Education's empty promises

entire education system developed during the late 1950s. This was the boom period. British capitalism was concerned at the low standard of education affecting all levels of the labour force from unskilled workers to technicians.

Drop out

Substantiated reports revealed that 25 per cent of 15year-olds were unable to read adequately. Even more serious was the drop-out of talented youngsters from secondary and higher education.

The effectiveness of established methods of organization such as the 11-plus examination, the streaming of classes and 'intelligence' testing was being questioned by wider circles of educationists.

In the colleges of education and university education departments serious attention began to be paid—both here and in the United States-—to the effects of class background on educational deprivation.

Writers like Floud, Halsey and Martin established that the kind of tests given in school were not 'objective', but reflected and measured class Brian Jackson this country and people like Martin Deutsch in the United States produced studies to show that working-class children pushed away from educational success at both secondary and primary levels.

One of the most thorough exposures of the class nature of English education came from a non-socialist but scientific researcher,. W. B. Douglas.

Streaming

Douglas showed that where classes were streamed according to measured ability, middle-class children always tended to be in the upper streams and working-class children tended to be in the lower streams even when their measured ability was the same.

For instance there were 11 centi more middle-class children in upper streams and 26 per cent fewer in the lower streams than would be pected from their measured ability at eight years of age.

When it came to entry into selective secondary schools (i.e. grammar and technical schools) Douglas showed conclusively that at the same level of ability far more middle-class children than working-class children were successful.

At the lower rage of scores on ability tests almost half the children of the upper middle class gained entry to selective schools whereas fewer than one in ten of working-class children did SO.

The table on this page is taken from Douglas's book, The Home and the School' (p. 123).

Apart from a few backwoodsmen who insisted that middle-class children were born with special qualities of character, most educationists took Douglas's work seriously.

This was not because thei were moving towards social ism, but because they were being forced to recognise the inadequacies of the education Process Education is a part of process of producing a c modity-labour power.

When there is a demand in the factories anyway.

Change of heart A glance at the main recommendations of these four reports and at what has been done about them will prove that there has been a change of heart about investing cash in training labour power.

THE CROWTHER REPORT said that the school-leaving age should be raised to 16.

It called for extended courses in secondary schools for half the 15-year-olds by 1969 and ultimately for all of them.

It urged that half the 16-18year-old group should be in full-time higher education by 1969 and that there should be compulsory part-time educaTest scores eleven 54 or less 55-60 61 and over QUANTUM theory-the laws of motion of matter at the atomic and subatomic level-has probably had more impact on mankind during the 70 years since its beginnings than any other physical theory.

Middle Upper selective secondary school tained at 1: 17, or at worst 1: 19, in secondary schools and that special attention should be paid to poor areas.

Ten years later, what has The higher school-leaving age has been approved but not yet put into practice.

Moreover, nothing has been done about providing more teachers, equipment or buildings for these pupils.

The result is that the secondary school teachers see only the prospect of oversize classes of bored, mutinous 16year-olds in addition to the already existing oversize classes of bored, mutinous 15year-olds. Exam pressure Understandably many these teachers are opposed Working Upper selective iecondary school He was proved wrong the same year when J. J. Thompson performed his celebrated experiment which determined the ratio of the charge and mass of electrons in cathode rays. The electron was the first elementary particle recognized by man.

The new Class Lower selective secondary school SCIENTIFIC WORLD Fundamental particles laws governing raising the leaving age, seeing it as a pie-in-the-sky proposal by theorists who don't have to do the job.

All that has come out of the Crowther Report is the Certificate of Secondary Education which intensifies the examination pressure on the schools and paves the way for a return to payment-by-results, a tendency which is already beginning to assert itself, as was discussed in a previous article in the Workers Press.

THE NEWSOM REPORT on the secondary modern schools also recommended that the school-leaving age should be raised to 16—and set a date: September 1965. atomic phenomena-quantum theory-were developed in the years 1901-1926. The basic structure of the atom-a central nucleus, one billionth of a centimetre radius, surrounded by a number of electrons-—was established experimentally and with the new theoretical weapon a deep insight was gained into the nature of chemical reactions, radioactivity and ionization processes.

(c) Uncertainties that It urged that slum schools should be replaced and overcrowded schools extended.

It pleaded for extended provisions for practical subjects, more television and languageteaching equipment and more audio-visual aids.

Next to nothing of this has been done.

The raising of the schoolleaving age has been postponed to 1970-1971 and is likely to be postponed again.

Some : local education authorities have tied this in with the changeover to comprehensive schols, so that both will be postponed together. • It is obvious that none of the proposed improvements could amount to much without an increased teacher supply. The situation here is anarchistic.

Unemployment is growing among qualified teachers at the same time as an estimated deficit of 40,000 teachers by 1972—16,000 of them in (or rather, not in) the secondary schools.

Deficiency

These figures - taken from the Report of the National are not due to the perturbation caused by the measuring apparatus or man's ignorance of some more detailed behaviour. Knowledge is of a probabilistic nature and represents ultimate knowledge.

Robbins demanded that places should be provided for 390,000 full-time students in 1973-1974 and for 560,000 in 1980-1981.

This was to resolve competition for places. The idea was that all who were able and qualified should find a place in higher education if they wanted one.

These targets for full-time students have, in fact, already been exceeded. But the 'success' is illusory. The real test 1s: does everybody who wants and qualifies for higher education actually get it?

The Robbins estimates were too low. There has been a greatly increased demand for higher education - and when Robbins was published 63 out of every 100 with the minimum qualifications were getting into university.

Today the figure every 100.

In other words, almost half the young people who qualify criptions of a state of affairs, of mind, of material, that an observer might perceive if he were placed in those particular circumstances.

The Plowden Report's main recommendation was that there should be , positive assistance to schools in deprived areas.

No class should exceed 30 in these schools and teachers in them should get £120 salary addition.

There should be a teachers' aide to every two classes in such schools and they should get extra books and equipment.

The Report also called for improved educational facilities for the children of immigrants and for better school health and welfare services.

It said that more teachers, especially men, should be encouraged to enter primary teaching and that there should be an increase in the number of part-time teachers.

No cane i The Report urged that an extra £7 million-f10 million should be spent annually over seven years beginning in 1971 to provide extra buildings and equipment.

It recommended that corporal punishment-denned as the infliction of physical pair the addition of various rules of thumb (such as the subtraction of infinities to make certain results meaningful!).

order to preserve the privileges of the ruling class.

tance Same action as. Schoolteachers are now beid 30 ginning to realize that in order chers to fight back against the salary Burnham Committee's miserable £50-a-year offer, they will hers' •have to take the same sort of es in action as the dustmen, hould dockers, miners and motor ment. workers. d for A decent salary for teachers ilities involves a fight against the rants government's incomes policy. lealth Similarly, to ensure a decent education for the children of chers, the working class requires a I be struggle against capitalism. imary In the days of boom, a hould Labour government could imber introduce educational reforms.

In capitalism's crisis, a Labour government comes down on all the working class, young and old, in the schools it an just as in the factories. lillion The era of reforms, conover cessions and compromise is 1971 s and The only future for the over.

working class and its children COI- is to organize in revolutionary ed as struggle against capitalism in pain decay.