Part V: Education Policy
Present Trends in Public Secondary Education in Western Europe
Education, Credentialling, and the Labor Market in the European Community: An Agenda for Research
The Study of Education as a Pariority
'Goodbye, Mr. Chips': A Proposal for the Abolition of the Lifetime Classroom Teacher
Academia in Anarchy
Private Education
OECD Reviews of Educational Policy
Education for Development
The Utility of Country Case Studies for Educational Planning
Educational Financing and Policy Goals
Source: M.A. Eckstein, "Present Trends in Public Secondary Education in Western Europe," The High School Journal, 44 (October, 1960): 8-19. Reprinted by permission of the University of North Carolina Press.
PRESENT TRENDS IN PUBLIC SECONDARY EDUCATION IN WESTERN EUROPE
During the past fifteen years, educational development in the various countries of Europe has passed through several stages. The conclusion of World War II left a series of emergencies for which immediate answers had to be found. There were shortages of staff, equipment and buildings, and often a backlog of six or more years' neglect of necessary improvements and extensions. Such a measure as the Emergency Training Scheme for Teachers in England is an example of a stop-gap plan to cope with one particular shortage. However, concurrent with such short-term programs, concerned with the most basic educational provisions, there were also varied plans for more long-range reconstruction. The famous Conference in Algiers in 1943 is an example of preparatory discussion by those concerned with French education; in that same year, the White Paper on Educational Reconstruction was being discussed in the British Parliament. The fruits of these activities were the later proposals of the Langevin Commission in France, and the Education Act of 1944 in Britain. The latter included both immediate and long-term planning and a fairly radical reconstruction of the educational scheme. Soon after, in Occupied Europe, the Allied Forces in Italy and Germany were similarly concerned with both emergency and reconstruction.
With the easing of the most pressing concerns comes the opportunity to co-ordinate and evaluate, not only the efforts which have been made, but also the broad plans which have been proposed. Post-war legislation has generally been characterized by radical thinking and optimism. However, the euphoria brought by the end of a war is so often soon dissipated in the exhausting battle of the peace. At such a time, the ambitiously optimistic spirit of reconstruction may also be lessened. A more cautious planned expansion replaces the scheme for extensive reconstruction, ideas of reform have once again to vie with practices which are entrenched in the typical ways of thinking of a people. The educational legislation of the last five years or so has been characterized by such an approach, by plans for reform and expansion which reflect the changes in the spirit of nations since 1945. The particular economic situation of a country, its current philosophical outlook and social thinking, specifically define the educational scene in each area which is to be considered here.
In England, no single item of educational legislation has had the comprehensiveness and far-reaching implications of the Butler Education Act. Significantly enough, however, the major educational document in England during recent months has been a report issued by a ministerial committee and briefly discussed in Parliament.1 It deals with that age group which lies beyond the scope of compulsory education, sixteen to eighteen years. The Crowther Report, so called after the name of the committee chairman, is concerned with the extension of education upwards. It recommends raising the school-leaving age to sixteen, proposes a plan for part-time education beyond this, and also considers the expansion of curriculum offerings for students of this age. In particular, the report criticizes the excessive concentration upon a small grouping of academic subjects which has been characteristic of education in the upper forms of the Grammar School. In fact, the report is basically concerned with a general broadening of the base of secondary education, with making it more general and more varied. Inadequate expansion in scientific and technological areas is also criticized.
However, the recommendations of this document are not simply directed towards the expansion of the scope of secondary education in England, and a lessening of its degree of specialization. They are responses to a number of irresistible pressures from outside the educational system as well as from within it. They are also admissions that the existing system has not kept pace with developments in society and in the world at large. Thus, for example, the increase in the numbers of those students voluntarily remaining in school beyond fifteen years of age has changed the exclusive quality of upper secondary schooling (the Sixth Form). In social representation, and therefore also in aspiration, there is a considerable change. But British society has changed too since the days in which the grammar school achieved its form. There have been far-reaching developments in the organization of society, in economic organization, and in Britain's role in world society. To complete the picture of change, mention must also be made of the vast increases in Man's knowledge about science and technology and his greater power over his environment. The Crowther Report is a response to these influences which must affect all aspects of life. It recognizes as essential a number of real alternatives to the still prestigeful academic secondary schools. Other forms are not only respectable and legitimate, they must be helped to achieve such recognition.
This point raises a problem which has been central to English education for several decades, "parity of esteem" between different types of secondary schools. In giving official approval to the tripartite system of modern (general), technical and grammar (academic) schooling, the Education Act of 1944 introduced a great degree of order into a patchwork array of schools of all kinds, and made articulation between primary and secondary levels more realistic. But this definition, though sensible and not unprecedented, has still to achieve acceptance in the face of social realities. The fact remains even today, that one type of school retains its former prestige and exclusivity, the grammar school. It is the prime avenue to university education or to a white-collar job, and though entrance to it is on the whole by merit, it represents more than anything else the essential goal for the middle-class parent. Because of this social fact, one can hardly claim that the ideal of truly equal opportunity has been achieved. Modern schools, and even technical schools do not have comparable status with grammar schools; a disproportionate number of middle-class children obtain places in grammar schools; too many children of less wellendowed families obtain grammar school places even though they may have the ability.
One way in which educators have attempted to do justice to this problem is by devoting much attention to the selection devices used at the end of primary schooling (11 years of age). The merits of different types of examination, of interviews, of record cards, and so on, have been, and still are, the subject of interminable debate. But they are all variations on the same theme, and based upon the assumption that the tripartite system is to continue as it exists now.
There is, on the other hand, a more radical approach to this problem, which is one of both social injustice and brainpower wastage. This is represented by those who seek a more basic reorganization of the very structure of secondary education. A prime example of such a scheme is the Comprehensive School. Like the American comprehensive high school, such an institution accepts students with different kinds and degrees of ability; unlike its American counterpart, it retains a process of "streaming" (homogeneous ability grouping) within the school. This institution is seen by its protagonists as the answer to the inequities of the present system, as the efficient use of resources, and a means of ending entrenched and self-propagating class disparities.
Comprehensive schools are not, however, the only way of introducing the comprehensive principle into secondary education. Several local authorities in England have introduced their own variations on the pattern of tripartitism in the secondary system. A notable example is the County of Leicestershire, whose plan for reorganization, at first experimental and limited, has now been extended and also copied to some extent by a number of other educational authorities.2 In this scheme, all children in a district are transferred together to the same school (the "high school") for the three years following primary education. Here they all follow more or less the same syllabus until they are about fourteen, when all those whose parents undertake to keep them at school until at least sixteen are transferred to the local grammar school. The others remain at the high school for one more year of work-oriented and general terminal education.
It is apparent that such developments represent a departure from the direction set by the tripartite reorganization of 1944. The basic principle remains the same, but the anomalies of the system are being considered and perhaps will eventually be dealt with. Though the Ministry of Education has increased in scope and influence since 1944, its role is still primarily an advisory and a permissive one, while local authorities take the initiative. Thus the government approach is the traditional British one of cautious empiricism, accepting change when it is there, rather than moving towards it with any speed. Yet as one looks at the various developments in English secondary education in the last decade, a certain pattern does emerge. Attempts are being made to deal with injustice and inequality of opportunity, there is a response to the new needs of a speedily increasing school population, and to a new social philosophy.3 Educational thinking is responding to such factors as changes in social mobility, lessening of social distance, influence of mass media, and certain aspects of the idea of the Welfare State. But traditional characteristics of English education are not being abandoned.
Like the Crowther Report in Britain, the Rahmenplan (master plan) for West German School Reform published in April 1959 attempts to synthesize present educational thought and trends and provide direction for the future.4 It is basically a design for reform proposed by a committee of varied interests and specialties in a country where education is the responsibility of large local administrative units. The document aims at the unification of schools in the 11 Länder by closer collaboration of Federal and local power, and of citizens' committees representing a variety of national interests.
Here, as in most of Europe, the sequel to World War II is not far off. The Occupation forces were concerned with eradicating the education system which was one important means of inculcating the Nazi ideology. Decentralization was one means of breaking the uniform cast of German education. But once this had apparently been accomplished, there came into prominence a number of problems, some of them long-standing, others emerging in the contemporary society. The old traditions of state paternalism, of class consciousness, of the humanistic-classical intellectual tradition embodied in the education of the Gymnasium are the important background facts. The new phenomena are the revolutionary social and political changes of the last fifty years. The problem today is to improve access to secondary education, and to make it more appropriate for those who move on, that is, the total population. The dominant voices in the debates on education today in West Germany are those of various groups among the population, in itself a good sign in a country where hitherto vested interests (state or professional) used to have the only say.
In 1959, the Conference of Ministers of Education which was responsible for the Rahmenplan agreed to concentrate on three major points: extension of the Volkschule generally to nine years, improvement of secondary school selection procedures, and reforms in the narrow specialization of the last years of study at the Gymnasium. At the same time, however, experiments consistent with the recommendations of the total plan are to be encouraged. Thus the direction of future developments has been pointed, and includes a period of observation and "trying-out" for students completing their primary education (the Förderstufe of two years) followed by selection of one of several tracks. There is no wholesale abandonment of the traditional structure, but a serious attempt to provide opportunity for future white-collar or technical workers by expanding the Realschule. On the one hand, the most specialized and selective path of secondary education is to be "modernized," on the other, the opportunity of the student is to be increased in a number of alternative ways.
In many respects of course, the situation in Germany is comparable with that of England. The Gymnasium, somewhat like the English grammar school, is subject to question for its academic bias and its prestige; then there is the problem of equity for aspirants to such a desired avenue to advancement. There is also the problem of making the alternatives to an academic secondary education real ones. In society at large, there are also comparable phenomena: an increase in economic well-being, the emergence as voices to be reckoned with of larger masses of the population, the blurring (if not complete dissolution) of former class lines and all that goes with it.
Though it does propose expansion, the Rahmenplan does not move far from the traditional form of German education. In France, however, the post-war reform in education proposed by the Langevin Commission was a plan for radical change. The Reforms in Public Education of January 1959 are the end to a chapter of French educational history which covered thirteen years of argument over these proposals.5 In brief, the main provisions are as follows: the age limit for compulsory education was raised to sixteen years, provision was made for a two-year period of observation for eleven-year-olds ending primary education, followed by one of five different programs appropriate to the student as well as to the needs of French society.
In its acceptance of the two-year cycle d'observation, the French reform has telescoped the Langevin proposal of a five-year cycle of orientation. It not only recognizes the principle that a child is entitled to an educational environment which encourages the full development of his potential in all respects, but also establishes a system which should facilitate this. The alternatives which a child has after the age of thirteen, give him greater opportunity than ever before to obtain manual and technical education and to obtain a less onesidedly academic education.
One reason why such legislation was so long in being passed (it is a more modest variant of the Langevin proposals) is quite apparent: the weakness of successive post-war French governments. But the critical evaluation of French education implied in preparation for this measure is very significant. There is a deep concern for French national unity and sense of purpose dating back to the self-criticism and analysis which followed the capitulation of France in 1940, and which persisted through the post-war struggle to establish a sound economy, a stable government and a healthy society. There is also the realization that the traditional French education was no longer altogether adequate. Change in society, and changes in knowledge rendered the classical-humanistic instruction of the Lycée, and the Napoleonic system within which it operated, unjustly restricting, outdated and inadequate.
Once again, parallels may be drawn between these developments and those in other European countries. Though the war left different residues in each country, though developments since then have varied in each society, there have been similar criticisms of the nature of academic secondary education, of selection for it and of the absence of adequate alternatives. All three countries so far referred to plan in their respective ways to do justice to these problems.
Lest it be assumed that there are only similarities among the educational problems of European nations, mention must be made of Italy, which has recently entered upon its most ambitious educational plan.6 Large sums of money are to be spent over the next ten years to help schools from the kindergarten to the university. Yet the focus of this major legislation is quite different from that of educational activity in England, Germany and France. The main points are as follows: free education for all until fourteen years of age, and beyond this for those in professional schools; the provision of additional school places and teachers to cope with the increase.
The urgent need for these measures, unambitious as they may seem, is revealed by the fact that even today, illiteracy in some parts of Southern Italy is as high as 30 per cent, and approximately 40 per cent of Italian children between eleven and fourteen are not attending school at all. In Italy the problem is still, therefore, one of the basis of education, the total population. Much of the money will be devoted to implementing the principle of compulsory universal primary education, and what is to be spent for post-primary and university education will be for the increase of what exists in these areas. Thus the Government is strengthening a secondary structure which has little reference to the democratic aims implied in the total ten-year plan. Undoubtedly, when the effect of this present effort is felt, the secondary system will have to respond to pressures from below, and an example of such a response might be in terms of the new Medici proposals.7 This law would extend the common ladder upwards for one year in the lower secondary schools, and then establish a four-track system (humanistic, technical, artistic or general) into which students would be guided. But Italy, with all its long history of secondary and higher education, its wealth of tradition in learning, the arts, and technology, is in this respect far behind those countries already mentioned. She has still to find her way out of the vicious circle in which lack of money prevents educational expansion, and lack of trained personnel prevent economic expansion. Suffice it to say that in Italy, a multi-track secondary education for all has yet to be established, whereas in the other countries equity has to be injected and increased.
In attempting a comparison of educational trends in Western Europe, the problems are not only those of limitation of space. There is a multiplicity of terms of reference which must be defined, albeit briefly, for the achievements attained in education can only be evaluated with respect to the aims of education and the society under consideration. Former traditions and past progress in education are of course also relevant to such an examination. Even though the countries mentioned have all undergone similar historical and spiritual influences, such as Christianity, the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Industrial Revolution, nevertheless the outcomes were varied. Language, cultural tradition, "national character" are all very different, as are national aims and aspirations, and characteristic ways of doing things. Whereas England is in the main an industrial society, France is still predominantly rural and agricultural; Germany is extensively involved in the latest technological and industrial progress, Italy is much less so. France and Italy are traditionally committed to an "elitist" approach to education, though they reveal their peculiar differences. Church-State relations in education, and the role of private schooling are both topics which would help to complete the total picture.
These examples of variations could be multiplied in the areas of economic and social organization, politics, philosophy, history, to say the least. They are mentioned here as a reminder that any generalizations which might be made are subject to the characteristic qualities of a given country.
Much of the effort in education in Europe is still directed toward making good deficiencies for which World War II was responsible. The post-war rise in the birth-rate, now affecting the secondary schools, aggravated the difficulties. Success in coping with such problems is then at the lowest level a matter of money and numbers. The following figures illustrate growth in numbers alone:
Total no. of children in secondary education of all kinds8
England & Wales: 1948 1,875,997; 1956 2,475,000 France: 1950 794,070; 1956 1,157,000 W. Germany: 1950 828,631; 1956 1,218,000 Italy: 1950 503,943; 1955 659,000
While these figures do not show the age groups covered and the percentages of those in attendance, it does show one of the dimensions of the problem. But numerical expansion alone (or lack of it) is not the only concern. Reform and expansion in kind have been the main topic of this paper, and in this respect the major trends in Europe must now be reviewed.
In some respects, the countries which have been reviewed seem to be at different points along a road towards somewhat similar and allied goals. The traditional exclusivity and selectivity of secondary education in Europe is being dissipated as its more comprehensive function develops. Intense specialization is being lessened with the concern for a more general education. With more and more numbers being involved, standards of all kinds are being changed, and in the eyes of many, quality is giving way to quantity. So far as curriculum is concerned, the humanities withdraw somewhat and the sciences and technology advance. These trends, in some cases obvious, in others becoming more perceptible, are occurring in a context of flux in social class organization and of the response of industry to the impact of a new technological age.
All these countries have under consideration the problem of widening opportunity, both as an aspect of social justice, and as a part of national well-being and development. However, the American observer should be warned against assuming that talk of equality of opportunity means the same thing on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. Democratic thinking in Europe has not on the whole accepted the principle that the solution is to offer to all students the identical educational nourishment. The idea is rather that each should have the appropriate selections from the menu, and that some are more likely than others to appreciate and benefit from the more exotic dishes. It is only fair to point out that in the recent re-appraisal of education in the United States, the latter point of view is once again becoming respectable. it is debatable which outlook is philosophically more tenable and which in the long run more efficient. It is enough here merely to observe that they are rather different concepts of democracy, and that the extension of educational opportunity in European countries need not necessarily have the same ends as in the United States.
Of paramount importance too, is the role of administrative tradition in each country. The French plan, for example, is a blueprint which has yet to be implemented. Like the Italian measures, it has been devised by thinkers and is being implemented from above by planners. The Rahmenplan, and the structural changes emerging in English education seem to be more the result of protest from emergent groups in society demanding opportunity and parity. It is the latter which seem more spontaneous, more likely to be acceptable and effective, more in tune with the social movements of our time. The respective traditions of change in each country are to some extent also revealed by their plans. Yet the similarities in spirit and in the final goals which are stated, and the comparability of many of the measures, seem to suggest that educational change is moving in the same direction though from different points.
The specific ways in which proposals have been voiced and plans made are, of course, functions of conditions in that particular country. France, with its strong classical tradition of learning, is now seeking real alternatives to what was one narrow path to advancement. At the same time, a change is implied in the distance between social groups employed in different life activities, in the pre-eminence given to intellectual and literary skills. The nation, too, might be expected to benefit from development in its scientific, industrial and technological areas. That this process is one which will take considerable time is obvious. The example of England, further ahead on a similar path, reveals some of the brakes on progress that ingrained attitudes provide. While in England these emanate from traditional class attitudes (the whole area of the grammar school, and feelings associated with it) and a suspicion of speedy, imposed change, in France it is a result of a characteristic tradition of learning on one side, and on the other, an outlook deriving from the rural life of many of the population.
The problems raised by the offering of several different paths in secondary education are at the moment crucial in Europe. At some point or another, the school must make a decision on a student, and the student must be helped to choose. Ability, aspiration, prejudice -- all these play a part. A trend common to progressive thinking in England, France and Germany is apparent: there is less and less reliance on a selection test, and more time spent on sifting, selecting, guiding, directing. The "high school" in the Leicestershire Plan, the Förderstufe (Mittelschule or intermediary school) in the Rahmenplan, the cycle d'observation in the French reforms, all have this in common. What is unique in Europe then, is that as the single track is being extended upwards, the break between primary and secondary schooling which was so crucial (at about 11 years of age) is becoming a little less final, and a new division is emerging at about 13 or 14 years, after which the traditional specialization again emerges. Undoubtedly therefore, in structure, and in the aims of education for this intermediary level, parallels can be seen with the American junior High School, and a movement can be discerned in this direction.
Does this mean that in education, as well as in popular music and consumption of soft drinks, Western Europe is being Americanized? That the Soviet Union is correct in pointing out this voluntary (or involuntary) acceptance of cultural imperialism, and the danger to "Western" and "uncommitted" nations? In some respects, undoubtedly yes, though the phenomenon is not limited to countries outside the Soviet bloc. These, like the nations of Western Europe and North America, are all in varying degrees affected by the growing power of mass media of communication, and by the growth of administrative bureaucracy. With regional variations, the era of mass society is being achieved with all that is implied in this. Sociologically speaking, the older class divisions are gradually turning into a multiplicity of slightly differentiated strata. Leadership is moving away from the traditional elite into the hands of new groups, the managerial class, or "the diploma elite." In the United States, one notes this trend as a concomitant of the breaking-down of hereditary class privilege and the extension of equal opportunity to more and more people. In the Soviet Union it is associated with similar ideals, but more specifically with the efforts of a powerful oligarchy to achieve a classless society and a powerful industrial, economic and military unit in a short space of time. But the crucial similarity is surely that in all cases, the characteristics of a mass society are functions of industrialization and urbanization, as well as some form of egalitarian philosophy. Under both Soviet totalitarianism and Western democracy (French, English or American exemplars), similar trends are accounted for by similar objective facts of national development. The differences are seen to be functions of social organization and cultural tradition peculiar to the particular nation.
In secondary education, Europe is in varying degrees much aware of the fact that complete reliance upon the procedures and outlook of the nineteenth century (and earlier) is no longer adequate. Education for national development is important, but the memory of Nazi education is still strong. However, the older perspective, which includes the classical humanistic tradition in learning and an elitist organization of education, has by no means disappeared. It is still a part of educational thinking, and will continue to operate as a conservative influence upon the powerful pressures of government, industry and mass society. In this, it may even turn into a creative and dynamic influence in our present era, as the "New Conservatives" in both Europe and the United States claim. With all the criticism which may be levelled at it, the strong conservative educational precedents of Europe may yet be the antidote to the tendentious pressures of mass society.
Western European countries are faced with the problem of making secondary education multi-purpose. They are also confronted with the problems of their own changing societies, in which it is hoped the education system can play both a constructive role and one which will ease the tensions engendered by change. Those systems of secondary education which formerly trained leaders only, must continue to do so, but must recognize the need for more and different attributes and skills. At the same time, secondary education is now grappling with the task of mass education. In this, its greatest obligations are the maintenance of an educated citizenry, and the creation of defences against the evils of mediocrity, complacency and alienation, which are implicit in modern mass society.
NOTES
- Ministry of Education, 15 to 18; Report of the Central Advisory Committee for Education (England). Vol. 1 (Report). London; H.M.S.O., 1959. [BACK]
- Stewart C. Mason, The Leicestershire Experiment. London; Councils and Education Press Ltd., 1957. [BACK]
- Ministry of Education, Secondary Education for All -- A New Drive. Comnd. 604. London; H.M.S.O., Dec. 1958. Max Eckstein, "Britain's White Paper on Education and Its Implications," Comparative Education Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, June 1959.
Edmund J. King, "Comprehensive Schools in England," Comparative Education Review, Vol. 3, Nos. 2 and 3, Oct. 1959 and Feb. 1960. [BACK]
- Ursula Kirkpatrick, "The Rahmenplan for West German School Reform," Comparative Education Review, Vol. 4, No. 1, June 1960. [BACK]
- Cultural Services of the French Embassy, "Reforms in Public Education," Education in France. No. 5, Feb. 1959. Charles H. Dobinson, "French Educational Reform," Comparative Education Review, Vol. 3, No. 1, June 1959. [BACK]
- Lamberto Borghi and Anthony Scarangello, "Italy's Ten-Year Education Plan," Comparative Education Review, Vol. 4, No. 1, June 1960. [BACK]
- Joseph Justman, "Character and Quality of Italian Education," Information on Education Around the World. Bulletin No. 39WE, U. S. Dept. of Health, Education and Welfare, Feb. 1960. [BACK]
- U.S. Bureau of Census, Statistical Abstract of the United States. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C.; 1953, 1959. [BACK]