Education
Shift to the Centre
By JOHN VAIZEY rrHEcurrent climate of opinion in social policy is due—in part at least—to, a book, Problems of Social Policy, by Richard Titmuss. In this Civil History of the War, Professor Titmuss traced the connection between rapid economic and social change and the consequent growth of public social services, first to cushion the shocks, but also to make the changes possible, as well as humane. Much of the present discus- sion starts from there; that is what 'the Welfare State' conceptually is.
The other big social change of the war—the 1944 Education Act—goes unanalysed. Its Civil History has never appeared. And the great post- war story is extraordinarily involved. Why did the Ministry, under the weak but lovable George Tomlinson, impose tripartism on the schools? Why, after Dame Florence Horsburgh loyally cut education at Churchill's command in 1951, did it suddenly become an enormous Conserva- tive thing? The leap from education in 1953 to education in 1963 has been truly tremendous.
Some of the story, but only some of it, can be discovered. To know it in full would be to piece together the present state of the debate About education. As it is, only the broad strategy is discernible. The tactics are not. Even the major protagonists — Sir William Alexander, Sir Ronald Gould, the embattled civil servants—are like people on the field of Waterloo, staggering from one smoky embrasure to another, not sure how the battle is being waged in other sectors, not sure where it is all coming to.
First queston—why is the Ministry more important than it was? The answer appears easy. The 1944 Education Act gives it wide powers. Many were put in by the teachers themselves, fearing a recrudescence of the cuts after 1918. And education has become a, big subject. IndUstry undoubtedly pressed for more technical education after about 1954. Sir David Eccles and others saw how large it loomed in the eyes of the suburban voters. Ordinary parents are them- selves better educated than they were, and they see that education is the key to the better-paid jobs—these great social tides became a part of the national conscience during the Eccles tenure of office.
One kind of explanation would assign a large place to Eccles's own ambitions, and to the ambitions of one or two civil servants—and subsequently to the generation (including Sir Edward Boyle) who grew up under them. The other kind of theory would find this explana- tion frivolous and would look at other trends, as well as the broad social movements for an adequate explanation.
There is, for example, the growing importance of the education system as a source of skills for the economy. This has made industrialists particularly anxious that educational policy should be devoted to an adequate development of technical institutions of all kinds. The increased mobility of the population has made people anxious that, on moving from one part of the country to another, the same educational standards should prevail. The teachers have themselves been a major factor for bringing pressure for uniform conditions of service throughout the nation.
These are the sort of things that have auto- matically increased parliamentary interest in edu- cation and strengthened the role of the Ministry. The Ministry have also been in charge of national capital investment in education. It is therefore up to them when and where schools shall be built throughout the country. This gives them a strong hold on educational development which they have not been slow to use. In addition they run a teacher rationing scheme which prohibits Authorities favourably placed from recruiting the teachers which they might other- wise be able to.
All these trends are being reinforced by the growing belief that education is less efficient and effective than it might be. The discovery that large numbers of people know next to no mathe- matics and that hundreds and thousands of others who have been taught French for four or five years cannot ask their way from Boulogne, has drawn public attention' to the urgency of revising, then renewing, the curriculum and methods of education. It is widely felt that exist- ing institutions are not adequately equipped to undertake this task and the Ministry itself has become the source and ferment of all these new ideas.
At the same time, the local authorities have lost a great deal of their power and prestige because their other functions—hospitals, elec- tricity, gas—have been stripped from them. To an important extent, many local authorities are chiefly educational bodies. One county, spending £39 million a year, spends £33 million on education. Consequently, the argument that used to be advanced that education should be a local matter, subject to a local debate where its claims were compared with those of other human services, has become less relevant than it once was.
People have become impatient of the connec- tion between the rapidly expanding educa- tional services and the old straitjacketing of the rates. Many of them feel that a large part of. educational finance should be shifted from the local authorities to the centre. It is not really true that this shifting will immediately result in a transfer of power from the local authorities to the central government. Indeed, it will be immediately apparent that much of this transfer of power has already taken place. The source of authority is Curzon Street (where the Ministry of Education resides in a building of unparalleled ugliness) and not the Town Hall. But it would be poses grave dangers for the freedom of t people. This is not because central goverrone is less democratic or responsive to public Pr` sures than local government. Indeed it has ofte been the contrary—local government can inefficient, corrupt anti not adequately open t public criticism because of the laws of libel. 136 nevertheless, our parliamentary system is ve limited and the reviewing of expenditure is vast job and the issues which are raised by ed cational policy go to the very heart of the deba about the future of democracy.
There are really two ways to ensure that shift of educational power away from small lot authorities to the centre is subject to aclecloa democratic checks. One possible way is to erea new provincial authorities, each with sorer million inhabitants, responsible for educatio health, planning, roads, housing and vvelfs services; to make their members fully-Pal and to give them the sort of power that tb Government of Northern Ireland has.
Many people feel that this is one of the Le roads now open to us to diminish the power a° influence of London. There would be no NO why small authorities should not be maintaine to fulfil essentially local functions, but the hr°8 strategy of education could safely be left with provincial governments in Edinburgh, 0°1 Bristol, York and Birmingham. Other people would feel strongly that Et/ solution is open to many objections. A provx- government, they would feel, has none of advantages of truly local government and all disadvantages of central government, with the compensating justification that Westrnins has of being the forum of the nation. Suppose, then, that the regional solutio not acceptable. How can we control centralisation of education? For it seems el' that, in the absence of local government refer it is not possible to extend the base of 1°01 taxation, and it is highly likely that mote 3 more educational finance will be voted Parliament. It seems to me that three 0161 moves are necessary. The first is the increased dissemination information. The Ministry has recently chant its policy in this respect with admirable result But there is still far too much secrecy in ee:/li5t1 government which prevents informed critic from being made.
Secondly, I am sure that the teaching P sion should have a much bigger say in form ing educational policy. Hitherto it has not nearly the same role that the medical profess has had in the National Health Service. t Thirdly, we need a much clearer assessrnen what are the respective rights and dutieshe ,, central and local government in education- r is much speculation about the nature of the Po posed Planning Board which the Ministry to be establishing. It will not be a success L11' its purpose is discussed in the full contex what is appropriate for central government to and what should rightly be the prerogativ n the profession or of the local authorities. fe idle to deny that this growth of centralisatio
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