- Inequalities of the British education system
During the 1890s, the Fabian Society and others were concerned about the inequality of the education system that ‘favoured the children of wealthier parents, wasted the abilities of working class children, and resulted in economic inequality’. At this time, it was almost impossible for those who did not attend a grammar or private school to gain a higher qualification or obtain employment in one of the more highly paid or influential occupations.
There were a few notable exceptions. James Keir Hardie (1856-1915), a self-educated man who started work at the age of seven, became a Member of Parliament (MP) at the age of forty. He campaigned for an education that was ‘free at all stages, open to everyone without any tests of prior attainment at any age’ (Westminster Gazette, 1 Aug. 1896).
The Education Act 1902 established local authority higher elementary or secondary schools, which enabled some academically gifted, working class pupils to receive a secondary education if they qualified for a place. However, they were only able to take up the offer if they received a scholarship or their parents could afford the school uniform and the other costs involved.
The Education Act 1944 gave all children access to free secondary education at a secondary modern, technical or grammar school, with selection based on an examination at the age of 10 or 11. Pupils who passed were awarded a place at either a state-funded grammar school or a direct grant grammar school, both of which offered an academic education. Very few technical schools were built so the majority of pupils attended a secondary modern school, which offered a more practical curriculum and fewer opportunities to study for those examinations needed to achieve higher paid jobs.
Table 17. Secondary schools in England and Wales, 1964
| Type of secondary school | Number of schools | |
| Secondary modern schools
Grammar schools Direct grant grammar schools Technical schools Bi- and Multi-lateral schools Comprehensive schools Other secondary schools All-age schools |
3,906
1,298 179 186 69 195 240 411 |
|
Source: Statistics of Education 1964 HMSO 1965 p.12
Circular 10/65, issued by the DES in 1965, requested but did not compel LEAs to convert secondary schools into non-selective comprehensive ones.
Some counties retained some of the existing grammar schools but 90 per cent of state secondary schools in England were comprehensive and co-educational by 1975.
Some LEAS provided a two-tier system, within which pupils changed from primary to secondary schools at the age of 11, whilst others organised their schools into a three-tier system in which pupils attended a middle school for three or four years between a primary and a secondary school. Suffolk LEA operated a mixture of the two systems.
The School Standards and Framework Act 1998 prohibited the building of grammar schools and provided the mechanism for their abolition, so that, by 2015, only 164 grammar schools remained. However, in October 2015, the Conservative Government granted permission for a new grammar school site to be opened as an ‘annexe’, nine miles away from an existing grammar school.
In the UK in 2012, 88 per cent of schoolchildren attended comprehensive schools, 5 per cent grammar schools and 7 per cent independent (private) schools.
In 2014, the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission found that a disproportionate number of people in influential jobs had been educated at an independent school.
Table 18. Percentage of people in influential occupations in 2014, educated at an independent school
| Occupations | % educated at an independent school |
| Senior judges
Senior armed forces officers Commons select committee chairs Permanent Secretaries Diplomats Newspaper columnists Public body chairs Members of the House of Lords |
71
62 57 55 53 43 45 50 |
Source : http://www.gov.uk/government/publications/elitist-britain
In May 2015, 17 per cent of Labour Party MPs and 48 per cent of Conservative Party MPs were educated at independent schools, 19 per cent of all MPs at grammar schools, and 49 per cent at comprehensive schools (Sutton Trust analysis).
The subject of comprehensive schools remains controversial and it is highly likely that the current policy will be overturned in the future.
BERTUNA'S CHILDREN 