PIERCING RAE
THE Zeitgeist, in the personable form of the outgoing headmaster of Westminster, Is at it again. Speaking as if he were the first who dared to say such things, Dr John Rae has been telling the British Institute of Management 'Industry Year' conference that 'we have in this country . . . possibly the worst publicly-maintained education system in the world.' Among his reasons for making such a statement, two stand °ht. One is that, in America, 90 per cent of schoolchildren stay on in school beyond the legal leaving-age of 16, whereas in R. ritain the figure is 22 per cent. The other is that, in countries like the US and Japan, Pupils continue with a broad curriculum until they are 18, whereas in Britain they are 'forced to specialise'. What he did not say is that most of those in America who stay on beyond 16 do so because the system makes so few demands upon them. A majority, by most estimates, have difficulty with basic reading and writing, and all but a tiny few would find an 0-level English paper utterly beyond their capacities. Let us, in other words, be sure that we com- pare like with like. In America it is increasingly the case that the universities are having to do the work that is still done by schools in this country. This is partly because American students follow 'a broad-based curriculum' not until they are 18 but until they are 20 or 21. Most of them would dearly love to specialise long before this, but they are forced by well-meaning, liberal-minded educationists like Dr Rae to continue to dabble superficially in subjects that do not and will never interest them in the slightest. In America certain consequ- ences of this state of affairs are apparent to everyone. The most important of these is that the hugely expensive state schools are almost useless for laying the academic foundations which are required by the more talented section of the population. It is easy to understand why serious academic study is now almost universally postponed until 'graduate school'. Dr Rae speaks for the long-fashionable educational ortho- doxy which would give Britain a similar system — and which, in Sir Keith Joseph's reform of the examination system at 16 plus, has at last, regrettably, achieved a breakthrough. It is strange that Dr Rae, a supporter of the SDP, should be so stridently calling for this, in effect, Amer- icanisation, at the precise moment when a Tory Government is doing what he wants.
Previous page
