Changing education, changing times by christopher pole

Blair's 1997 statement about education serves to remind those of us involved in education that what happens in our classroom, lecture theatre, staff room, playground or in the head teacher's office does not happen in isolation from what is happening in the wider world beyond school or college. The way in which educa­tion is organised, shaped and delivered at any given time does not occur by accident. Edu­cation is not neutral, nor does it exist in a social, economic or political vacuum. In many ways, the things that happen within schools and other educational institutions can be seen both to shape and be shaped by wider social, political and economic forces. It could be argued that any party leader since the beginnings of the modern demo­cratic state could have made the same state­ment as Tony Blair in 1997. Moreover, until the end of democracy, party leaders could go on making it. The importance of education to modern democracies has become a truism. Giddens (1998) in his influential book, The Third Way, states: 'Who could gainsay that a well-educated population is desirable for any society?' However, although Giddens's ques­tion does not require an answer, we should not assume that there is the same level of agreement about the kind of education that constitutes a well-educated society or that there is much agreement about how educa­tion should be organised and delivered to the population.

So, education is political. The changes and developments that take place in the education system of any given society, at any particular time, reflect the political imperatives, priorities and ideas of those who govern. In most democracies political imperatives and ideas constantly change; so we can say with some confidence that education and educational systems will continue to change as those democracies change. We can look at how changes in education reflect the political cli­mate of their time and reflect on how these changes affect the experience of schooling.

 Task 3. (Work in 2 groups supporting two extreme points of view): In the article you will get acquainted with the issue of “selective education” and in its terms – with the tripartite system of education. Scan the following extract to locate the information concerning the core of the tripartite system and find some ideas that would back/criticize it. Do you personally support it? What function of education does it reflect?

The organisation of schooling

(i) Selective education

Perhaps the most important development in state education in the twentieth century was the introduction of secondary education for all. It is now generally accepted that most people will remain in some kind of formal education or training until at least their late teens and that many people who go on to college or university will remain there until their early twenties, but it is not really so long ago that most people in England and Wales ended their schooling at the age of 15. People you know, who are now in their 70s or 80s, may have left school even earlier than this, probably at the age of 14.

The reason why secondary education now continues to the age of at least 16 is found in the 1944 Education Act, which established the provision of secondary education for all through three different kinds of secondary schools. An intelligence test taken at about the age of 11 (the 11 plus) sorted children into three groups: those good at academic things (secondary grammar school pupils), those good at technical things (secondary technical school pupils) and those good at practical things (secondary modern school pupils). From 1944 all secondary education required children to remain at school until the age of 15, and in 1972 the minimum school-leaving age was raised to 16.

This way of organising secondary educa­tion remained dominant for around 30 years and still exists in some areas of England and Wales today. This selective system of secondary education was based on a belief that not only did children possess different abilities and orientations in some kind of natural way, but also that these abil­ities and orientations could be accurately and scientifically measured. The possibility of measuring children's ability meant that they could be given the kind of secondary education which was suited to them, it also meant that the three different kinds of secondary school would eventually produce school-leavers who would fit different cate­gories of jobs and careers and so serve the needs of industry and the economy. In this functionalist approach, grammar-school pupils would move towards managerial and professional occupations, technical-school pupils would have the skills required for skilled technical and clerical jobs, and modern-school pupils would be most suited to semi-skilled and unskilled work.

The system seemed not only to be neat and tidy but was also seen as one of the first examples of equal opportunities in educa­tional policy. It provided education appro­priate to ability on the basis of scientific and unbiased testing. It was brought about by direct and detailed government intervention in the organisation of schooling in an unprecedented way.