`Yes' to the Comprehensives?
By DAVID ROGERS
Do Conservatives really understand the reasons for the Crosland Circular on Com- prehensives sent to local education authorities? Even the newest of the competitors, Eldon Griffiths, has missed the point. He quite cor- rectly writes, in a recent pamphlet, that the new salariat 'wonder how to provide for their son's education if he doesn't get into the grammar school,' but he doesn't ask the logical question-- why would they be unhappy if he went to a secondary modern school? Won't any Conserva- tive dare to admit that because the grammar school child gets the better job in terms of money and status, we are defining, if not producing, first- and second-class citizens at the age of eleven, and that is the biggest single reason why the new middle class would not want their child to attend a secondary modern?
The new salariat, many of them still on the famous escalator, are highly conscious of the need for a land of equal opportunity. They want no ceiling to the levels to which they can fairly climb, but with a Kennedy-like social awareness they are sensitive to the point of suspicion of the fact the starting gun must go at the same time for all, and at the same moment. Nor do they believe in handicaps. Being realists they see the secondary modern school as a handicap, and they wonder, as Griffiths indicates, what the hell to do if their child is not selected for a grammar school. If you have any doubt about this, think of the question once posed by Sir Edward Boyle, when he said, 'We all know parents who can afford to educate their children privately, and yet let them go to a state grammar school—how many parents do we know who could afford to send their children to public school, and yet chose that they go to a state secondary modern?'
This almost instinctive feeling, that though the 75 per cent in secondary moderns may be OK it's not for us (which prevails in any edu- cational lobby), takes two main forms. Either 'my child must go to a grammar and to blazes with the rest' or 'my child must go to a com- prehensive and so will the rest.' Twenty per cent of the children in the country go to grammar schools, and the grammar school lobby is loud and vociferous—the old boys, the middle-aged county councillors, the pre-Butler Act middle- class parents in settled jobs. Five per cent of the children attend comprehensives, and their lobby—visionary teachers, whizz-kid Socialists, Bow Groupers---is equally articulate. Seventy-five per cent go to secondary moderns. They have no lobby. There are no cries of 'Hands off our secondary modernsZ or 'Don't water down our standards.' The Minister of Education is never asked to step in to stop the closing of a secondary modern because angry parents are sitting down in Curzon Street.
This is unfortunate, because in the current debate on the organisation of secondary educa- tion the impression has thereby arisen that it is simply a case of grammar school versus com- prehensive school, and that the 75 per cent of secondary school children in modern and tech- nical schools are not affected. This is a mis- apprehension. The debate is about the whole tri- partite system or the comprehensive system.
To defend the traditional grammar school is a relatively easy task—especially if you are an MP with a small majority and an effective constituency lobby. A defence of the whole tri- partite system is much harder. Admittedly it is easier to defend in Merthyr Tydfil, where 40 per cent of the thirteen-year-old age group are in grammar schools, than it is in Preston, where the percentage is only eight, but surely a national system of education should be geographically fair? Ministry of Education List 69 shows that one of the most important factors in selective education is the local authority area in which a child happens to live: Percentage of thirteen-year-old age group in gram mwr schools Wallasey .. 34.2 Bournemouth 16.9 Cheshire 29.2 Bedfordshire .. 12.8 Durham .. 18.0 When the 1944 Act was passed, a circular was sent to all local authorities advising them that children in secondary modern schools would not be capable of taking external examinations. Last year about 50,000 passed GCE '0' level—a number increasing at the rate of 20 per cent per year.
Now that an increasing number of secondary modern schools are providing GCE courses, does it matter to which school a child goes? Anyone advancing this theory must be quite clear that although the • secondary modern school child certainly has a chance of taking GCE it is not a chance equal with his counterpart at a grammar school. This is because a high percentage • of secondary modern schools have no specialist teachers in certain GCE subjects.
Percentage of secondary moderns with no specialist English .. .. 21 Languages 57 Mathematics .. 25 History .. 26 Science .. .. 25 Geography 28 This situation has been made more serious by the unwillingness of some headmasters to trans- fer pupils from secondary modern schools to grammar schools. Under the present system one can see their point—if the secondary moderns are to have any academic momentum, they can- not afford to lose their pace-setters, even though the pace-setters may do far better in grammar schools geared to academic work.
All these factors must be considered by Tories when trying to decide on the respective merits of the two systems in local areas. But there is more. There are three strong Conservative reasons for supporting a system of comprehensive schools. One large comprehensive school can offer more choice than single secondary schools, can make better use of available staff and re- sources and offer a better deal for the child from the underprivileged home—who, as the Douglas Report showed, has the scales tipped further against him by entering a selective process at eleven with children from cultured homes of books and conversation. No handicaps.
Because of their size these schools can offer a wide variety of subjects—far more choice in fact than any single secondary modern or gram- mar school. For instance, one of the newest London comprehensive schools, at Woolwich, offers its fourth year a choice from English, mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, Ger- man, French, history, geography, commerce, typing, book-keeping, shorthand, retail trading, woodwork, metalwork, technical drawing, en- gineering, cookery, needlework, art, pottery, music, physical education, religious education, surveying and drama. There is also a specialist for remedial work with backward children. Specialist staff and equipment can be used much more efficiently in a large school. This is especially important since, at least for the fore- seeable future, we are going to be very short of teachers of all kinds, but especially of those competent to run specialist departments.
Is the comprehensive school too large? Who knows, when we spend only £900,000 a year on educational research? Anyway, Eton has over a thousand pupils. Does the secondary modern school child pull the grammar school child down? if he does, and can exert this influence on some- one of supposedly higher ability and aptitude, what is he doing in a secondary modern anyway?
Of course there must be argument. But if this is to convince the electorate that the Conser- vatives are genuinely searching for the right policies, then both public and private discussion must be based on real issues. Perhaps it is because only 15 per cent of Conservative MPs have been educated in the state system that they attack Crosland for doing away with parental choice. Parents don't choose whether their children go to grammars or secondary moderns --their children are selected, that's the whole point of the system. For Tories to try and inflame this kind of issue would be a mistake, because it would distract from the real arguments that should be put to Crosland.
For instance, there are strong grounds for thinking that the two-tier system not only attracts all the better staff to the senior high school, but also acts as a deterrent to the child from a home where little interest is taken in his edu- cation. (It's less effort to stay at the junior high school and leave at sixteen, than to make the positive effort of moving to a new school.) Also, the Labour party doesn't seem sufficiently aware of the need to ensure that the catchment areas for comprehensives are arranged so that the schools do not become predominantly working- class or middle-class in character.
However, there is little point in Sir Edward Boyle leading on these matters on the front bench if he is to be continually sabotaged from the back by fellow Tories who don't understand the nature of the problem. This would merely confirm the impression of Crosland as a pace-setter, with the Opposition unable to escape from old-fashioned dogma. It would be a tragedy if the worst type of Conservative prejudice pushed the Tory party so far to the right in its educational policies that it dis- appeared`over the horizon and was out of sight.
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