a) After 1944
The key educational legislation, until recently, was the 1944 Education Act. That Act supported a partnership between central government (Local Education Authorities or LEAs), teachers and the churches - with central government playing a minimal role in the curriculum.
The 1944 Education Act required the Secretary of State to promote the education of the people of England and Wales and the progressive development of institutions devoted to that purpose and to secure the effective execution by local authorities, under his control and direction, of the national policy for providing a varied and comprehensive educational service in every area.
In the decades following the Act, «promotion» was perceived in very general terms - ensuring that there were resources adequate for all children to receive an education according to «age, ability and aptitude», providing the broad legal framework and regulations within which education should be provided (for example, the length of the school year or the division of education into primary and secondary phases), and initiating major reports on such important matters as language and mathematics teaching.
Within this framework, the LEA organized the schools. The LEA raised money through local taxation to provide education from primary right through to further and indeed higher education, and made sure that the schools and colleges were working efficiently. They employed and paid the teachers. And ultimately they had responsibility for the quality of teaching within those schools.
The Churches were key partners because historically they (particularly the Church of England) had provided a large proportion of elementary education and owned many of the schools.
The 1944 Act had to establish a new partnership between state, LEAs and the church schools.
b)After 1980
However, the changing economic, social and cultural conditions outlined in the previous section caused the government to reexamine the nature and the composition of that partnership. The questions being asked during the 1980’s included the following:
Has central government the power to make the system respond to the changing context? Are the local authorities too local for administrating a national system and too distant for supporting local, especially parental, involvement in school? Have the parents been genuine partners in the system that affects the future welfare of their children? And what place, if any, in the partnership has been allocated to the employers, who believe they have a contribution to make to the preparation of young people for the future?
1) New governing bodies
Various Acts of Parliament since 1980 have made schools more accountable.
Teachers, employers and parents have been given places on the governing bodies. Governors have to publish information about the school that enables parents to make informed choices when deciding to which school they should send their child. Each LEA has to have a curriculum policy that must be considered and implemented by each governing body. Schools also must have a policy on sex education and must ensure that political indoctrination does not take place. This accountability of schools and LEAs has to be demonstrated through an annual report to be presented to a public meeting of parents. The government gave parents the right to enrol their children - given appropriate age and aptitude - at any state school of their choice, within the limits of capacity. Parents already sent their children to the local school of their choice. The decision to publish schools' examination results, however, gave parents a stark, but not necessarily well-informed, basis on which to choose the most appropriate school for their child. Increasingly parents sought access to the most successful nearby school in terms of examination results. Far from being able to exercise their choice, large numbers of parents were now frustrated in their choice. Overall, in 1996 20 per cent of parents failed to obtain their first choice of school. In London the level was 40 per cent, undermining the whole policy of 'parental choice' and encouraging only the crudest view of educational standards. Schools found themselves competing rather than cooperating and some schools, for example in deprived urban areas, faced a downward spiral of declining enrolment followed by reduced budgets. Thus the market offered winners and losers: an improved system for the brighter or more fortunate pupils, but a worse one for the 'bottom' 40 per cent. Schools in deprived parts of cities acquired reputations as 'sink' schools. As one education journalist wrote in 1997, 'There is a clear hierarchy of schools:
private, grammar, comprehensives with plenty of nice middle-class children, comprehensives with fewer nice middle-class children and so on.'
2) Central control
The government has looked for ways of exercising greater influence over what is taught in schools. New legislation gave the government powers to exercise detailed control over the organization and content of education. The 1988 Education Act legislated a National Curriculum and a system of National Assessment. In addition, significant changes were enacted to make possible the central financing and thus control of schools through creating a new kind of school outside LEA control (first, the provision of City Technology Colleges 9CTC), and, second, the creation of Grant Maintained Schools (GMS)). The government also significantly reduced the power of local authorities by transferring the management of schools from the LEA to the schools themselves (known as the local management of schools or LMS).
At the same time, within this more centralized system, parents have been offered greater choice through the establishment of different kinds of schools (GMS and CTC), through the delegation of management to the governing bodies of the schools (LMS) and through the granting of parental rights to send their children to the school of their choice.
The various Parliamentary Acts (but especially the 1988 Act) gave legal force to a massive change in the terms of the education partnership. First, the Secretary of State now has powers over the details of the curriculum and assessment. Second, a mechanism has been created whereby there can be more participation by parents (and to a much smaller degree by employers), in decisions that affect the quality of education. Third, the LEAs have been required to transfer many decisions over finance, staffing, and admissions to the schools and colleges themselves. Fourth, the LEA responsibility for the curriculum has been transferred to the Secretary of State.
3) Employer involvement
The voice of the consumers will be heard more, and the consumer includes the employer. Several initiatives encouraged employer participation. First, and possibly the most important in the long run, has been the encouragement of business representatives on governing bodies of schools. Second, there has been a range of initiatives which have given employers a greater say in the purposes which schools are expected to serve and in the means of attaining them.
4) The role of assessment
The government decided to develop a reformed system of examinations which would specify the standards against which the performance of individual schools and of pupils might be measured.
The 1988 Education Act legislated for assessment of pupils at the ages of 7, 11, 14 and 16, using attainment targets which all children should normally be expected to reach at these different ages in different subjects - especially in the «foundation subjects» of English, mathematics and science. The assessments relied partly on moderated teacher-assessment, but more importantly on national, externally administrated tests.
As a result of these national assessments, exactly where each child was in relation to all other children in terms of attainment in each subject. And it would be possible to say how each school was succeeding in these measured attainments in relationship to every other school. These assessments, have subsequently, provided the basis of national comparisons and league tables of schools.
In the reform of National Curriculum in the early 1990’s, it was decided that, because of public examinations at 16 , the national assessment should finish at 14.
5) Inspection
For over one hundred years, there had been an independent inspection service. The inspectors were called Her Majesty’s Inspectors (HMI) to indicate that ultimately they were accountable to the Queen, not to the government from whom they ardently preserved their independence. Until about ten years ago, HMI numbered about 500. They inspected schools and they advised the government.
Senior HMIs were based at the Department of Education and Science (now the department for Education and Employment) but the big majority were scattered over the whole country so that they could advise locally but also be a source of information to central government. Indeed, they were known as «the ears and the eyes of the Minister».
Much of this has now changed as government has sought greater central control. HMI has been cut back to about one third of its previous size. The Chief Inspector is now a political appointment, not someone who has arisen from the ranks of an independent inspectorate. A new office has been created, the Office for Standards in Education (OFSTED), to which HMI now belong and which is much more at the service of government policy.
Under OFSTED a very large army of «Ofsted inspectors» has been created - often teachers - who, after a brief training, are equipped to inspect schools. The initial plan was to inspect all 25,000 schools every four years and to publish a report which would be accessible to everyone. Every teacher is seen and graded. OFSTED is able to identify «failing schools» and «failing teachers».
It has been very difficult to get rid of very poor teachers. It is now hoped that, with more regular inspection and with clearer criteria for success and failure, it will be easier to sack teachers who are consistently under performing.
The recent changes are increasingly redescribed in managerial and business terms, as the educational system is managed as part of the drive to be more economically competitive.
However, one must be aware of the doubts and dismay of many in this «philosophy». First, there is little consideration of the aims of education - the values which make the relationship between teacher and learner an educational encounter, not one of «delivering a service». Second, the new language of «education» is drawn from an entirely different activity, that of business and management. The language of control, delivery, inputs and outputs, performance indicators and audits, defining products, testing against product specification, etc. Is not obviously appropriate to the development of thinking, inquiring, imagination, creativity, and so on. Third, the key role of the teacher is made peripheral to the overall design; the teacher becomes a «technician» of someone else’s curriculum.
The changing economic and social context in Britain seemed to require a closer integration of education, training, and employment; at the same time, a sharper focus on personal development; greater concentration of the partnership to include employers and parents; and a dominant position given to central government in stipulating outcomes were all factors which led the framework of the system is adapting to the new contexts.
a)The public system of education might be illustrated as follows:
| Age | Type of school | National exams and assessments |
| 4 | Nursery school (optional and where available) | |
| Beginning of compulsory education | ||
| 5 | Primary school | Baseline assessment |
| 6 | Primary school | |
| 7 | Primary school | Assessment Key Stage 1 |
| 8 | Primary school of Middle school | |
| 9 | Primary school of Middle school | |
| 10 | Primary school of Middle school | |
| 11 | Secondary school of Middle school | Assessment Key Stage 2 |
| 12 | Secondary school of Middle school | |
| 13 | Secondary school of Middle school | |
| 14 | Secondary School | Assessment Key Stage 3 |
| 15 | Secondary School | Start of GCSE course |
| 16 | Secondary School | GCSE exams |
| End of compulsory education | ||
| 17 | Secondary School Sixth Form College of Further Education Work Training Scheme | Start of A-level course GNVQ NVQ |
| 18 | Secondary School Sixth Form College of Further Education Work Training Scheme | A-level exams GNVQ NVQ |
b) Schools and the post-16 curriculum
The maintenance of such a curriculum has been a major function of the examination system at 16, which was originally designed as a preparation for the post-16 courses leading to A-level. It is taken in single subjects, usually not more than three. These three subjects, studied in depth, in turn constituted a preparation for the single or double subject honors degrees at university. In this way the shape of the curriculum for the majority has been determined by the needs of the minority aspiring to a university place. Alongside «A» Levels, there have been, more recently, «AS» (Advanced Supplementary) Level examinations. These are worth half an «A» Level and they enable very bright students to broaden their educational experience with a «contrasting» subject (for example, the science specialist might study a foreign language).
The present «A» and «AS» Level system, however, is thought to be in need of reform. First, it limits choice of subjects at 16 and 17 years, a time, when a more general education should be encouraged. Second, approximately 30% of students either drop out or fail - a mass failure rate amongst a group of young people from the top 30% of academic achievement who find that after two years they have no qualification. Third, the concentration on academic success thus conceived has little room for the vocationally relevant skills and personal qualities stressed by those employers who are critics of the education system. Fourth, there are over 600 «A» Level syllabuses from eight independent examination boards often with overlapping titles and content, making comparability of standards between Boards difficult.
| B |
y 1997 8 per cent of the school population attended independent fee-paying schools, compared with under 6 per cent in 1979, and only 5 per cent in 1976. By the year 2000 the proportion may rise to almost 9 per cent, nearly back to the level in 1947 of 10 per cent. The recovery of private education in Britain is partly due to middle-class fears concerning comprehensive schools, but also to the mediocre quality possible in the state sector after decades of inadequate funding.
Although the percentage of those privately educated may be a small fraction of the total, its importance is disproportionate to its size, for this 8 per cent accounts for 23 per cent of all those passing A levels, and over 25 per cent of those gaining entry to university. Nearly 65 per cent of pupils leave fee-paying schools with one or more A levels, compared with only 14 per cent from comprehensives. Tellingly, this 8 per cent also accounts for 68 per cent of those gaining the highest grade in GCSE Physics. During the 1980s pupils at independent schools showed greater improvement in their examination results than those at state schools. In later life, those educated at fee-paying schools dominate the sources of state power and authority in government, law, the armed forces and finance.
The 'public' (in fact private, fee-paying) schools form the backbone of the independent sector. Of the several hundred public schools, the most famous are the 'Clarendon Nine', so named after a commission of inquiry into education in 1861. Their status lies in a fatally attractive combination of social superiority and antiquity, as the dates of their foundation indicate: Winchester (1382), Eton (1440), St Paul's (1509), Shrewsbury (1552), Westminster (1560), The Merchant Taylors' (1561), Rugby (1567), Harrow (1571) and Charterhouse (1611).