Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

The central irony of education in Britain since 1945 is that it has been transformed, yet in many ways remains the same, with identifiable social functions and a hierarchical, even elitist structure which still at the start of the twenty-first century bears many of the marks of its Victorian origins. This chapter sets out to explore and explain this apparent contradiction.It was clear, as the war ended and following the 1944 Education Act that education would never quite be the same again. There was a popular determination to ensure that the settlement following the war would offer unprecedented opportunities to the common people, and education was to be one of the levers of change. Writing in what was to become a famous edition of Picture Post in January 1941, A. D. Lindsay identified as a key failing of the English education system that there was ‘still one system for the poor and another for the rich…. There should be only one system of education for everybody…. We must do something radical about it.’Radical changes seemed all the more likely in view of the new structures set up by the Act. From now onwards, education was to be seen as three distinct phases, with primary, secondary and further or higher education following on one from another, and all children (or at least all those who were recipients of state schooling) transferring from one phase to another at the same age. ... log in or subscribe to read full text