Vernon, Intelligence and attainment tests, 1960). In many areas other forms of selection have now replaced the 11 plus examination; but selection through guided parental choice, teacher recommendation, primary school report, or a series of unannounced tests have the same result, the allocation of children into two or more quite distinct categories. Thus, some believed that a comprehensive system of education which eliminated selection at 11 would have made the opportunity for academic success available to all. Each child would be placed on the same starting line and from then on it was a fair contest between those with differing abilities. The ethos within such a system, however, is still that of competition; a hierarchy of merit will develop with an academic elite sitting at the top of the pyramid.
However, there were those who had a different image of the aims of a comprehensive system of education. Education under such a system involves more than purely academic attainment, it involves the aim of furthering the development of the child as an individual. All
children should be equally educated rather than given equal opportunity to become unequal. Equality of opportunity in this sense means equal opportunity to develop any abilities a child may have, including non-intellectual ones. An educational system based on these aims attacks the foundations supporting the whole grammar school structure. Recent debate within the comprehensive schools movement has centred around the problem of “which comprehensive principle?”
The two arguments outlined above, in a sense represent polar positions within the debate, but I believe that acceptance of comprehensive principles favours a position nearer to the second extreme. Socialists must be committed to the eradication of differentiation in all forms. It would be a pity if the injustices of the old tripartite system were allowed to continue under the guise of comprehensiveness. These injustices will without doubt survive if comprehensive schools concentrate their resources on ensuring the academic success of the few in the gce sweepstakes. A school divided into grammar and secondary modern sides is not really a comprehensive school. Supporters of either view have little difficulty in justifying the abolition of the grammar schools. No local authority can ignore the fact that any form of selection discriminates against the working class child. The middle class child has always a much greater chance of entering the selective school than the working class child. Empirical research has shown for example, that the system of guided parental choice “can work against the interests of the working class child even more than selection by an 11 plus examination” (Where, editorial, lanuary 1967).
In addition the existence of selective secondary schools leads to selection in primary schools. One of the main effects of the examination was 11 plus mania within the primary schools, with the resultant rigid streaming and grooming of children under eleven for examination success, or acceptance of failure, if they were placed in one of the lower streams. One of the positive advantages of any truly comprehensive plan as illustrated in
21
the Leicestershire comprehensive plan is that “the abolition of selection has put the primary school teachers in a situation of unrestricted freedom to restructure primary education to the real needs of children as they are, rather than as it is hoped they will be when they are several years older” (Leicestershire Education Committee, 1969).
The very existence of selective schools has detrimental effects on the comprehensive schools in the area. Caroline Benn and Brian Simon (chapter 18 Half way there, 1970) produce strong evidence to show that comprehensives do not have the opportunity to develop fully when co-existing with grammar schaals. About 50 per cent of the comprehensive schools in their survey co-existed with grammar schools; they found that this not only effected staff and pupil morale and resulted in the support of comprehensives as “second class schools” by the authorities, but also that co-existence depressed the intake of high ability pupils. They estimated that co-existing schools lost 8 per cent of the top ability band; a figure similar to that produced by T. G. Monks in an earlier survey (Comprehensive education in England and Wales 1966). In Monks’ work his tables show quite clearly how the percentage of those children with high ability varies between schools competing with grammar schools and those not. 70 out of 103 schools included were losing at least 5 per cent of the high ability pupils they would have expected to take from the area.
“Creaming” also obviously influences the social balance of the school. The chances are that in a socially mixed neighbourhood where there exists both a comprehensive and a grammar school, it is the middle class child who is most likely, by virtue of bias in the selection procedure, to find himself in the selective school.
Given these circumstances the term “comprehensive” is a misnomer, or as S. King put it (Ten years in all, 1969) “I think it is sheer hypocrisy and double talk to suggest that a ‘grammar school’ and a ‘comprehensive school’ can coexist in one locality: if the grammar
school takes its traditional ‘cream’ the comprehensive school is merely a secondary modern”. No one would wish to undermine the work and effort of teachers involved in running comprehensive schools alongside grammar schools, but this should not be allowed as an excuse for the continued anomaly of grammar schools continuing outside the comprehensive system. Until such time as leas integrate their grammar schools into their reorganisation plans it will be impossible to introduce a fully comprehensive system, offering each child an education of equal worth within an academically and socially integrated school.
reorganisation schemes retaining selection
In circular 10/65, four fully comprehensive systems were outlined:	(a)	The
orthodox all in 11 to 18 comprehensive schools, to which all children in an area transfer at the age of 11. (b) a two tier system, where all children at the age of
11 transfer to a junior comprehensive and all transfer at the age of 13 or 14 to a senior comprehensive, (c) a two-tier system where all children transfer to an 11-16 school and then at 16 some go on to a sixth form college, (d) the middle school plan, where all the children go to a middle school at the age of eight or nine, which has an age range of eight to
12 or nine to 13. From this middle school they move on to a comprehensive school with an age range of 12 or 13 to 18. Two interim forms of comprehensive schemes were outlined, these were not seen as fully comprehensive because both schemes involve some form of selection by academic assessment, guided parental choice or by some other form of selection devised by the local education authority (lea). They were: (e) a two tier system where all children transfer to a comprehensive school at the age of 11, and then at the age of 13, some move on to a senior school catering for those who expect to remain at school to the age of 18, the remainder stay at the junior comprehensive, (f) a two tier system in which all children transfer at the age of 11 to the junior comprehensive school. At the age of 13 the pupils
22
have the choice of transferring to either
(i)	a 13 to 15/16 school, or (ii) a 13 to
18	school. In effect, the (e) and (f) schemes retain a grammar school option.
Reorganisation along comprehensive lines implies the end of selection but it appears that many of the reorganisation schemes approved do retain selection. There is no uniform comprehensive pattern in this country. The popular image of the comprehensive school as a rather large school catering for all 11 to 18 year olds in the locality is not supported by the facts. The figures show that the orthodox, all in 11 to 18 comprehensive school has not been as favoured as is assumed; tiered schemes and schemes involving provision for separate sixth forms are very popular. Only about one in three comprehensives in England and Wales are all through 11 to 18 schools and each year only about one in two of newly established comprehensives are all through 11 to 18 schools. There are many varieties of tiered schemes, the danger is that one of the tiers may be retained as a grammar school type option ; for example where a two tier system of 11 to 16/13 to 18 is in operation with the upper school having selective entry and offering a traditional grammar school type education. In contrast to this, the scheme operating in Leicestershire, which will be fully comprehensive in 1973, may be described. Initially the secondary modern schools in the area were transformed into high schools and the grammar schools became upper schools. At the age of 11 all children transferred to the high school with automatic transfer to the upper school taking place at 14. If they chose to transfer when the plan was first put into practice, transfer to the upper school was on the basis of “guided parental choice”, although where voluntary transfer exceeded 80 per cent, all pupils were in fact automatically transferred to the upper school.
It was found that middle class parents were more likely than working class parents to take up the option of transfer and commit their children to staying on at school until at least the age of 16.
Over 25 leas have been given approval for reorganisation schemes involving sixth form colleges. The des suggested that a limited number of experiments of this type of organisation should take place, because of the lack of experience in this country on which to evaluate its merits, but it has proved a very popular type of reorganisation for certain authorities. Circular 10/65 gave three definitions of a sixth form college: (1) A college catering for the needs of all pupils staying on at school over the age of 16. (2) a college to which entry is dependent on the satisfaction of certain conditions, usually several passes at gce “o” level or a declared intention to stay at college to take “a” level gce. (3) An expanded sixth form attached to a school, to which pupils from schools without sixth forms transfer at the age of 16, such colleges may be either selective or non-selective. Ann Corbett (New Society, 28 March 1968) suggests that most colleges which have been established are either of type
(2)	or (3) and that they have “a” level gces as their main concern. She therefore suggests that the sixth form colleges “perpetuate at 16 plus the divide which the elimination of the 11 plus tried to abolish” and that it “effectively perpetuates the excellencies of the grammar school sixth form”. The likelihood of this being the case is upheld by the fact that many colleges are planned to accommodate only around 20 to 30 per cent of the 16 plus age group, so selection is almost bound to develop. As Caroline Benn has noted, “all these colleges and sixth form arrangements have to be open ended if they want to remain unselective in future”. However, there are non-selective colleges such as those operated by Preston, and recently Harrow education committee approved a scheme which provides ten high schools for the 12 to 16 age groups and five junior colleges catering for the 16 to 18 year olds. Entry to the junior colleges is to be based on free parental choice; and here it has been estimated that about half the 16 year olds will choose to go on to junior colleges.
Many educationalists have outlined the disadvantages of the sixth form college for the lower schools; the loss of contact
23
between the younger and the more mature pupils in the 16 to 18 year range and the withdrawal of specialist teachers from the lower schools. Teachers who remain in the lower schools may be concerned at the loss of opportunity to teach higher grade work. However, there are advantages. The sixth form college does offer a way of making the most economic use of teachers in short supply, such as mathematics and science teachers, through the concentration of resources.
The fact that the atmosphere is more like that of a college in the higher education sector and the status of the pupils is more akin to that of the higher education students, may encourage those pupils with an inherent dislike of school and school discipline to continue their education longer. One of the most important advantages, however, is that the introduction of sixth form colleges does provide leas with an opportunity to rethink the provisions they make for the 16 to
19	year age group as a whole. Where feasible the opportunity should be taken to integrate the existing technical colleges and colleges of further education
(that is those doing below degree level work) and the more academically biased grammar school type sixth form, thus eliminating the vocational/academic split which exists at this level. Sixth form colleges could be established which incorporated not only academic courses but also a full range of commercial, technical and professional qualifications (as at Barnstaple, Devon). Such a college providing it had “open” entry for all those aged 16 would, as Ann Corbett suggests, be much more in keeping with comprehensive principles. Unfortunately the purely academic type of sixth form college does have strong support from the entrenched pressure groups dedicated to preserving the grammar school sixth form at all costs. These pressure groups often include grammar school teachers who see their status being threatened.
As long as entry into such a sixth form is dependent upon academic ability as measured by gce “o” level results, an academic elite will be perpetuated. The real issue is an open versus a selective sixth form; whether this form is in a college or in an 11 to 18 school.
TABLE 4
STRUCTURE OF SWEDISH EDUCATION
16 to 19 years of age
university
gymnasium (30 per cent of age group by 1968/9)
vocational schools (35 per cent of age group from 1970)
continuation schools (20 per cent of age group by 1972/3
7 to 16
years of age
Grundskola (common school) 100 per cent by 1968
4.	selective principles operating within schools
Sandra Wynn
The fact that a school has been labelled comprehensive offers no guarantee that comprehensive principles are being practised within the school itself. There are several ways of grouping children into teaching groups within schools; streaming on the basis of ability, setting (setting is the practice of dividing children into groups of similar ability for an individual subject; theoretically a child may be in different sets for different subjects) or teaching mixed ability groups. The first form of grouping has been favoured most in secondary education in the past. Streaming within the primary school sector is rapidly disappearing, but how far is non-streaming practiced in comprehensive schools? How many schools stream?
It has recently been suggested that the amount of streaming by ability within comprehensive schools is declining. Caroline Benn and Brian Simon (Half way there, 1970, pl47, table 9.2) from their information on some 728 comprehensives found that only approximately 20 per cent of these schools had complete nonstreaming in their first year of entry; approximately 20 per cent streamed; 31 per cent used broad ability bands; approximately 6 per cent used sets and about 15 per cent used a combination of streams and sets. The amount of streaming was closely related to whether or not a common curriculum was followed, being less likely where a common course was pursued. From their figures it is also evident that streaming tends to increase as the child progresses through the school, but they suggest that streaming is diminishing. Similar figures are given by Robin Pedley (Comprehensive school, 1969) in his study of 81 comprehensive schools established long enough to have seen one comprehensive intake progress through the school (see table 1).
TABLE 1 PERCENTAGE UNSTREAMED	OF SCHOOLS		
	first	second	third
	year	year	year
completely	1.4	24	1.2
mostly	4.8	4.8	2.4
for few subjects	19.0	17.0	17.0
These schools were also reasonably comprehensive in that not more than 10 per cent of the children in the area were lost to either grammar or independent schools. Thus altogether, approximately 19 per cent of the schools studied were either completely unstreamed or unstreamed in most subjects in their first three years. Pedley suggests that this represents a significant improvement on the amount of streaming he had discovered in a similar survey undertaken several years before. Neither study provides cause for optimism as it is quite clear that, to a greater or lesser extent, most comprehensive shools in this country operate a policy of streaming by ability; a policy which can have disastrous effects on the individual child, and which is not guaranteed to produce the high level of academic achievement at which it is aimed. It is a completely unnecessary policy as is evidenced by the success of such schools as Vauxhall Manor, Bed-minster Down, Bristol, Woodlands, Coventry, etc.
streaming: an inaccurate method of selection
A study undertaken by the National Foundation for Educational Research (Streaming in primary schools, 1970) confirmed that allocation to streams is about as inaccurate as the 11 plus. Approximately 15 per cent of the children studied were placed in the wrong stream judged by either their performance in arithmetic or English. Further, teachers who streamed tended to under estimate the ability of working class children and over estimate the ability of middle class children. J. W. B. Douglas (The home and the school, 1964) found that children who came from well kept homes and who were themselves clean and well dressed, stood a better chance of being put in higher streams than their measured ability would appear to justify. He also found a marked tendency to put children from large families into the lower streams! Julienne Ford in her study Social class and the comprehensive school (1969) examined the relationship between social class and streaming in the comprehensive school. She found that
25
whereas 63 per cent of the middle class children with a high iq were in the “a” stream, only 35 per cent of the working class children were similarly placed. The relationship between social class and placement in the “a” stream was statistically significant. Thus, “selection on the basis of streaming in the comprehensive school, like selection under the tripartite system, tends to underline class differentials” (Julienne Ford, op cit). The streams were then related to school leaving intentions, which were taken as an indicator of educational attainment (see table 2). Thus, streaming bears a significant relationship to educational attainment. For example, whereas 50 per cent of the middle class children in the A stream intended leaving school in the sixth form and 13 per cent of the working class children in the same stream did so, only
20	per cent of the middle class children and 4 per cent of the working class children in the B-D streams saw themselves leaving school in the sixth form. Further evidence is provided by H. Him-melweit (Why we cannot afford to stream, Comprehensive Schools Committee, bulletin 15, 1970) from a study carried out over a period of ten years. It was found that 84 per cent of A stream children of the schools which were heavily streamed stayed on to the sixth form, whereas 84 per cent of the C stream children left. Where children are taught in comprehensive schools in streamed ability groups, the self fulfilling prophecy characteristic of the tripartite system is still very much in evidence. The mere
TABLE 2
SCHOOL LEAVING INTENTIONS BY SOCIAL CLASS AND STREAM Percentage who intended leaving school in : 1, fourth year ; 2, fifth year ; 3, sixth to eigth year:
A stream B-D stream
1.	middle class	0	20
working class	0	40
2.	middle class	50	60
working class	87	56
3.	middle class	50	20
working class	13	4
Source: page 38, Social class and comprehensive schools, Julienne Ford.
fact of labelling the child an A stream child means that he comes to behave like the prototype of the A stream child as seen through the eyes of the teacher. He meets the demands which are put on him. Label the child as suitable for the D stream and his aspirations will be limited to meet the horizons given to such a category, he acts out the role he is assigned to. The work of D. H. Hargreaves (p7, Social relations in a secondary school, 1967) suggests that he is assisted in maintaining this role by his peers. “The informal pressures within the low streams tend to work directly against the assumptions of the teacher that boys will regard promotion into a higher stream as a desirable goal—the teachers were not fully aware that this unwillingness to be promoted to a higher stream led ‘high informal status boys’ to depress their performance in examinations. This fear of promotion adds to our list of factors leading to the formation of anti-academic attitudes in low stream boys”.
The evidence suggests that non-academic factors such as social class and parental interest strongly influence who goes into which stream. In fact streaming is often a purely arbitrary process determined by such factors as the number of children able to go into a particular class. If there are 25 places available in the A stream then only the first 25 can go into it, in another school where there are 30 places then the first 30 go into the A stream. In neither case does this alleviate the problem of the child who comes 26th or 31st and who ends up in a lower stream with its attendant implications. See also the work of D. N. Holly (“Profiting from the comprehensive school:	class, sex and ability, British
Journal of Sociology, 1965) who found that those in upper streams were twice as likely to be middle class. Social class seems to be a powerful variable in nearly all aspects of profiting from school. Not only does class dominate scholastic achievement in the sense of stream structure, but it is also an important factor in late development. Those pupils who find themselves following advanced sixth form courses, in spite of
26
having been graded quite low in ability in their earlier years, tend to be drawn heavily from “favourable” home backgrounds. Schools do not exist in a social vacuum but it is difficult to weight the compensatory influence of the home against that of the school and peer groups.
streaming: detrimental effects on the child
Evidence suggests that children placed in the highest streams tend to improve in academic performance and intelligence, whilst those placed in lower streams positively deteriorate. It appears that labelling a child a failure ensures that he himself thinks he is a failure and consequently he loses the motivation to do well at school and so becomes a failure —a self fulfilling prophecy. Professor Hilda Himmelweit (letter to The Observer, 9 February 1970) commenting upon a study she carried out into the long term effects of streaming at 13 on boys in four grammar schools, wrote: “Assignment to a stream, whether justified or not, is an important signal to a boy of his overall worth—he adjusts his sights to it and it effects his desire to do well”. Professor Himmelweit also reports that in the survey it was found that a boy’s stream at 13 was a better predictor than either his ability or social background of his later school career and the kind of job he had at the age of 25. It would therefore be appropriate to suggest that streaming in effect operates as an equivalent to the now disreputable 11 plus examination.
It is often thought that streaming allows the bright child to progress rapidly whereas in the non-streamed class he would be held back to the progress rate of the average and below average child. In fact the National Foundation for Educational Research (nfer) report on streaming (op cit) showed that it did not make any difference to the academic attainment of the bright child if he was in a streamed or non-streamed school. In addition it was found that the social and emotional development of average and below average children is much greater
where teachers support a non-streaming policy than when streaming is practiced. Information available appears to suggest that, in the end, better overall standards can be attained with unstreamed groups.
the rigidity of streaming and its implications
One of the characteristics of streaming is that to all intents and purposes it is an irreversible process. The nfer survey found that although 15 per cent of the children were placed in the wrong streams in their first year, less than one quarter of these children were actually moved to their “right” stream at the beginning of the second year. J. W. Douglas (pl46, Home and the school), has also commented on the lack of appreciation of the rigidity of streaming, although the amount of transfer between streams is still considerably higher than that between grammar and secondary modern schools. T. G. Monks in his work on Comprehensive education in England and Wales (op cit, p49), when examining the transfer of pupils between streams produced some interesting figures (see table 3).
It would appear first, that the chances of being transferred at all are extremely small, and secondly, the chances of transfer decrease as the child progresses through the school. Although no figures are available, it is unlikely, even if a decision to re-allocate a child is made, that such a decision would be made about a child more than once in its career.
TABLE 3:
TRANSFER OF PUPILS BETWEEN STREAMS (OR BANDS)____________________
percentage
of schools	percentage	of
school	recording	pupils moving	
year	transfers	up	down
1	84	8.3	5.4
2	84	5.3	3.7
3	80	4.0	2.4
4	67	1.8	1.3
(percentage of pupils refers to pupils in those schools where any transfers were recorded.)
27
One of the reasons for this may very well be the lack of established procedures for considering a child for transfer. Who, for example, decides whether a child should be considered for transfer in a large comprehensive? Is it the subject teacher of the head of the department? Are there regular staff meetings to consider the progress of each pupil or are meetings infrequent events scheduled to take place at the end of a long teaching day? These are problems which do have practical solutions and their elimination depends ultimately on those who are running the schools.
For the last two decades the educational system of this country has been programmed to produce a small academic elite. In the past this has been carried out through the selection of an elite at the age of 11. With the ending of the 11 plus, an attempt is being made to perpetuate the selection of an elite through the practice of streaming children by academic ability. The question arises of whether we should be trying to create an academic elite at all. The answer is no. First, there is no means at present of distinguishing between “academic ability” and the effects of social environment. Secondly, even if it were possible to isolate academic ability, there are no grounds for attributing greater value to this, rather than other abilities, such as creativity. No comprehensive system can be said to practice a truly open system of education until the abolition of streaming within schools has been accomplished. Much of what is wrong with comprehensive schools at the moment is a result of the pressures arising from the demands of the higher education sector, which pervade the secondary education sector as a whole. The entrance qualifications demanded by the universities, and now also the polytechnics, place tremendous pressure on the secondary schools to pick out at an early age those most likely to continue their education after 18. Professor Barnard et al (annex g in the Dainton report, hmso) wrote “the pre-specialisation which commonly occurs two years before ‘o’ level in practise determines the ‘o’ 1 evels and ‘a’ levels a child will take, the type of
higher education at which a child will aim, and for the university applicant, the faculty to which he will apply.” Thus a school which wants a large proportion of its pupils to go on to university or polytechnic, which most do in order to gain a place in the academic league table, will be at pains to select the most likely children at the age of 13 or 14 and channel them along the correct academic route. The result in practical terms is streaming at an exceptionally early age. The findings of the nfer report on streaming in primary schools are particularly relevant, because they show that streaming is not merely a form of organisation, but is related to a syndrome of teachers’ attitudes. Authoritarian attitudes and1 a desire to obtain conformity are associated with favourable attitudes to streaming. The teaching of those in non-streamed schools tended “to place more emphasis on self expression, learning by discovery and practical experience” (pl5). These are the teaching techniques which have also been successfully applied at the non-streamed Vaux-hall Manor Comprehensive School. These are also the techniques which produce the type of individual who is most able to cope with the demands of a complex society, who is able to adapt to changing circumstances. It is significant that most of the resistance to these ideas stems from those who are themselves unwilling to adapt.
the end of selection in Sweden
Quite clearly the state of secondary education in this country leaves a great deal to be desired. Perhaps the major problem is the lack of coherent national policy on secondary education. The slow progress to comprehensiveness under Labour was largely the result of their failure to formulate an educational policy before gaining power in 1964. Benn and Simon have shown (op cit, ch 3) the inadequacies of circular 10/65, not only in content, but in its authority to enforce a comprehensive policy. Legislation should have been introduced immediately to enforce the principles of comprehensive education to which the Labour
28
Party had declared its commitment. Harold Wilson’s pragmatic approach is not sympathetic to an issue with such long lasting consequences. The education of several generations of school children has again suffered irreversible damage. Although cross national comparisons are not always relevant, an examination of Swedish educational policy would be fruitful. Indeed, the Labour Party whilst in opposition should look closely at the type of legislation which has been enacted in Sweden to introduce a fully comprehensive system. Their 1962 education act made provision for comprehensive education throughout the country for seven to 16 year olds. This was followed in 1964 by an act which covered the 16 to 20 age group. Then in 1967 an act was passed to provide for teacher training geared to the new types of school (see table 4, page 5).
The aims and goals of the system have been described by Tomasson (“From elitism to egalitarianism in Swedish education”, Sociology of Education, 1965). The official goal, he claims, is that the “school’s central concern (should) be the general democratic development of the individual child” and “most significantly it reflects a radically egalatarian philosophy of education, where academic intelligence is no longer to be regarded as of central importance”. In terms of structure the aim is to create a completely integrated educational system with as little differentiation as possible. The legislation also makes streaming in practise illegal up to the age of 16 or the ninth year when a number of different courses of study are allowed, with only one preparing for the gymnasium. In the senior part of the grundskola for the 13 to 16 year age group, the children read the same subjects for 30 hours a week and spend the rest of the week studying optional lines, that is less than one seventh of the working week, even in the ninth grade. The children and parents choose the optional courses themselves. The 1962 legislation stipulates that in subjects which they all take, they shall be kept together in their original classes from the middle level of ginal classes from the middle level. The
only exception is for English and mathematics in which they choose to take either a difficult or an easy course.
The 1964 legislation was the first step towards providing comprehensive education for all children up to the age of 20. The act provided for the creation of continuation schools, which are designed to give a more theoretical education prior to direct employment, for those who do not want to go on to the gymnasium, but who are also reluctant to commit themselves to vocational training. They offer a broad basic education and specialisation is restricted as much as possible, the curriculum is therefore built around a core of joint subjects common to all pupils. Admission to schools at 16 plus is, for practical reasons, still selective and based on grades obtained in a number of written standard tests set by the national board of education and spread over the last two years at the grundskola. 25 per cent of the places in the first year of the continuation school are, however, reserved for those who have either worked for three years or who have attended vocational school for two years. The 1964 act removed some of the economic problems associated with remaining in the education system until the age of 20, by expanding the financial aid available to those over the age of 16, by adopting the principal of universal study and travel allowances not based on a means test. Finally, the teacher education act of 1967 provides for teacher training geared to the new types of school. This is an important step, as at present opposition to the new reforms is strong among the upper stage grundskola teachers who have problems in accepting the mixed ability groups they are now faced with. The teacher trained for “specialist” education is reluctant to forfeit the principles upon which his own career has been built.
The Swedish reforms were not introduced over night, they were preceded by two decades of careful research and discussion, and the results of the reforms are yet to be seen. Obviously the political climate in Sweden differs from this
29
country, the strong egalitarian and democratic values, which provded the impetus for change, are not so widely accepted here. On educational grounds, however, the philosophy involved in the structure of their system, the emphasis on child centred progressive teaching techniques and the move away from early specialisation, which is one of the main raisons d’etre of streaming, is worth careful consideration. Similarly, the idea of looking at the education of seven to 20 year olds as a whole should be examined, particularly now in view of the rationalisation of the technical college sector following the creation of the new polytechnics.
policy recommendations
The Labour Party should formulate an educational policy in support of comprehensive education, which should be ready for implementation on its return to power. A committee should be set up to make concrete legislative proposals. The way ahead must be along comprehensive lines, and must be incorporated into a completely revised legal structure for secondary education, whether through a special act that really ensures that reorganisation takes place and that no selection along the way is tolerated, or in a complete re-writing of the 1944 education act.
At the same time, the committee should consider legislation against streaming within schools before the age of 16 and the means of ensuring compliance, and the age at which specialisation becomes educationally necessary. In any advanced society many specialist skills prove to be redundant after a short span of time.
What is important is the acquisition of communicatory skills, the ability to find new knowledge and the ability to solve problems ; basically education for flexibility. The universities and polytechnics have themselves recognised the importance of a broad curriculum. The inadequacy of “a” level results as a predictor of degree standards should also be publicised. Lancaster University, which re-
lies less on “A” level results in its admissions policy than most universities, has not found a drop in academic standards amongst its undergraduates.
Teacher training must be examined and the James report, commissioned by Margaret Thatcher, is to be welcomed. In the event of legislation to introduce comprehensive education, however, provision should be made for the retraining of teachers. Going comprehensive is not an easy matter; one of the main problems, and one which has received little attention, is the position of the teachers involved, particularly where the local grammar school becomes comprehensive. The grammar school has traditionally incorporated a belief in academic prowess, the values of the school are oriented towards academic achievement with consequently a strong emphasis on examination success.
Teachers will no longer be “academic tutors” but “educators”, it is no easy matter for those who have taught in grammar school for many years to be faced with new criteria for their excellence. Perhaps re-orientation courses should be offered to teachers in such situations. One must accept that comprehensive schools are not extended or “open" grammar schools, but rather are schools which embody completely different educational principles. The training which was appropriate to the situation in the grammar school will often be redundant in the comprehensive school.
It is difficult to comment at this time on the local education authorities. The reaction to many to the recent proposals for the reorganisation of local government and the importance given to educational issues, suggests that the sooner a national policy for education is formulated the better. Perhaps the Swedish system of central policy making combined with democratic local administration should be considered as a realistic alternative to the present situation, which has resulted in a patchwork of different systems throughout the country. As one commentator recently asked, “What about the mobile child?” What happens
30
for example when he moves from an area which is fully comprehensive to an area where a bipartite system of grammar and secondary modern schools still exists?
The possibility of direct action by teachers’ organisations in favour of comprehensiveness, for example, by refusing to administer selection procedures, has been considered. Two years ago this would have seemed unrealistic, but since the teachers’ strike in 1970 it is feasible, providing 100 per cent support could be ensured.
The Conservative Party along with the contributors to the Black Paper, frequently imply that they are speaking on behalf of “the public”. Apparently, however, this is not the case, for a national opinion poll (nop) survey found that 56 per cent of those questioned with children under 16 preferred comprehensive schools compared with only 37 per cent who preferred grammar schools. In September 1970 a public opinion poll in Barnet to find out parents’ preferences, discovered that 79.4 per cent were in favour of comprehensive schools. (Comprehensive Schools Committee, Bulletin 15.) In fact, much of the support for comprehensive schools is organised at a local level by parents. Caroline Benn (op cit, 1971 survey) sees the “future lying in the activities of local groups—which if well organised and persistent are bound to call forth the national direction and assistance for the reform which is sadly lacking.” Perhaps, but parents would be a lot more effective if they were actually sitting on education committees; and here I believe the local Labour parties are partly to blame. More care should be taken in the selection of candidates for local council elections. The Labour Party is also at fault, however, in their persistent failure to put forward policy recommendations that take account of local problems for discussion at a local level. There has been too little direction from the top and too little attempt to find out what is happening at a local level. There has been too little direction from the top and too little attempt to find out what is happening at a local
level. If comprehensive education is to become a reality, the Labour Party cannot afford to allow this situation to continue, positive steps should be taken by the party executive to remedy it.
5.	religious instruction: education or indoctrination?
Bob Harris
In a political “package deal” with the churches, to quote the words of a former minister of education, Viscount Eccles, the provision of time in state schools for religious instruction and worship was made compulsory by the 1944 education act. This states that every school must begin each day with a collective act of worship, for which the whole school population must be assembled together if the premises allow, and that religious instruction must be given. It was at a time when the country's ancestral faith was being promoted in the interests of wartime solidarity, and the religious provisions were, according to Viscount Eccles, “the best hope we could see of repairing the moral damage of the war” but, he admitted, they had been a failure.
the morality of compulsory religion
What moral right has parliament to decree that a God must be worshipped, when it cannot guarantee the existence of that God? Our own society and the world community contain a wide variety of religious and political beliefs, and we have no right to instruct our children exclusively and dogmatically in any one of them. Yet under the present system we do not aim to teach about religious beliefs and practices but to indoctrinate in one particular faith, Christianity, as can easily be seen by reading some of the agreed syllabuses. Many of these state openly that the aim of religious education is the full commitment of pupils to the Christian faith and way of life. For example, the present agreed syllabus in use in Surrey states: “The aim is to secure that children . . . may seek for themselves in Christianity the belief and principles which give true purpose to life, true standards of values . . . In the light of the teaching of lesus Christ we shall surely achieve our greatest aim when our pupils become full and practising members of a Christian church”. The West Riding of Yorkshire syllabus, generally regarded as one of the most enlightened, says that worship is the most important of school activities. Not surprisingly, the authors of Religious
education in secondary schools, published by the Schools Council in 1971, admit that even the recent agreed syllabuses are “Christian documents which assure that the fundamental objective of religious education is to vindicate Christianity”.
Tt is all very well for the Church of England to state in the Durham Report on Religious Education (1970), The fourth R, that: “To press for the acceptance of a particular faith or belief system is . . . not the task of a teacher in a county school”, but this specious report goes on to say that pupils must see “the insights provided by Christian faith and experience” and that “the aim of religious education in general . . .[is] ... to make a distinctive contribution to each pupil’s search for a faith by which to live”. Although worship is for “praise to God”, it continues, attendance does not imply “personal commitment to the object of worship”. The “one most cogent reason” for compulsory worship is that “experience of Christian worship is an essential part of religious education”. Significantly, the report views with concern the idea of celebrating “the shared values within each school community”. It comes as no surprise that it recommends increasing the amount of religious education taught and making it more difficult to opt out of worship and education in the Christian faith. Yet how can anyone possibly guarantee that Christianity and not Mohammedanism or Buddhism or any other religion, is the “correct” one? What right have religionists to indoctrinate children with one set of opinions when people who. with equal right hold others, are denied the opportunity? There would be objections if a school gave indoctrination in Marxism or atheism, for example, so why should indoctrination in Christianity be allowed? It is even arguable whether a parent has the moral right to indoctrinate one belief exclusively in a child. Yet under our present education system this is being done on public authority and with public money, whereas the state has a duty to remain impartial, not to allow indoctrination. Compulsion in matters of faith and conscience is immoral.
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Although it may be said that sometimes religion is so badly taught as to be ineffective and harmless, the fact is that religious instruction and worship are in themselves anti-educational. They try by emotional means to get children to believe in one faith before they reach an age when they can think for themselves and weigh up the evidence. Otherwise why could not religionists be satisfied with teaching ri to children aver the age of about 14, when children are becoming capable of rational understanding of abstract matters? For nine years or so before this the child is brainwashed. Mere belief is presented as absolute fact, backed by the authority of the state, the school, and the teacher, who is usually trying to make the child understand that faith in religion is a virtue. It is an assault on the integrity and autonomy of the human being and merely serves to confuse the reasoning faculty that education should be trying to develop in children. What puzzlement may arise in a child when he learns that his parents and other children have conflicting religious views or none? The community has no moral right to try to pre-empt a child’s belief, even though the church may wish to do so. Have Christians so little confidence in their church, their Sunday schools and the quality of their message that they must insist on legally compulsory RI in schools? Two of the most religious countries in the world, the usa and India, have secular constitutions.
Tn practice a child leaves school with little real knowledge of Christianity. He may be under the impression that questions of right and wrong are vaguely connected with a religious belief which he does not understand or rejects, hardly the best preparation for intelligent or independent thinking on practical problems of living. When a child begins to think for himself, he may reject religion and the artificially created moral values that go with it. The well intentioned newer agreed syllabuses are particularly dangerous in this respect, as they extend beyond religion into other fields, such as social studies, thus mixing belief with fact. That R.I. is no panacea can be
shown by the high delinquency figures for Roman Catholics, most of whom have been to Roman Catholic schools. Indeed, the delinquency figures of the population as a whole after a generation of Christian instruction leave much to be desired. All that the present situation adds up to is an immoral education.
It is time we realised that morality is independent of religion and decided that there should be no establishment of religion in schools, as is the case in the USA. That is to say, there should be no act of religious worship or invocation or credal instruction in the school time table. Voluntary religious groups could meet in the lunch hour or after school.
church schools
Yet the government continues to prop up sectarian schools as part of the state system. More than a quarter of our primary school children are in church schools. In voluntary controlled schools, the status of a little over half of the Anglican ones, the state pays all costs, but the sect appoints one third of the governing body and a fixed proportion of staff must consist of people competent to give religious instruction according to the sect concerned. The other main type of voluntary school is the aided one, the status of most of the Roman Catholic schools. The sect appoints two thirds of the governing body and makes a small financial contribution towards the maintenance of the structure of the building only. All religious instruction and worship is according to the tenets of the controlling sect. In some areas the only school available is a sectarian one. This occurs particularly in villages, where the only primary school may be a Church of England one. Parents of a different or no religious faith often have no alternative but to send their children there. It is difficult to contract their children out of religion as a religious atmosphere pervades the school, and a prospective teacher not of that particular faith and unable to move, for example a married woman, would find it difficult to take a job there.
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Yet the contribution of the state to aided schools has increased since 1944 from 50 per cent of the costs of the structural maintenance of the school building to 80 per cent now, and the state also meets all everyday running expenses. Furthermore, since the 1944 act was passed, the state has agreed to make this enlarged grant available for building new church schools. It has been estimated that the total cost of church schools is £300 million per annum, of which the church contributes £4.25 million, that is, less than 1.5 per cent. Yet would the government grant such facilities for the establishment of schools instructing in any other belief? As there are maintained Roman Catholic, Anglican, Methodist and Jewish schools, why should not Moslems demand Islamic schools, thus also segregating on racial lines? At a time when many are trying to remove segregation, by wealth, class and intelligence, we may segregate children from the age of five according to their parents’ creeds. It is surely a harmful preparation for an open society for children to be segregated into different religious groupings not merely for specific religious instruction, but for their school life at large. We have only to look at the troubles in Northern Ireland to see this. All church schools should be taken over by the state. An immediate start should be made by taking full control over church schools in “single school areas”, that is, where the church school is the only local school, and over all voluntary controlled schools.
the 1944 act in practice
As far as RI lessons are concerned the act says that in England (except Monmouthshire) each local education authority is to follow an agreed syllabus. The act determines the composition of the committees which must agree the syllabuses, and as the Church of England must be represented among the restricted section of the population that has to agree, the religion is likely to be Christian and agreeable to Anglicans, though not of course necessarily agreeable to those of other faiths, Christian or other-
wise. Since in practice, however, the agreed syllabuses represented a compromise on what the various denominations could agree about, they tended to be traditional theological schemes of Bible study, as all Christians could agree that reading the contents of the Bible was beneficial. The instruction prescribed by the syllabuses tended, therefore, to be dogmatic and authoritarian. However, the act did not and could not guarantee to provide the teachers. Thus, given the lack of teachers, it is not surprising that the law is often broken, usually with the connivance of the headteacher. For example, known non-believers take RI lessons but teach something else, or sixth formers are not even time tabled for RI, as they should be by law.
On the question of religious worship, as Brigid Brophy pointed out (Fabian Tract 374, Religious education in state schools) the act is rather less clear. It says that worship must not be “distinctive of any particular religious denomination”. (It does not say “Christian denomination”.) Does this mean it must not be distinctive of any branch of religion, such as Christianity or Buddhism, in which case the law is broken in most schools on most days? Or do we presume that denomination means sect? In this case a headteacher could quite lawfully hold an act of worship common to several sects not necessarily including any Christian ones. Tn practice the act is broken in most schools in this country. Some do not hold worship at the beginning of the school day ; some hold assemblies on some days on a house basis, although premises are adequate for the whole school to meet together; in some schools it is common for pupils to miss assembly because they are fitting in an extra lesson, checking dinner money, doing prefectorial duties, or for other illegal reasons; in at least one school no worship is held because all the staff, including the head, have opted out! To break the law in the interests of education brings no credit to either the law or religion, and although the Church of England wishes to keep the status quo with minor modification, an increasing number of enlightened Christians admit the act must be changed.
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In theory there should be no discrimination against pupils or teachers, yet there are well documented cases to show that there is. (See Religious discrimination in schools, National Secular Society/Humanist Teachers’ Association.) It is all very well to say that parents can opt their children out of religious instruction and worship. In reality it can be extremely difficult. Most parents do not know of their rights. A recent (1969) National Opinion Poll found that only 29 per cent knew that religious instruction was compulsory. The Department of Education and Science should advise local education authorities that schools must inform parents of their rights and make decent provision for children contracted out. Even so parents may be wary of exercising their rights until the head has written the last testimonial or the last assessment. (It should be noted that the eleven ptfus examination increas-inly depends on internal reports.) In practice the right of withdrawal promised by the act is the right to expose a child, particularly a young one, to embarrassment, segregation and discrimination. There are documented cases of heads and other teachers illegally trying to force pupils to attend religious assembly and instruction, and in the increasing number of primary schools operating the integrated day it is impracticable to withdraw a child from religion, as the last minister of education, Edward Short, admitted.
Tn any case should not children at some stage be allowed to decide for themselves. In some West German lander children over the age of 14 can opt themselves out. Yet in this country an 18 year old is now an adult in the eyes of the law, but is not allowed to opt out of religion without his parents’ consent or, illegally, the consent of a sympathetic head. It is pleasing to note that the last minister of education was thinking of making religious instruction and worship voluntary after the minimum school leaving age, but if compulsory religion is wrong at 16 it is wrong at any age. It is not surprising that some secondary students are leaving schools for the freer atmosphere of colleges of further educa-
tion, instead of staying on into the sixth form. (It is worth noting in passing that some of these will pass on to colleges of education, many of which, although they should be giving much thought to training teachers in moral education, still have compulsory courses in RI.
One problem increasingly likely to be met is that concerning immigrants, who in some schools form a majority of pupils. It is invidious to offer them a choice of attending the rites of a faith they do not hold, or of opting out and thereby being segregated largely along the lines of the colour of their face. There are also documented cases of discrimination against teachers. The 1944 act may say that there should not be discrimination, but in practice it is impossible to prevent it. About 25 leas in England and Wales have application forms that ask questions about religion, and even if this was forbidden and it was also forbidden to ask questions about religious convictions at interviews, it would still be possible to ask a candidate for his views on the content of assemblies or whether he would be available to take RI lessons. (In any case his views may already be known.) Teachers are aware that unless they participate in religious assembly their chances of obtaining a headship or even a post as head of house are jeopardised. So, discretion being the better part of valour, they may conceal their real views. Many pupils recognise this forced hypocrisy that occurs in a profession which above all should be committed to intellectual honesty. All this tends to turn the young to cynicism and distrust of the system, as well as making sure that heads are, to quote Brigid Brophy, “either good Christians or good hypocrites” (Religions instruction in state schools, op cit). A primary school teacher in particular may find it difficult to opt out of giving religious instruction, and a young teacher about to enter the profession may find pressure put on him to teach some RI if he wants a particular post.
Although matters of conscience and indoctrination cannot be decided by opinion polls, it is worthwhile to look at
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some of them to see whether Britain is an actively Christian country and what parents do want for their children.
surveys on religion
In a Gallup poll carried out for abc television in 1963-64, 94 per cent named a religious denomination as the one to which they belonged, but only 42 per cent said they believed in a personal God: so a large number professing to subscribe to a creed do not subscribe to its prime tenet. The same survey found that only 10 per cent of those interviewed said they had been to church the previous Sunday (in fact on an average Sunday about 6 per cent of Church of England members go to church); 14 per cent of those parents with young children sent them regularly to Sunday school; 9 per cent attributed good behaviour to religious views; and 95 per cent believed it was possible to lead a good and useful life without going to church. A survey conducted in 1968 by the Independent Television Authority found that the percentage of people denying membership of the church had now risen to 22 per cent, while only 37 per cent thought of God as a person.
Various surveys by May and Johnson of Durham and Newcastle Universities are often quoted by supporters of religion in schools, but these are highly suspect on various grounds. (See RI and surveys and Surveys on religion in schools by M. Hill, National Secular Society.) One of their surveys found that 96 per cent of parents wanted their children to know about and understand Christianity. (Few atheists or agnostics would disagree with this, but what is given in schools is not this but indoctrination in the faith of one creed.) Fifty per cent said this was because it helped people to be good, and only 62 per cent said they wanted it because it was true; 80 per cent said that their children should be taught about other religions as well as Christianity. In a survey by May it was found that over 60 per cent of teachers wanted a special period set aside for moral education. As to the content, over 80 per cent of teachers said it should consist of general
ethical principles, 75 per cent wanted instruction in sexual morality, and around 70 per cent wanted instruction in such diverse subjects as the law, relationships between children and adults, and Christian ethics. As far as a first option was concerned, 48 per cent wanted instruction in general ethical principles and only 26 per cent in Christian ethics. One of May’s surveys found that more teachers wanted Christianity taught because it was part of history and taught the right values, than because it was true; only 60 per cent gave the last point as a reason. Another found that 71.5 per cent of fourth and fifth formers, mainly in grammar schools, agreed that special periods should be set aside for moral education.
According to this survey only 9 per cent of children thought the Bible was the best authority to decide on matters of right and wrong. In a survey carried out by Wright and Cox in 1970 only 20 per cent of sixth formers in grammar schools were completely confident that God exists. A schools council survey on 15 year old school leavers found that 77 per cent of both parents and teachers and 71 per cent of pupils thought learning about right and wrong was very important.
Finally, in a National Opinion Poll survey conducted in 1969, 26 per cent of parents said becoming an adult with a sense of right and wrong was the most important of eight factors given for the education of children over the age of 12, as opposed to 3 per cent who thought that help in becoming a convinced Christian was the most important; a further 10 per cent thought that becoming an adult with a kind and helpful nature was the most important. Overall, only training for a career was considered more important than having a sense of right and wrong, whereas help in becoming a convinced Christian was considered one of the least important aims of the British educational system.
There is some evidence, then, from these surveys that parents and teachers, as well as children, are concerned that the school should give a sound moral education rather than a specifically Christian one.
6.	moral education, not indoctrination
Bob Harris
For too long compulsory religious instruction has been an excuse for ignoring the need for moral education. Moral values, unlike religious ones, are essential to the good conduct of personal and social life and provide a dependable structure within which the affairs of society and its members can be carried on. The attempt to inculcate absolute dogma, whether Christian or otherwise, cannot be expected to produce a morally healthy result. Moral education must be based on fact and reason, not on myth and blind obedience. Education by inculcation should be a thing of the past.
The study of patterns of belief, such as Christianity or Marxism, may form part of the content of moral education, but it cannot be the means to it. Basically, moral education is like any other form of education. The types of opportunities and guidance for moral growth provided will decide whether a person develops his moral powers to the full by the time he is an adult. All moral questions are ultimately matters of one’s own decision and therefore moral education cannot logically consist in indoctrination, that is, making other people’s decisions for them.
principles
Teaching children how to think and act morally is not a matter of handing out the right answer, but of helping them to acquire skills and abilities required to make reasonable moral decisions and act on them. Children should be able to treat others as equals, to understand their own and other people’s feelings, and to formulate moral principles and put them into practice in areas where both their own and other people’s interests are involved. Despite a variety of religious, social and political beliefs, there is general agreement that widely held qualities of common sense and common humanity such as the following are desirable:	thinking for oneself, which
would include the ability to appraise the society in which one lives and keeping an open mind to other views; a sense of right and wrong, which would grow from an awareness of the needs of one-
self and others; respect for truth and justice; responsibility for one’s own actions; and consideration for others. It must be emphasised, however, that these must not be imposed from above; schoolchildren must find their own morality.
the role of the school
How can moral education be carried out? In the past much traditional moral teaching has been rigid and authoritarian, imposed from above and not related to the child’s personal development. Not surprisingly, the taught have often become resentful and antagonistic and the result has beeen moral illiteracy. Moral education, if purely intellectual and not reinforced by experience, will make no lasting impression. Like any other type of education, it cannot be attained by the imposition of selected' ideas but by encouraging questioning, exploration, natural curiosity, and relating it as far as possible to the child’s life and experience. A person who understands the need for discrimination between good and evil will grow up more moral than one who automatically obeys a general injunction. Moral education must be an interwoven combination of factual knowledge and formative experience.
What then can the school and the teacher do to promote education for living, and for living together, in a world where the child comes into contact with conflicting values and views, whether from the home, the mass media, or other sources? Ethics as such cannot be taught before the age of about 15, so ethical awareness must arise out of the daily activities of the school. Moral education is not a subject but an aspect of everything taught and done in school, including the way in which a school is organised and run. The school must provide opportunities and relationships by means of which self confidence and self respect can be developed in every child, since a sense of personal worth is essential for a sense of responsibility. (For further discussion of this topic see A note on the humanist approach to moral education, J. Hemming, British Humanist Association.)
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Low attainment undermines self confidence and tends to lead to a feeling of inferiority, a less responsible attitude to life and delinquency. Thus the life of the school must be organised so that every child can reach a satisfying attainment. A hierarchical and competitive system, which means that some children will be considered to be at the bottom and “worst”, must be avoided. A child needs to feel that what he can do is appreciated. Teachers should remember this when assessing work and should be more concerned with making helpful comments than with awarding classifying marks.
A school should have a friendly and purposeful community life which encourages co-operation and self control. Every child should feel he is a valued member, with his own contribution to make. The moral values of a school should show in its everyday life and organisation. The net of responsibility should be spread widely and the children be given the opportunity to become aware of their responsibility for themselves and their actions, for helping each other, and for the well being of the wider community beyond the school. Responsibility is learned through having it. If a person is irresponsible, it does not mean that he is incapable of being responsible, but often that he has been given no opportunity of exercising responsibility. A school must help to rehabilitate those children whose moral development has been stunted, usually due to a poor home environment, and do it as early as possible, before the tendency towards social isolation and alienation has become the habit of delinquency. The school may be the only source of a dependable community life for some children. Pastoral care is essential for the individual child and also exemplifies the principle of consideration for others.
When a child first goes to school the general life of the school as a community, requiring the child to regulate himself for the good of others, gives opportunities for social and moral discoveries. The child is continually confronted with situations which demand some appraisal in moral terms. Examples of moral issues
involving greed, hate, jealousy, violence, fairness, justice, rights, duties, and so on, can be dealt with as they come. The children should learn from the examples of others, including their teachers. Stories from history and mythologies which deal with common virtues such as magnanimity, honesty, kindness, consideration and co-operation can be told, and activities which involve the consideration of such qualities can be arranged.
As regards the secondary school curriculum we are now questioning the habit of compartmentalising knowledge, some of it of limited use, into subjects, rather than inter-relating it. However, even if the present division of the curriculum is accepted, it is evident that virtually all subjects could contribute towards a deepening of moral insight. For example, the study of science could include the study of man’s struggle against ignorance and the social and moral consequences of discoveries. It could deal with man’s place in the solar system, hygiene and world problems of disease, human physiology and sex, and everyday aspects of science in our lives. A discussion of the transmission of human characteristics and the relationship of heredity and cultural factors might well have the effect of undermining racial prejudices. Instead, perverted by gce examinations, science is often compartmentalised into narrow subjects, so that vital areas of knowledge, such as biology, may be almost completely neglected, and too often children may be instructed in facts irrelevant to the majority of them.
Mathematics could help to prepare the children for future practical living, by including the study of such matters as budgeting, income tax, and insurance. Some mathematical skills such as statistics and the interpretation of data could be exercised on information about matters of international concern, such as the growth of population, industrial and agricultural production, and expenditure on armaments and on education. Literature can help the children towards a greater understanding of themselves and others. A variety of moral situations is encountered and we learn about the characters
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of people and their relationships. The study of world literature could give an insight into the characteristics of various national cultures. Foreign language courses should include a study of the society of the country concerned. Geography can give an insight into other people’s habitat and patterns of life, both “primitive” and “civilised”. It should include an appreciation of problems which must be solved so that the world’s resources may be used to improve conditions for human existence. History can deal with the behaviour of people, the use of power, the rule of law, tyranny and freedom, and human rights and social justice, as well as helping children to see in perspective their place in the modern world and increasing their awareness of the contemporary scene. Increased attention could be given to social, economic, cultural and scientific aspects of human developments at the expense of purely military aspects of history. Attention could be paid to the development of institutions for international co-operation to advance human welfare and to people whose work has benefited humanity. Yet too often history consists of facts and dates of limited usefulness and stops about 100 years ago because that is all the examination syllabus demands.
In addition a social studies course would be concerned with the extension of moral and social insight and perspective and would fill a gaping chasm in the curriculum of many schools, particularly of grammar schools where it is usually met, if at all, only by those who reach the sixth form and follow some sort of general studies course. In the grammar streams of so called comprehensive schools the same deprivation may be found, since this vital social education is often considered fit only for the lower streams. It is also sometimes squeezed out by an over emphasis on both ancient and modern languages and on compartments of science, and by the fact that there may be no gce examination readily available in this subject, nor teachers sufficiently educated to teach it, itself a comment on their own education and training.
Ideally, such a course should start in the first year of the secondary school and give the child a general understanding and appreciation of the universe, the evolution of mankind, the organisation of man in his various societies, a simple outline of psychology, including the study of specific aspects of human nature, the influences (which could include those of religion) that have helped to create modern society, our place and responsibility in life, and contemporary problems—local, national and international. (For a possible syllabus for such a course see Moral education in secondary schools, M. Hill, British Humanist Association.) Obviously by the time the sixth form is reached such matters could be studied in more depth, the world’s religious beliefs and practices could be taught objectively and educationally, like any other subject, but having only the prominence that their relative importance in the contemporary world deserves. If the students then arrive at a religious faith, it will be done freely and with understanding, not under duress or for the sake of conformity. We must include education about human relationships, including sexual relationships, facing the fact that many parents educate their children quite inadequately in the physical, emotional and1 social aspects of sex and that the school, therefore, has a duty to do it. At present, this vital aspect of personal and moral awareness is usually dealt with too scantily and too late.
From their experience and the responsibility gained from making their own decisions (see chapter 7), children should be given the opportunity and, indeed, be willing to take an active part in helping the community, and should be capable of managing their own affairs. They could help the less fortunate in our society and also get a feeling of being needed themselves by helping through various volunteer organisations, and could also play an active part in such bodies as the Council for Education in World Citizenship. Many might find a year spent after leaving school in some form of voluntary community service very worthwhile. Ethical awareness, however, cannot be imposed, it must be discovered.
7.	education for autocracy— or democracy?
Bob Harris
Throughout any such course in social studies children must be allowed plenty of opportunity for discussion, for hearing different points of view and for conducting their own affairs. While factual information, which helps to remove the prejudices which can cause so much strife, will have to be given, the teacher will also be a guide and resource consultant, encouraging the children to find their way to an understanding of the issues at stake and to work things out for themselves, as they will have to do in later life. Co-operative group work and surveys could be encouraged. In discussions the teacher could advise on chairmanship and rules of procedure. Discussion of class and school affairs, of rules of conduct and misdemeanors, and of democratic principles, all help to promote a responsible interest in the affairs of the school and, later on, of the community. Once all these essential features are applied we may see our nation becoming morally healthier, just as it has become physically healthier, but before they can be applied, there will need to be radical changes in our educational and social system.
Schools are still helping to turn out a population of which less than 1 per cent take an active part in politics, one third vote in local elections, and a small minority attend their trade union branch meetings. The vast majority are content to grumble and vote every five years. In other words schools are turning out a population for a pseudo democracy, not for a participating one. We live in an elitist society and our education system is dedicated to such a culture. The existing system for running both schools and society is basically authoritarian. Staff and pupils have to obey their superiors, being encouraged by a mixture of fear and respect. This authoritarianism, which encourages the dependence for one’s justification on others, can produce aggressiveness towards the weaker members of society along with an absence of responsibility when compuFsion is removed. We train not only leaders but servants, and the idea of service is no substitute for active mutual responsibility. We stress conformity and unques-
tioning respect for authority. Some of the teacher’s powers and values may be transmitted through senior pupils as prefects, encouraging the formation of a hierarchy among the children. The prefects may then expect the younger children to obey them blindly and so help to perpetuate an authoritarian system, a system which cannot in the last resort operate without the children’s compliance. Yet responsibility is the acceptance of one’s own accountability and not the gaining of power over young pupils as a reward for obedience. The result of the present system is the inculcation in many children of a docile eagerness to please and serve, which by society’s standards gives success at the higher levels, and at the lower levels produces fodder for the shop floor.
Sometimes the system may be relaxed, especially for senior pupils, and this may reveal an incapacity to govern themselves in children who have never before been expected to do so. If the result is chaotic, those who believe in discipline based on fear argue that democracy does not work, yet what they are denouncing is not democracy but a laissez faire type of system. How then can schools be organised so as to promote democracy, that is rule by the people, as both an ideal and an experience, and also promote responsible self discipline and social responsibility in the communities of the school, the nation and the world rather than blind obedience to authority? If mutual responsibility and co-operation are going to be encouraged the schools must be organised on the same principles.
management of schools
We must introduce democracy into the management of our schools. Involvement in decision making should lead to involvement in carrying them out. The management of schools should be in the hands of managing bodies, on which all sections having an interest in the running of schools should be represented. It should include members of the teaching and non-teaching staff, who, in secondary
40;
schools together with representatives of the pupils, should form about half of the managing body. (Sheffield, for example, now has a separate governing body for each school with an elected teacher and, in some cases, a pupil and a member of the non-teaching staff serving on it.) Other members would include parents and representatives of the local or regional education authority and of the community, for instance from the local trades council. This body should then be in a stronger position to carry out the wishes of the school community than the present managing body, although the everyday running of the schools should be left in the hands of the teachers and pupils.
The internal structure of the school must also change. Teachers should elect their own executive officers, in consultation with the managing body and pupils, to replace head teachers and to serve for a stipulated period of time. The executive officer or officers (in large schools there could be more than one) would be responsible for the day to day running of the school, in consultation with the staff and pupils, and would be subject to the right of recall. A change in the role and function of the head is crucial to the democratic control of a school. At present he is too often an all powerful figure, who fears rather than considers the views of his staff, who can rely every time on the managing body to support his authority, and who has the power to jeopardise the careers of children merely because he disagrees with their manner of dress, or of teachers because they are trying to establish or extend democracy in their school. The elected executive officer must be the servant of the teaching staff as a whole, not the master. His function must not be the present legislative one which so blatantly contradicts all democratic ideas, but executive, that is, he should be responsible for carrying out the decisions of the school community. Too many teachers leave the profession nowadays because of their lack of rights and because of their inability to participate in their work situation, or else they abandon their ideals to join the rate race for perks and promotion.
As is the case with Courtesthorpe College, a state comprehensive school in Leicestershire, it is the staff who should be responsible for organising the educational work of the school, within the broad lines suggested by the managing body and in consultation with the pupils, and who should be responsible for appointing its members to posts of responsibility. (A useful discussion document on this subject is A teacher's charter, obtainable from Rank and File, 28 Manor Road, London, N.16.) As well as making all the above proposals statutory, it should be made statutory for each local or regional education authority to have joint consultative committees with teachers and pupils, and for teachers and pupils to be members of education committees. Teachers should also have full civic rights and be allowed to stand for election to their local or regional council. Parents have a right to participate too and parents’ associations should exist in all schools, although one must beware of giving them pow'er at the expense of the pupils, which could particularly happen in secondary schools.
democracy in the classroom
A more democratic procedure should be introduced into the classroom, admittedly difficult for an individual teacher in an authoritarian school. The teacher should be regarded as a guide who indicates where answers may be found and what directions to take and who encourages individuality and originality, rather than a person who thinks in terms of authority, discipline and punishment. One of the most depressing effects of going from a primary to a secondary school is to see the difference between the lively pupil orientated teaching activities which often exist in the former and the impersonality of the latter, with its rigid time table and its pupils sitting behind a desk being crammed with facts. (It is not surprising that the working class child finds it harder to adapt than the middle class child, who has had a better training for dealing with the situation he is likely to find.) Education should be based more on discussion and enquiry to solve
41
issues of value arising in discussions. The pupils must be able to participate and must be free to discuss any matter relating to their class in particular, or the school in general, and to elect their own representatives as required, for example, to a school council. In areas for which the children have responsibilities, and this should include most aspects of school life except the curriculum, where they must nevertheless be fully consulted and have some choice as they grow older, the majority decision must be accepted and acted upon. If it is not, everyone will soon realise that the discussion and vote is meaningless and that a mockery is made of democracy where no real responsibility results. Schools now should be the models of the full participating democracy that will have to come if our society is not to be in danger of disintegration.
school councils
It is not surprising that bodies like the Schools Action Union (sau) have sprung up in this country and that the National Union of Students is taking an interest in the affairs of sixth formers. Other countries such as Belgium, Holland and Switzerland, have similar pupil organisations, and in France the school action committees (cals) have been instrumental in securing reforms. The sau is right to demand that democracy should be seen in action, as well as taught. Some pupils are already adults in the eyes of the law and entitled to vote. Every school should have a right to form a school council to represent the pupils in all matters. They should decide on its constitution and representation and it would be democratically elected by them. School Councils are not. after all, a new idea. Between the two world wars Vienna had a worthwhile, though not ideal, system of school and form councils in the upper forms of their grammar schools, which had powers to deal with disciplinary matters. Each form had an elected head pupil who could take up the pupils’ grievances with the teachers. Delegates of all the schools with this system met regularly as a kind of pupils’ parliament.
In Sweden, Norway and Denmark there is statutory provision for all members of the school community to participate in its affairs. Permanent teaching staff have their own council, one or two pupils attend staff meetings, and local student school councils are organised into national federations. In Sweden the secondary pupils’ union receives a government subsidy and nearly all secondary schools have a school council with each form represented. Joint student/staff disciplinary committees have considerable power. It is no doubt realised that communal authority is much less resented by children than arbitrary adult authority. In recent years “co-operation councils” have developed. These normally include elected spokesmen of teachers, pupils, parents and administrative and non-teaching staff. They started off as advisory bodies but have rapidly gained a more decisive role. In Gotesborg a system of administration and work where the head has no authority, but is simply responsible for executing the decisions made by staff and students together on a one man one vote system, is being tried out. The joint employer/employee education councils set up in most large Swedish municipalities have representatives of teachers, pupils and parents serving on them.
The national organisation of secondary pupils in Norway organises conferences and seminars with a government grant and is consulted by the ministry of education. The authorities encourage pupil participation as they believe that if they want members of the coming generation to behave democratically, they must give them an opportunity to learn and practice living democracy. In Finland it is proposed that all senior secondary schools should have a school council with extensive powers, consisting of pupils and teachers in equal numbers. In this country school councils have functioned in progressive private schools for a long time and an increasing number of state schools have introduced worthwhile ones. (For actual examples see “The origins and development of school councils: school councils in secondary schools,” J. Chapman, New Era, vol 51 no 9, November 1970.) In one small survey even
42
seven primary schools were found with such councils. In these there was a great deal of practice in democratic procedure, a wide range of matters was discussed, including discipline, and the degree of responsibility and initiative enjoyed by the pupils was greater than in many conventional secondary schools. The same survey found over 30 secondary schools in which the school council exercised real power. Many of the other proposals of the sau are worth implementing as well. School children should have a right to form their own clubs and unions, including political ones, to freedom of speech and writing subject only to the law of the land, and to decide about school uniforms and other matters of dress. Other worthwhile sau proposals include grants to all students in full time education after the minimum school leaving age; co-education, sexual segregation being as undesirable as any other form of segregation; the use of schools as community centres; and a restriction on prizes which, particularly if they are given for a narrow ability, tend to devalue the worth of children as human beings.
streaming
Other changes must take place in schools if we are to make them democratic institutions producing morally healthy children. Streaming should be abolished immediately and setting according to ability in each subject should be minimised as far as possible. This will, of course, need a re-appraisal of teaching methodology, and colleges and departments of education must take the lead here. There is evidence to show that streaming does intellectual and moral harm to those put in lower streams (or for that matter into the “lower” secondary modern schools), whereas non-streaming, it would seem, helps the apparently less able, while not retarding the able child. Where streaming occurs the prediction of teachers often becomes self fulfilling, particularly as this judgment of a child’s ability and worth is often reinforced by the differing opportunities, facilities and quality of teaching given. For the bottom stream
children adulthood often seems to have no purpose, and a feeling of inadequacy may lead to anti-social behaviour.
corporal punishment and counselling
Although we wish to reduce the amount of violence in our society, we continue to use corporal puishment, which often begets more violence and creates more problems than it solves. Though submissiveness can be obtained by an authoritarian regime, the child learns by example what it means to dominate and may attempt to do so in later life. There is evidence to show that schools in which there is considerable use of corporal punishment merely produce a larger number of children with a hatred of all forms of authority and who later become delinquents. There is a strong case for abolishing corporal punishment immediately in the primary school and phasing it out year by year in the secondary school. In the meantime to curb misuse its use should be limited to the head teacher or his deputy. Each school should have at least one trained counsellor responsible for the social welfare of the children. His job, however, should not be just to help children in trouble, but to help them all to make the most of their opportunities and the resources of the school. If he is given some teaching responsibilities, it must be ensured that he has sufficient time for liaison with parents and outside welfare organisations concerned with school children.
examinations
“Before long I hope all of us in education will apply ourselves to ridding our secondary schools of the tyranny of the examination”, Edward Short justifiably said when he was Secretary of State at the Department of Education and Science.
The examination system must be drastically reformed. It will be some time before examinations are abolished, but until that day teaching should govern the form and content of examinations, not
43
the reverse. At present examinations encourage the idea among children that knowledge is a sort of private property to be withheld from some and used as a means of gaining superiority over others. They are seen as an attempt to fit people into their correct niche in society. The passing of examinations is over emphasised in our education system, while the less immediately tangible aspects of ed'ucation are neglected. Because teachers believe they have a duty to get their pupils through examinations they feel forced to teach according to the examination syllabus, even though it may not be controlled by them. In order to allow teaching method and content to be liberated it is essential that examinations should be under the control, not (as in the case of gce examinations) of the universities, but of the teachers.
Selection at eleven plus and its concomitant streaming in the primary schools is being gradually abolished, and it is to be hoped that teachers will give this movement a sharp impetus by refusing to have anything to do with selection procedures. At the same time, however, we increasingly see selection at 13 plus into gce streams supposedly for potential sixth formers (the top 20 per cent), cse streams supposedly for those leaving at 16 (the next 25 per cent), and the nonexamination streams for those children considered suitable for the labour market as soon as they can leave school. This pre-selection becomes more and more irrelevant as the number of pupils staying on at school and the pattern of occupations on which the present structure of examinations is based changes. Yet it is normally self fulfilling, the children performing as they are expected to do rather than as they are capable of doing.
It must not continue. As a start the gce “o” level examination, which does more harm than good, should1 be abolished, thus keeping the teacher controlled cse as the one examination at school leaving age, although its modes one and two of examining should also be abolished so that teachers can fully control the syllabus and the assessment, the latter being moderated by the cse board. There
should be no need to increase the number of grades awarded. We should be more concerned' with bringing every child up to a minimum level of achievement than with trying to sub-divide the cleverest into minute divisions. In any case all that should be needed for a pupil to continue his education is that he express his desire to do so. In an attempt to obtain uniformity of standards throughout the country a single national examination committee should be established to replace the multiplicity of boards which now exist. (To give one example of the unfairness of examinations under the present system, 28 pupils were entered for gce “o” level in English language in two different boards. 27 passed and one failed the examination of one board. In the other 25 failed and 3 passed. One pupil came top in one examination and bottom in the other.) These changes would mean that the method of examination could concentrate far more on project work and on continuous assessment by the teachers, who can best assess a pupil’s ability, rather than on the traditional written examination which is too often, up to gce “o” level at least, a matter of how many facts can be regurgitated in a given time. The recent proposals by the National Union of Teachers for a certificate of general secondary education are a step in the right direction. Grading would be substituted for a pass/fail concept, and of the five grades recommended the top two would correspond to a gce pass or equivalent (that is cse grade 1), and the next two grades would correspond to the remaining cse grades 2 to 5.
gce “a” and “s” levels should also be abolished and the sixth form curriculum broadened. The recent proposals for “qualifying” and “final” examinations were merely a compromise to please the universities and another indication of how eager we are to classify our children, rather than educate them. It is good to note that they have been rejected. A better proposal would be to have at least four subjects studied for two years and assessed along the lines of cse mode 3, in addition to a core of general studies forming a substantial part of the time
44:
table (just as lower down the school such a core could form the foundation of the curriculum). After all Sweden is able to manage without our type of “a” level examination. The recent proposal for a certificate of extended education to be taken in the sixth form and examined along the lines of cse has its good points. The curriculum of these “new” sixth formers (for whom it is intended) must be determined, not by a mixture of habit, academic vested interest and irrelevant examinations, as is often the case with “a” levels, but by the needs of tomorrow’s adults. Why should the integration of subjects be confined to the lower years of a secondary school or to the young school leavers? Would not the new sixth formers find it more useful to tackle five or six fundamental themes, such as “community and alienation” or “the interdependence of life”, chosen because of their personal concern or relevance to the sixth former and because it is important that they should have experience of the import of these themes?
conclusion
However, a democratic and moral education system will not come about of its own accord. Teachers, despite being hampered by their own divisions, must be prepared to fight to see that children from all backgrounds get the best possible education and that the chosen few in grammar schools are not favoured at the expense of those in secondary moderns or comprehensive®. After all the education system cannot operate without the teachers’ compliance. More people will need to be attracted into the teaching profession. At present too many are leaving, often through frustration at the present authoritarian structure as well as because of the inadequate salaries for all but a minority. One way to make salaries fairer would be to have a standard working week, as in further education, of say 40 hours, with overtime rates for extra hours worked.
There is also a case for more centralised control over education. The government should take over the responsibility for
teachers’ salaries and should set up a national body, more powerful and representative of the classroom teacher than the schools council, which would give help to teachers, increasingly burdened rightly with pastoral duties and wrongly with clerical and administrative ones, by encouraging research and experiment, publishing books and other teaching materials, co-ordinating curricula over the country to some extent, for example so that broadcasting material could be efficiently used. Colleges and departments of education also have a vital role to play in training both future and serving teachers in modern methods and encouraging research. In the past it has too often been a story of too little too late. Only now are we seeing a belated interest being taken in such vital areas of the curriculum as moral education and social and liberal studies, with the establishment of the Farmington Trust for research into moral education and the schools council’s moral education, general studies, integrated studies and humanities curriculum projects.
Change in our education system, however, will not be enough. We cannot hope to create a fair education system within the confines of our present social structure, which at present education helps to perpetuate. Instead of educating for living and learning, education is fragmented in its concern for training and instruction in limited aspects of living, as an increasing number of rebellious students seem to be realising. We condition our children, just as teachers themselves have been conditioned, rather than develop their potential.
The last Labour government gave insufficient priority to education and made only a modest start towards a more egalitarian system with its proposals to abolish selection and reform the public schools and its creation of educational priority areas. Can we hope to have a successful education system as long as we Jive in a society which is itself an obstacle to the moral maturity of our children, a society based on exploitation, class divisions, materialism and competition rather than co-operation?
young fabian the authors
group
The Young Fabian Group exists to give socialists not over 30 years of age an opportunity to carry out research, discussion and propaganda. It aims to help its members publish the results of their research, and so make a more effective contribution to the work of the Labour movement. It therefore welcomes all those who have a thoughtful and radical approach to political matters.
The group is autonomous, electing its own committee. It co-operates closely with the Fabian Society which gives financial and clerical help. But the group is responsible for its own policy and activity, subject to the constitutional rule that it can have no declared political policy beyond that implied by its commitment to democratic socialism.
The group publishes pamphlets written by its members, arranges fortnightly meetings in London, and holds day and weekend schools.
Enquiries about membership should be sent to the Secretary, Young Fabian Group, 11 Dartmouth Street, London, SW1H 9BN; telephone 01-930 3077.
Bob Harris is a former chairman of Durham University Labour Club. He now teaches in a London secondary school and has served on the governing council of his regional cse board and on various school’s councils, gce and nut committees.
Ralph Holmes, a graduate in economics of Hull University, is a school teacher at Morden Farm Middle School. He is chairman of the Tooting Constituency Labour Party, treasurer of the Labour group on the council of the London Borough of Wandsworth, and chairman of the council’s planning committee.
Sandy Wynn, after qualifying with an m.sc in sociology in 1969, became a lecturer in behavioural science at the North East London Polytechnic. She is at present a research student at the London School of Economics. In an introduction she writes of this current pamphlet: — "One of the Labour Party’s tasks during its next administration must be to rewrite the 1944 education act. In a period of opposition as much as possible must be done in the way of discussion to clarify crucial aspects of education at all levels. This pamphlet is a contribution towards this discussion on a few important issues. It follows that not all the authors would necessarily agree with all the views expressed in individual sections.”
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