PERSONAL COLUMN
More means different
J. L. HERKLESS
My own educational background is a varied one. I attended school and university in America until I was twenty-two. I then came to Britain to read for an undergraduate degree at Cambridge, and I stayed on to do research. On leaving Cambridge I became an assistant master at a secondary modern school in east London, and I now lecture at the University of Sussex. I offer this curri- culum vitae not to impress the image of Weltbiirger but because I hope it places me in a position to consider recent educational developMents in Britain with some greater degree of perspective.
It is not enough to say that British higher education is going through a period of transi- tion. All periods are periods of transition in higher education. But what we are experi- encing now is better described as a change in the structure of higher education, a change which extends into the reaches of secondary education as well. The problem which is bringing about this change is, of course, the vastly increasing number of people in Bri- tain who hope to benefit from higher edu- cation. It is not only that more people are qualified for further study. It is much more, as the Robbins report pointed out, that more people with benefit of higher education are required for an ever more complex economy and society. Prospective university graduates have been warned this year that they may have to take lesser jobs, in terms of salary or prestige or both, than earlier generations of graduates might have expected. This may indicate a plethora of graduates, but it also indicates a rise in the general standard of education, a rise necessary for our tech- nological era. The impact of increased num- bers of students will, however, have to be sustained, i.e. places for them in higher edu- cation will have to be found.
How then is the structure of higher educa- tion in Britain to change? A few months ago there appeared on the front page of the Times a prediction that in the 1980s the• university population of Britain would be upwards of 600,000. This was enough to cause consternation in the most democratic senior common rooms—and rightly so. Such an increase would, with the present univer- sity structure, inevitably mean a worsening of staff-student ratio. More efficient use of means is simply a euphemistic way of put- ting it. I am by no means the first to have observed that. It has also been said frequ- ently that there is nothing sacrosanct about the present staff-student ratio. This is true. It is more than sacrosanct; there are reasons for it.
Common sense alone tells us that the more nearly a university course is tailored to in- dividual needs the more effective, the more efficient perhaps, it will be. And conversely the less, the less. A low staff-student ratio does maintain a very high standard in edu- cation if only because it given even the less qualified better opportunities to learn. The tutorial system is one of the chief strengths, if not the chief strength, of the British university system; but it is an expensive strength. It would be prohibitively expensive if it were to be extended to take all corners between now and. 1980. Or, as a friend of mine put it, no matter what happens the government cannot go on building Sussexes for ever. And even if it could, would that be a solution? Universities may after a certain point be like motorways in that the more you build the more you need.
If more graduates are required, if building more new universities is not a viable solu- tion, if the staff-student ratio is important, is there no solution at all to the problem of expansion? There is, and it seems to be working itself out already. I say working itself out because it is impossible to know what degree of planning there is behind it, though there may be some considering the broad ramifications of the change involved.
There is growing up already in this coun- try, to draw an analogy with the GPO, a two- tiered university structure. Polytechnics re- ceive charters, 'universities of technology' (something of a contradiction in terms) are founded. These presumably will receive the brunt of the impact of the increased student numbers. And here I would cite a parallel development in the United States. A century ago much the same thing was happening there, not prompted by exactly the same cir- cumstances but by similar ones. In the Civil War of 1860-65 the United States had changed from being an agrarian republic to being at least on the path to becoming a major industrial power. There was a great need for technical skills gnd for a higher general standard of education. The British university system had been established in the American colonies in the seventeenth century and exported into the Northwest Territories in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth. But it was no longer adequate to meet educational needs. The Yates and the Harvards did not disappear, of course. They remained and remain today as centres of academic excellence. But the colleges of technology (I believe they were called mechanics', or perhaps mechanicks% insti- tutes) became, in name at least, universities. The federal government furthered this de- velopment with the Morrill Act of 1862. The total number of universities in the United States was thus greatly increased.
But generally speaking there is a very wide and varying standard of higher education in the United States. One cannot speak simply of aloha and beta universities. There is everything from alpha to omega. Perhaps there will be no Bob Jones University or Slippery Rock State Teachers' College in Britain. but it does seem likely, to continue the analogy with the GPO, that the system of fourpennv and fivepennv universities will continue and be carried further. There will surely be more fourpenny universities in future. There may be one or two further new universities on the Kent and Sussex model, but the bulk of the expected 'next generation' of universities will probably be converted technological institutions.
It would seem that the changes which the structure of secondary education is under- going is not unrelated to all this - either through deliberate though somewhat vague planning or by one of those mysterious flukes which at times of change make the various policies of a nation coincide to direct it towards some definite aim. One is reminded of the chance occurrence of edu- cational entrepreneurs like Horace Mann who established the state high schools in America in the 1860s and 70s. The new com- prehensive schools in Britain will supply the entrants or the bulk of them to the fourpenny universities. Who then will supply the entrants to the fivepenny univer- sities? There are several sources. There are the sixth form colleges. The Government's proposed bill on education provides quite clearly for selection by those institutions. There are the remaining state grammar schools, and it seems there will still be some in the foreseeable future. And there will be those comprehensive schools, though I fear only a favoured few, probably in middle class suburbia, who can afford to offer a rigorous academic curriculum.
But the greatest number of entrants to first class universities will come from inde- pendent schools: from the public schools and (if they continue to exist) from direct grant grammar schools - in other words from the sources which supply them at the moment. There has been recently, of course, a suggestion that direct grant schools be forced into the comprehensive system. But the Donnison report pleased no one and no one so little as the people it should have pleased. One cannot expect the immediate demise of the direct grant schools, irrespec- tive of which party is returned to power in the next general election. If ever they do disappear, it will be because the sixth form colleges have begun to fill a role rather like that of the French lycees.
If these speculations are correct, they ought to be some comfort for those who fear that education in Britain is being recast into a common, mediocre mould. I must admit some reservations, however, about this development I have been projecting. It is not only or not so much that some uni- versity graduates will have to accept jobs which earlier generations of graduates would have found unacceptable. A few very capable but unfortunate people will find themselves in universities those previous generations would have found unacceptable, or in any case disappointing. But there are many Oxbridge dons who hail from state grammar schools. It may be that their socio- economic. intellectual heirs will not be able to attend any form of grammar school. whether state or direct grant. Will they then be sent to second class universities? One can say that such people will always make it to the top. but I am not so sure.
Is there anything more inevitable about an individual's history than about the history of a nation? I tend to believe that nations and individuals excel or fail to do so because of largely fortuitous conjunctions of events. With the removal of the state grammar schools one of the more happy conjunctions for some individuals may disappear. The chances of individual genius coming to nought will have been increased. The great advantage of the 1944 Education Act was that it did, in a realistic way, approach equality of opportunity. Those opportuni- ties were, of course, very restricted or limited in number. The new structure will offer more opportunities but not equal ones.
However, to try to halt this process would be like trying to sweep back the Atlantic with a mop. We must learn to live with it.
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