British education: history, organisation, issues (England and Wales)

Peculiarities
Late involvement of the state in educational provision
Variation across the nations of the UK
A high degree of decentralisation
Duality: state and private provision; a strong and influential private sector
Inextricably linked to the class structure

History
Before 1870:
Upper- and middle class boys – private schooling (at home; local grammar schools, public schools)
Working-class children: elementary schooling at parish schools, “ragged schools”; 1833 Factory Act: 2 hours of education a day for children aged 9 to 13
“the three Rs” (basic literacy and numeracy)
Girls’ formal education – neglected; no access to university education; not awarded degrees until well into the 20th c.
“…being allowed to learn German was ALL the paid-for education I ever had. Two thousand pounds was spent on my brother’s…”
Mary Kingsley (1862-1900), ethnographer and explorer of West Africa

Milestones of state educational provision:
the 19th and early 20th century
1870 Elementary Education Act (Forster) + Elementary Education Acts 1880-1899
elementary schooling for the poorer classes: compulsory attendance for 5 to 10-year-olds (1880); free after 1891
1902 Education Act (Balfour) + 1918 Education Act (Fisher):
from “elementary” to primary and secondary education for all; an education ladder
Still: “training in followership”, suited to the working classes, rather than citizenship and leadership training

Milestones of state educational provision: since WW II
1944 Education Act (Butler)
free compulsory education 5-15
the tripartite system of secondary education (11-15): grammar schools, secondary modern schools, secondary technical schools
the 11-plus exam
controversies
1965: comprehensive schools (today – over 90% of state schools)
1973 – school-leaving age raised to 16
1988 Education Reform Act
The National Curriculum: core and foundation subjects
Key educational stages; objectives, assessment (Standard Assessment Tests; GCSE – school-leaving examination)
League tables
City Technology Colleges
Academies (Labour govt. 2000; Coalition govt. 2010) and free schools
2008: school-leaving age raised to 18 for those born after 1 September 1997 (came into effect 2015). Options between 16 and 18: full-time education at a sixth-form college (academic) or vocational school; apprenticeship; part time education plus work for 20 hours or more a week
2016-17: Theresa May’s “grammar school revolution”

Issues and areas of debate
Quality: unfavourable comparisons with other countries; standards of assessment and grading (grades inflation); insufficient professional qualifications of school-leavers
Social justice: equal opportunities in education; improving chances of social mobility through education
Diversity and choice
The curriculum (knowledge versus skills; range and priorities of subjects)
Overburdening students with exams
Academic versus vocational training

The “Education hierarchy” sketch (2011)

The private (‘independent’) school sector
Fee-paying schools
Not bound by the National Curriculum
Currently cater for about 7 per cent of children of 4-18
Different levels of excellence and prestige
Still highly desirable but increasingly unaffordable for the middle class (e.g. – Eton charging ‎£42,501 per year, in 2019)
Intense competition from state schools, due to considerable improvement of state education standards

The institution of the public school
[For more detail read: François Bédarida, “Education and Class” – self-study text]
The Great Seven: founded 14th-16th c. + lesser public schools
The public school reform of the early 19th century; “Muscular Christianity”
The public school ethos
The role of the public school in the consolidation of the new Victorian elite and the preservation of its values
Targeted by Labour in the 1960s
Response: the “public school revolution” (modernised curriculum; more scholarships for poorer students – improved social inclusiveness; end to some archaic practices; many became co-educational; state-of-the art equipment and facilities; small classes; excellence of teaching staff)
Public schools at present: for and against (at the seminar)

“Toffs and Toughs”
(1937)
Students at Harrow and working-class boys before WW II

Pupils at Harrow school today

Today’s Etonians … and Hogwarts students

Backgrounds of business, political, media and public sector leaders, August 2014:
Also privately educated:
half the House of Lords
53% of senior diplomats
33% of MPs
22% of the shadow cabinet
26% of BBC executives
35% of the England, Scotland and Wales rugby union teams
33% of the England cricket team
This compares with 7% of the UK population as a whole.

Higher education: types of universities
Today: about 100 universities in Britain; all of them – state universities
Ancient universities: 7, founded before 11th-16th century (Oxford, Cambridge, St Andrews, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Dublin)
19th-century universities: Durham, London, Wales
Redbrick universities: early 20th century (Birmingham, Liverpool, Leeds, Manchester, Sheffield, Bristol)
Plate glass universities: the 1960s (e.g. University of East Anglia, Warwick, Lancaster, York, Kent)
“New universities”: former polytechnics and post-1992 universities (e.g. Brighton, Bournemouth, Sheffield Hallam)
The Open University: 1969 - the foremost distance learning institution in the UK

Higher education enrolments in the UK, 1860–2010

Lasting issues in higher education
Cultural bias towards the humanities; downgrading of the sciences and technology
Elitism and social exclusion
2009: the average percentage of students that from routine/manual occupational backgrounds at universities across the UK – 32.3%.
Oxford University: the lowest proportion of working-class students (11.5%)
Top people with Oxbridge degrees: 75% of senior judges, 59% of the Cabinet, 38% of the House of Lords, 33% of the shadow cabinet, 24% of MPs (vs. less than 1% of the whole population)

Education and social inequalities
Percentage of each social class who are graduates
Social class of graduates

Education and the British political elite
Since Winston Churchill every British prime minister who went to university attended the same English institution, the University of Oxford, except Gordon Brown, who went to Edinburgh. Of fifty-five British prime ministers since Horace Walpole, more than a third, twenty, were products of the same English school, Eton.

Census 2011: Highest level of qualification
No qualification: No formal qualifications (including respondents of 16+ who are still studying)
Level 1: 1-4 GCSEs or equivalent qualifications
Level 2: 5 GCSEs or equivalent qualifications
Level 3: 2 or more A-levels or equivalent qualifications
Level 4 or above: Bachelor’s degree or equivalent, and higher qualifications
Other qualifications: include foreign qualifications