Post-War Educational Reform and the New Concepts of Equal Opportunity in England: 1944-1951
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東京外国語大学論集第78号(2009) 123 Post-war Educational Reform and the New Concepts of Equal Opportunity in England: 1944-1951 OKADA Akito Introduction 1. An Anatomy of educational policies and equality of opportunity in the process of formulating the 1944 education act 2. Continuity: The new ministry of education under a labour government 3. The heralds of the socialist concept of equal opportunity Introduction The year 1944 rather than 1945 has to be chosen as the starting point for examining the transformation of the concept of ‘equality of opportunity’ in post-war English education, because that was the date of the passing of the ‘Butler Act’, which laid the foundations of the contemporary education system. The significance of the 1944 Education Act was that it crystallised the quarter-century old ideal of ‘secondary education for all’. The main aims of the Act may be quickly summarised: (1) state education should be organised in three successive stages: primary, secondary and further education; (2) secondary education should be free and compulsory, and Local Education Authorities (LEA) should have the responsibility for its provision; (3) the school leaving age was to be raised from 14 to 15 (implemented in 1947) and then 16 as soon as possible (implemented in 1972); (4) a scheme for establishing county colleges for part or full-time further education up to 18 was recommended (in the end, this was not implemented); and (5) LEAs were made responsible for the free medical and dental care of schoolchildren, and also nursery and ‘special’ education, all of which had been on the education agenda since the beginning of the twentieth century. 1) Possibly the most outstanding contribution of the 1944 Act was the acceptance of the concept of a higher degree of ‘equality of opportunity’, which England had developed in its political, economic, social and educational democracy during the twentieth century.2) This article traces the initial application of equality of opportunity to post-war educational reform in England, and examines what notion of equality of opportunity the central government 124 Post-war Educational Reform and the New Concepts of Equal Opportunity in England: 1944-1951:OKADA Akito subscribed to. It also analyses the formulation process of the 1944 Education Act and explores the impacts of the Act on the post-war educational reconstruction under the Labour government in England. 1. An Anatomy of Educational Policies and Equality of Opportunity in the Process of Formulating the 1944 Education Act Since the very beginning of the 20th century, the discussion of ‘equality of opportunity’ had been one of the most prolonged educational debates in England.3) The Consultative Committee of the Board of Education had attempted to realise the concept on the grounds that children should not be debarred from receiving any form of education from which they were capable of profiting through inability to pay the fees. Despite the fact that elementary education was already universal, however, the Committee had left some issues about secondary education unresolved: who was capable of, or eligible for, secondary education? And what secondary education system was most desirable? After World War I and until the formulation of the 1944 Education Act, the Committee gradually made its position clear: there was to be secondary education for all ‘by means of schools of varying types, but which have, nevertheless, a broad common foundation’.4) There is fairly general agreement that the Committee's educational policy in the period was marked by two main strands: (i) the desirability of selection at the age of 11; and (ii) the establishment of a tripartite organisation of secondary education. Both these strands deserve close examination in relation to the concept of equality of educational opportunity. Along with the development of ideals concerning secondary education, there had been increasing acceptance of the principle of ‘equality of opportunity’, which had not been a single or unchanging concept, but had been seen in several different ways. By the outbreak of World War II, there were at least five different forms of the concept, mirroring the English social structure, and all of them had an effect on the formulation of the Act. It is in the competition between them that their importance, in relation to post-war educational policy in England would seem to lie. 1.1.‘Tripartism’ The first idea of equality of educational opportunity was a view based on ‘tripartism’, which advocated the idea of developing three different kinds of secondary school: grammar, technical and modern, according to children’s age, ability and aptitude. The supporters of this doctrine acknowledged that equality should not necessarily be compatible with identity or sameness, but 東京外国語大学論集第78号(2009) 125 depended upon the fuller recognition of individual differences. Before World War II, the Consultative Committee had played an important role in tackling the issue of what kinds of equality in secondary education should be planned for and implemented and tended to use this type of rhetoric in its education policy. Tripartism, which derived from a combination of the Board's crucial documents, the Hadow (1926), Spens (1938) and Norwood (1943) Reports, was underpinned by the psychological claim that ‘equality of opportunity’ did not mean that all children should be given the same type of education: ‘It is accordingly evident that different children from the age of 11, if justice is to be done to their varying capacities, require types of education varying in certain important respects’.5) And so, at the secondary education level there had to be a variety of educational opportunities and curricula in order to meet the ‘very varying requirements and capacities of the children’6) if the system was to involve large numbers of children. Accordingly the Green Book, a discussion document of 1941, shaping opinion for the 1944 Act, defined equality of opportunity thus: ‘Equality of opportunity’ does not mean that all children should receive the same form of education. At the primary stage i.e., to the age of 11, education should be the same for all, but thereafter at the secondary stage there must be ample variety of educational opportunity to meet the varying requirements and capacities of the children. Indeed, in the educational sphere, much more than in the dietetic, one child’s meat may be another child’s poison. The provision for all children at the secondary stage of the same type of education would not connote equality of opportunity but rather the reverse. Equality of opportunity means, therefore, acceptance of the principle that the accidents of parental circumstances or place of residence shall not preclude any child from receiving the education from which he is best capable of profiting. It is clear from what has been said that by ‘secondary education for all’ is meant, not the provision of the same type of education for all at the secondary state [sic], but that all types of full-time education at this stage should be regarded as on a parity and should receive equal treatment in such matters as accommodation, staffing, size of classes, etc.7) [present writer's emphasis]. While identifying a general concern with the issue of social justice in education, the Green Book confirmed the concept of equality of opportunity as a guidepost for sketching the Board's outlines of post-war educational programmes based on three fundamental premises: first, the equality of opportunity of all children in primary school to take the same 11 plus examination; 126 Post-war Educational Reform and the New Concepts of Equal Opportunity in England: 1944-1951:OKADA Akito second, a genuine belief that equality is achieved through children’s mental abilities and the schools to which they are allocated; and, finally, the idea that the three different types of school, grammar, technical and secondary modern, could be really equal, enjoying ‘parity of esteem’ through ‘parity of material conditions’. The views of the Green Book were to be firmly maintained by the majority of the Board’s Committee throughout the war, and in the crucial period of reconstruction immediately following it. In response to the definition set out in the Green Book concerning the concept of equality of opportunity, the most popular view was similar to the logic of the ‘different types of school for all regardless of economic and social condition’ principle, and this logic was reflected in the educational policies of the National Union of Teachers (NUT), the Council of Education Advancement, the Co-operative Union Education Committee and the Workers’ Educational Association (WEA).8) For instance, the NUT declared that ‘the accident of parental circumstances or the place of residence shall not preclude any child from receiving the education from which he is best capable of profiting’.9) Furthermore, another doctrine of the Green Book, the concept of ‘parity of esteem based on parity of material conditions’ was also broadly accepted.10) These widely shared views led to the publication of the White Paper ‘Educational Reconstruction’ in 1943, which aimed: To ensure a fuller measure of education and opportunity for young people and to provide means for all to develop the various talents with which they are endowed and so enrich the inheritance of the country whose citizens they are. The new educational opportunities must not, therefore, be of a single pattern. It is just as important to achieve diversity as it is to ensure equality of opportunity.11) Thus, the White Paper assumed that the tripartite system, without impairment of social unity, would put into practice its concept of equality of opportunity. Soon after the appearance of the White Paper, the Norwood Report on the curriculum and examinations in secondary schools provided more details on the substance of tripartite division.