A NEW ERA IN EDUCATION
FOR more than two years the Government have been systemati- cally exploring all sides of the question of national educa- tion. They have consulted Education Authorities, the religious denominations and other bodies with a' view to decisions on obscure or controversial issues ; and have now declared their policy for educational reconstruction, not in the form of a Bill, but in a White Paper, which is open for public discussion and criticism before a Bill is introduced. This procedure is right. Education must be the granite structure on which the better democracy for which we are fighting is to be built, and it can only be sound if it is itself shaped in accordance with the best informed opinion of all shades in all parts of the country. That opinion has bees developing and crystallising during the last twenty years in the light of what has already been done and of what has been palpably neglected. The hopes fostered by the Fisher Act in the last war and by subsequent reports and recommendations have not been realised. The system that we already have has been likened to a mosaic composed of many separate pieces put together. But it lacks the shape of a mosaic. We are told that it is the practice of this country to build anew on the basis of tradition. But traditional links may be preserved at too great a cost. With much that belongs to the past we need a clean break, and to start anew with the new conceptions of education.
The report that is before us shows that the President and the Board have realised the immensity of the task, and that it requires a ,radical re-shaping of the whole structure from top to bottom, making it indeed into a single structure, organically constituted. It is boldly and imaginatively conceived, and we recognise at once that it is a generous response to the opinion of progressive educationists and of social reformers who require that education should be the living basis on which British democracy is to be built. The system outlined is stated to be nothing less than a recasting of the national education service, based on the " principle that education is a continuous process conducted in successive stages." It begins at the bottom, with the child of two, and ends at the top, with the adult citizen whose education should never end. In imposing on Local Education Authorities the duty to provide such nursery schools as the Board may deem necessary, it will enable the educational system to serve a social purpose both in ensuring care for children between two and five, and in relieving the mother of a task often beyond her powers. It hands on the child of five, mentally and physically cared for, to be taken in charge by the primary schools.
The educational system proper will be organised in three pro- gressive stages to be known as primary, secondary, and further education, the duty being imposed on the authorities to make effective provision for all persons up to the point where they are capable of profiting by its services. Primary education will be up to the age of eleven. The horror of the competitive " special place " examination which afflicted the eleven-year-olds will be abolished ; henceforward they will be passed out in accordance with an assessment of their aptitudes to secondary schools, where they will remain till they are fifteen (at some later stage, sixteen). The secondary schools will be of three different types, designed to provide for children with different aptitvdes- grammar, modern, and technical—and it is emphasised that they are to be of equal standing, and no fees whatever will be charged in any schools maintained by the Local Education Authorities. At the age of fifteen children will either have more full-time schooling, or they will go on into industry or Commerce, but in the latter case their education will not be at an end. They will be required to attend an appropriate centre at least one day a week, and for this purpose the scheme envisages the creation of " young people's colleges " where boys and girls between fifteen and eighteen will be engaged in a wide variety of occupations, including training for skilled crafts, and Ir. all cases physical training and instruction in health and hygiene. The aim will be to make the colleges centres of activity for young persons, playing an essential part in the Youth Service from which so much is expected. For those who continue full-time education the last stage may be that of the University or University College, with increased facilities for poor students.
There are at least two highly controversial questions. On that of religious teaching there is compromise. All the denomina- tions desire some form of religious instruction. To meet this general wish it is proposed that in all primary and secondary schools where it is practicable the students shall be enabled to begin the day with a " corporate act of worship "—though it should be noted that it will be open to the parent to with- draw his child from any form of religious worship or instruc- tion if he desires to do so. In county schools the instruction will be in accordance with a syllabus agreed upon by representa- tives of the Church of England, the Free Churches and the teachers ; but facilities for other forms of instruction will be provided for children whose parents desire it. The arrangements for the voluntary schools are frankly a compromise, and leave, not Very happily, two classes of voluntary schools, distinguished according to the degree of their capacity to meet increased financial obligations ; but in both cases the voluntary schools will retain liberty to teach the tenets of their church, and parents who, object to such instruction can claim " syllabus " instruction for their children. It should be observed that the retention of dualism is in the interest of agreement by compromise rather than in the wider interests of education. If the proposed solu- tion is not acceptable there ought to be no whittling away of the degree of control to be exercised by the Education Authority. There is only one real alternative—a clean sweep of the dual system of control, which a majority of educationists would prefer. On the second highly controversial point, that of the constitution of Local Education Authorities, it is a wise decision to confine them in future to County Boroughs and Counties (excluding the County Boroughs).
The White Paper does not for a moment lose sight of the fact that it is not the framework of education that alone matters, but still more what goes on within that framework. The object of the whole system is to give the right teaching and to make something of the children themselves, mentally, morally and physically. Their health must be attended to at every stage, and for that reason school meals will be made obligatory, and the schools will ultimately be brought into direct relationship with the new national health service, when it is established. Schools other than the L.E.A. schools will be subject to inspection and regis- tration. Better school buildings with more instructional and recreational facilities must be provided. What matters most of all is the kind and quality of teaching. Legislation will not auto- matically provide, good teachers. The White Paper recogn■ses that infinite care will have to be taken in regard both to the recruitment and the training of the teachers—a subject which is still the matter of further enquiry. Nor can sound results be produced by the best of teachers as long as they have to handle classes of forty or fifty children. The size of classes must be reduced in all schools, and the school curricula must be the subject of drastic revision. The abolition of the special place " examination for children of eleven will remove the incubus of examination from the very young; but we are not told what measures are to be taken to remove a similar difficulty at a later stage in regard to the " school certificate."
There is in this programme much that requires to be subjected to searching thought and criticism from outside, a process to which it has evidently already been subjected from inside by the Board of Education itself. A solution of the problem of the great Public Schools has still to be found. Yet the scheme is far the biggest thing that has been put before this country in the sphere of education in this century, and faces the problems with imaginative grasp of the needs of education as a whole. Mr. Butler has stated in the House that the Bill itself has not yet been drafted. He and the Board behind him have approached their task in the right spirit and on the right lines ; but that does not mean it may not admit of improvement, and it is desirable that, as far as possible, criticism should be met before the Bill is drafted rather than left to amendment at a later stage in Parliament. But already the country will recognise a piece of reconstruction worthy of the moment. Here is the basis of an Act, planned and to be passed in war-time, which promises to start a new era in the education of the nation.
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