A brief history of the system of education in England and Wales
From the beginning of its development, the education system in the United Kingdom has always been inextricably linked to class divisions, is a key factor in the distribution of power and is based entirely on the availablity of money.
In his book Modern Britain (1976), John Irwin writes:
"The English education system has always tended to resemble a handicap race. However, whereas in the usual form of handicap race the aim is to give all competitors an equal chance of winning by placing some impediment on those who have an advantage, the aim of the English school system seems to be to give those who have an advantage an even greater one."
Education in England has traditionally been the prerogative of the wealthy.
Up until the middle of the 19th. century, the state accepted no responsibility for either organising or financing any educational system.
In Tudor Times (1485-1603) a number of schools were established, e.g. Edward VI (1547-1553) grammar schools and grammar schools were opened during the reign of Elizabeth I (1558-1603).
William Shakespeare went to the grammar school at Stratford-upon-Avon at the end of the 16th. century.
Such grammar school education was attainable by boys from well-to-do merchant class, upper-middle class and upper class families.
There were a few scholarships for "poor and needy" boys.
If a child did not attend school, he would remain illiterate for the rest of his life.
In the late 18th. century, industrialists and philanthropists set up institutions to give basic education to working class children.
Such education was designed to teach children to read the Bible.
At the beginning of the 19th. century, those elementary schools that existed were financed either by private individuals or one of the Churches.
By this time, too, local authorities had the power to finance schools, but not all did.
The largest financer of schools at this time was the Church of England, the state remaining largely indifferent to education.
In 1833, Parliament made a grant of £20,000 for the provision of "school houses".
This effectively marked the beginning of state involvement in education in the United Kingdom.
In 1870, the Education Act (Forster Act) was passed.
This Act allowed for the establishment of 300 school boards.
These boards were empowered to provide schools for elementary education in their respective areas.
By the end of the 19th. century, a national system of education had been established, providing free, compulsory education for all children between the ages of five and ten.
This age range was extended to fourteen by 1900.
Although elementary education for all had been achieved, at the turn of the century secondary education was still the privilege of those who were able to pay for it.
The 19th. century had witnessed the revival of several ancient secondary schools which extended their fee-paying student intake.
In addition, many new schools had been founded which provided an exclusive education based on the Classics.
These schools attracted boys from upper-middle and upper class families who paid high fees for their sons to attend.
Such schools were designed to prepare young men for positions in the colonial service, often in distant colonies of the British Empire, at a time when Great Britain was the most powerful country in the world.
Colonial administration was perceived as being in the public interest at that time and for this reason these elitist institutions came to be called "Public Schools", a label they have retained to this day, despite the obvious decline in Great Britain's power.
During the 19th. century, two educational philosophies were debated.
Samuel Butler, an educationalist and novelist (he wrote Erewhon), was headmaster at Shrewsbury and he believed education should train young men to think in a liberal way.
On the other hand, Thomas Arnold, Matthew Arnold's father and headmaster at Rugby, believed that schools should train young men to be "Christian gentlemen", that is, that education should be based on high moral principles.
In 1864, a Royal Commission was established to investigate Public Schools and a very favourable report resulted from the Commission's findings.
This led to the passing of the Public Schools Act in 1868 which effectively guaranteed their continued existence in the United Kingdom until this day, despite the fact that they are products of and major perpetuators of class divisions within British society.
At the beginning of the 20th. century secondary education was slowly made available to the children of parents who could not afford to pay high school fees.
In 1902, Parliament passed another Education Act which reserved 25% of secondary schools places for scholarship students.
However, Public Schools were exempted from this requirement.
In 1918, the Fisher Education Act increased the number of secondary schools, but still the demand for places continued to exceed the supply.
This situation did not change much until the 1940's and the aftermath of the Second World War (1939-1946).
In 1944 an Education Act was passed by Parliament which brought about a fundamental reorganisation of state education in England and Wales.
The 1944 Education Act (Butler Act), named after the minister responsible for its creation and passage through the Houses of Parliament, R.A.Butler, gave state education a much higher political profile.
The former President of the Board of Education was replaced by the Minister of Education.
The Minister's job was "to promote the education of the people of England and Wales ... and to secure the effective execution by local authorities ... of the national policy for providing a varied and comprehensive educational service in every area."
The system was to be decentralised, with the organisation of education in the different areas of England and Wales based on local educational authorities.
The task of the Ministry would be to provide guidelines while it was the right of local education authorities to decide what form education would take in their respective areas.
The Butler Act stipulated that education would be divided into 3 stages:
i) Primary - for children between the ages of 5 and 11
ii)Secondary- for children between the ages of 12 and 18, extendable to 19)
iii) Post-school
The school-leaving age was fixed at 15, with the intention of raising it to 16 once facilities became available.
All teachers would be contracted by local education authorities and teacher remuneration was to be based on a standardised scale, the Burnham Scale.
The Butler Act established a system of school inspection for all schools, both independent and state-financed.
The inspectors are called His (today, Her) Majesty's Inspector of Schools (HMIS).
The 1944 Act defined two kinds of state schools:
i) County
ii) Voluntary
County schools were to be established and maintained by the local education authority.
Most voluntary schools had been originally founded by a Church and would be maintained by local education authority funding.
The vast majority of voluntary schools are primary schools.
These can be divided into three categories:
i) controlled
ii) aided
iii) special agreement
The category of a voluntary school would depend on the amount of financial assistance provided by the local education authority and the degree of influence held by the LEA and the religious organisation which founded the school opver the apointment of teachers
The Butler Act set the foundations for two types of state-financed secondary school:
i) the "grammar" school
ii) the secondary modern school
In theory, the creation of two types of secondary school was intended to signal a choice to the general public.
In theory, those students wishing to study more "academic" subjects could choose to go to a grammar school while those students wishing to study more practical or technically-orientated subjects could choose to go to a secondary modern school.
In practice, however, there was no choice.
In the first place, there were far fewer places in grammar schools than in secondary modern schools (about 30% : 70% in many areas). This immediately made grammar schools more élitist within the state system.
Secondly, whether a student went to a grammar school or to a secondary modern school was determined on the basis of an examination result.
The examination, taken in the final year of a student's primary education, was called the eleven plus (11+).
The intention of the examination was to distinguish "academic" children from "non-academic" children.
Those children who passed the examination were offered a place at a grammar school. Those who failed the examination had no choice but to go to a secondary modern school.
In short, if you wanted to go to a secondary modern school for a practical, technically-orientated education, you did well to fail the 11+.
According to the 1944 Butler Act, the grammar schools and the secondary modern school were to be considered as equals. However, in reality the distinction was to prove devastating socially.
The fundamental problem was that grammar schools prepared students to take General Certificate of Education (GCE) examinations called Ordinary level or "O-level" examinations at the age of 15 or 16 and GCE Advanced level or "A-level" examinations at the age of 18 or 19.
GCE A-levels were required for entrance into universities.
However, secondary modern schools prepared students for Certificate of Secondary Education (CSE) examinations which were not accepted as requirements for entrance into universities.
In short, a grammar school education could lead to a university education but a secondary modern school education did not.
Thus, at the age of eleven, a child was set on the path towards university or not, depending on how well s/he did in the 11+ examination.
This situation led to deep divisions and schisms within working-class and middle-class society.
The parents of secondary modern school students complained bitterly that secondary school education was giving their children a stigma of inferiority.
Secondary modern school students, the majority of children at state secondary schools, felt inferior to grammar school students because they had qualified for a place in their school by failing an examination.
Likewise, grammar school students fely superior to secondary modern school students.
A grammar school education was perceived as leading to a profession while a secondary modern school education was perceived as leading to technical or unskilled jobs.
This division even affected families in which one child went to a grammar school and another to a secondary modern school.
The stigma was aggravated by the fact that each school had its own uniform which meant that local grammar school studentswere easily distinguishable from local secondary modern school students by the uniform they wore.
Uniforms made the divisions highly visible in public and aggravated the social divisions.
Public distaste for this highly selective system of education and the 11+ examination in particular led educationalists advising Harold Wilson's Labour government to introduce a new "comprehensive" system of education and the construction of comprehensive schools.
Comprehensive schools are non-selective, that is, places are not allocated on the basis of student performance in any examination, for example, the 11+ examination.
Also, comprehensive schools provide education for children of all levels of ability.
In 1964, the Labour government announced it would introduce comprehensive education throughout England and Wales.
In the same year, the Ministry of Education was expanded to include the Ministry of Science and became the Department of Education and Science.
This department was also made responsible for universities.
The minister responsible became the Secretary of State for Education and Science.
The Secretary of State for Education and Science was responsible for directing and framing policy and for the general supervision of the Local Education Authorities (LEAs).
The Secretary of State for Education and Science would not intervene at the local level unless it was felt that the LEA was acting unreasonably.
In 1965, the Secretary of State for Education and Science issued a circular (Circular 10/65) inviting all LEAs in England and Wales to submit plans for the introduction of comprehensive education.
By the beginning of 1970, most of the 163 LEAs in England and Wales had complied, but some LEAs, in conservative areas of the country, refused.
As a result, in February 1970 the Secretary of State for Education and Science introduced a Bill "to impose on local authorities a duty to plan for and to achieve a system of comprehensive secondary education".
The Conservative Party said it would repeal the law when they came to power.
In the event, the Bill had not been passed when the Conservative Party won the 1970 General Election.
The first move of the Conservative government's Secretary of State for Education and Science was to withdraw Circular 10/65 and replace it with Circular 10/70.
Circular 10/70 stated that it was wrong to impose a uniform pattern of state secondary education across the country by legislation, that is, against the wishes of some LEAs.
This action slowed down the transition to a nation-wide comprehensive system.
While the majority of LEAs which had opted for the comprehensive system continued with it, many conservative LEAs retained the highly selective system.
Children in these conservative areas continued to attend grammar schools and secondary modern schools according to whether they passed or failed the 11+ examination.
In February 1974, a Labour government was returned to power, again with Harold Wilson as Prime Minister.
The new Secretary of State for Education and Science said that Labour policy was to introduce a fully comprehensive system in England and Wales, by legislation if necessary.
By the mid-1970s, there were 1,800 comprehensive schools, 1,900 secondary modern schools and less than 1,000 grammar schools in the state sector.
At the end of 1975, the Labour government introduced a Bill requiring all LEAs to introduce comprehensive education in their areas.
But in 1979, the Conservative Party was returned to power and Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister.
This slowed down all moves towards a totally comprehensive system in England and Wales.
Conservative LEAs were permitted to retain their grammar schools and secondary modern schools.
Today the system is complex and mixed.