The Social Revolution in Education

By ANGUS MAUDE, MP

71HE year 1964 brings two important British I anniversaries besides the Shakespeare Quater- centenary. One is the fiftieth anniversary of the outbreak of the First World War, which marked the end of an old social order; the other is the twentieth anniversary of the passing of the Butler Act, which made possible the birth of a new one. This makes it appropriate that 1964 should have seen the announcement of the second 'great leap forward' to a minimum school-leaving age of sixteen in 1970-71.

The social revolution—or perhaps it would be more accurate to call it a rapid process of evolution—is well under way. The fact that it still has some distance to go should not distract attention from what has already happened, particularly as the process is in a sense both self- perpetuating and self-accelerating.

Those who have read the Robbins and Newsom Reports simply as statements of what remains to be done—or, as the Labour Party naturally prefers, as indictments of Tory inadequacy— have missed the point. They are also a record of achievement.

We shall see what can be deduced from them about the kind of new society we are beginning to create. And there is something to be said for starting at the 'Newsom end' of the educational spectrum, with the children of 'average and less than average ability.'

'It is.' says the Report, `a success story that we have to tell. . . . There are indications of marked improvement over the last fifteen years. There is opportunity for more improvement to come and reason to expect it.' The ignorant talk which is still to be heard about 'lowered educa- tional standards' is firmly rebutted by the results of the Ministry of Education's tests of reading ability, which show a remarkable improvement in vocabulary (which is the essential basis for subsequent success both in GCE and in further education). Tests of samples of secondary modern school children aged fourteen years eight months showed that the average score had risen from 18.0 in 1948 to 21.3 in 1961, representing a gain of very nearly two years in 'reading age.'

'There are reasons,' says the Newsom Report, 'to expect that their successors will be better still. One is the working out of the social handicaps which are so marked in their influence on present educational achievements.' Both Newsom and Robbins emphasise the wide differences in attainment which still exist between children from different socio-economic classes, but Newsom shows conclusively that it is narrowing A comparison was made of the proportions of boys and girls from maintained grammar schools Who secured at least five '0' level passes in 1951 and 1961, distinguished according ta the occupa- tions of their fathers. If the improvement in results is measured by dividing the later propor- tions by the earlier, there is seen to have been an average increase of about 17 per cent; but the improvement was no less than 32 per cent in the case of sons of semi-skilled and unskilled manual workers (compared with 12 per cent for sons of Professional and managerial fathers) and 21 per cent for daughters (compared with I per cent).

What can be proved to be happening in the grammar schools, the Newsom Report goes on to saY, 'is reported by the heads we consulted to be true also of modern schools.' It describes this narrowing of differentials as 'a first instalment of what can be expected as manual workers become increasingly familiar with what secondary education offers their children.'

This is important, for Robbins makes it clear that there is little, if any, difference in innate ability between the different socio-economic classes. The quality of primary schooling (the variations in which are still wide, but narrowing) is important; so is the home environment, which may determine parental attitudes towards the child's work and even the child's vocabulary. But the most important factor of all is the age at which the child is compelled or encouraged to leave school.

Here the figures show a striking advance. The prpportion of fifteen-year-olds staying on at school has risen from just under 30 per cent in 1950 to nearly 43 per cent last year. The propor- tion of sixteen-year-olds at school is up from 14 per cent in 1950 to 23.5 per cent, while the proportions of children aged seventeen and eighteen have about doubled. In the last four years alone, the number staying on in the sixth forms of maintained schools has risen by more than 55 per cent.

Here is the basis for the steady growth in the proportion of boys and girls achieving qualifica- tions for university entrance, which clearly demonstrates that the 'Robbins gap' is far from being simply the result of the post-war 'bulge' in the birth-rate. The proportion of the age-group securing five or more '0' levels rose from 11.1 per cent in 1954 to 15.8 per cent in 1961; it is estimated that, compared with 1954, the propor- tion securing five or more '0' levels (and the same rate of growth is expected for 'A' levels) will have about doubled by 1970.

It would have nearly trebled, at present rates, by 1985, when it was estimated that one-third of all boys would be gaining five or more '0' levels and nearly a quarter one or more 'A' levels. Now, of course, with the raising of the minimum leav- ing age to sixteen—which will bring also an increase in numbers staying on to seventeen or eighteen—these proportions should be greatly increased.

Moreover, there has been a huge increase in both the demand for and provision of further education facilities. At present, something, like two-thirds of boys and girls between the ages of fifteen and eighteen are either still at school or receiving full- or part-time further education, and the proportion of those between eighteen and twenty-one is around 30 per cent. Robbins expects that 'the demand for places in further education will grow at a rate two-thirds as fast as the output of qualified school-leavers.'

The effects of all this cannot fail to be revolu- tionary. For there is another major social change going on which is not yet reflected in the educa- tional statistics. Robbins is much more cautious than Newsom in perceiving any narrowing of the gaps between the educational attainments of children from different socio-economic classes, but the report qualifies its caution with the important proviso that 'the proportion of the population engaged in non-manual occupations is steadily rising,' so that the figures conceal a part of the improvement in attainments of the children of the 'new middle class.' It can be assumed that automation and other technological changes will cause this occupational shift to continue, if not to accelerate.

This means that an increasing proportion of the next generation will be born into homes where the advantages of secondary and further educa- tion are well recognised. But in any case, the figures already quoted show clearly that a rapidly increasing proportion of young people marrying now or likely to marry in the near future have been educated up to. or beyond GCE '0' level. Both Robbins and Newsom emphasise the immense influence of parental attitudes on the education of children, and it is certain that attitudes outside the old professional and managerial middle class are changing rapidly. Moreover, the Crowther Report revealed that—despite the attraction of

independence and high wages for juveniles—

there is a markedly greater desire for longer schooling among today's young people than among their parents. This is in part due to the better quality and greater interest of today's secondary school courses, and partly due to recognition that education does begin to 'pay off' in better jobs at a quite early age.

All this suggests that future educational pro- gress may be startling. It may well be, as the reports recognise, that future proportions of boys and girls staying on at school and passing GCE will increase at a compound, rather than at the recent simple, rate of interest. This will begin to give us a society not just with an 'American pattern' of secondary, further and higher educa- tion, but with near-American proportions of young people at school and college and much higher average standards of education.

This is clearly bound to bring us rapidly nearer to a 'middle-class society.' The change will no doubt be reflected in changes in social mores—in further increases in demand for non-council housing, for example.

In addition, it will be likely to make free State- aided education more attractive to the 'old middle class.' Current changes are already having this effect, as standards of grammar schooling continue to improve and more and more authorities move away from rigid tripartite systems of selection at eleven-plus. Anything which helps to remove the socially divisive ele- ment in education will be to the benefit of the country.

It would be rash to be dogmatic about the possible political effects of all this. But it is at least probable that the most marked effects will be those on -the I.abour Party and the trade unions. Old-fashioned class-conscious 'workers' politics' and proletarian trade unionism will have to adapt rapidly or die. Already it is possible to discern the increasing influence of white-collar organisations. Perhaps it is not too optimistic to perceive the near approach of that genuinely modern radical party of the left that the country so badly needs. 'Labour,' in the old sense, is already obsolescent.

To the extent that the Conservative Party can continue to adapt itself rapidly and constructively to these social changes, it will gain some short- term advantages. It may also succeed in winning the allegiance of an increasing proportion of the new middle class.

Tories may well feel, however, that possible political gain is quite secondary to the satisfaction

of having engineered a social revolution by the best methods of Tory democracy. Whenever the long period of Conservative rule comes to an end, our society will have become composed to a far greater extent than before of 'the same kind of people.' And this will be due, more than to anything else, to the educational reforms pioneered twenty years ago by R. A. Butler and so courageously accelerated by David Ecclea