Primary school attendance began at age 5 and was usually divided into an infant stage (ages 5 to 7) and a junior stage (ages 8 to 11). In those few localities using a middle school organization, children attended the middle school from age 8 or 9 to age 13 or 14. Preschool provision was uneven, but a great deal of innovation took place in the ideas and practices of early childhood learning. In the infant school, children worked together with their teacher. Children might be placed together vertically in the same class, like a family group. Play was considered an activity of central significance in the infant school. It was a vehicle for the child’s motivation and learning, carefully structured to promote cognitive development. The teacher’s job was to set the environment through organization of space, time, and materials; to encourage, guide, and stimulate; and to see that all children learn and develop independence and responsibility. Studies were interrelated, and the curriculum was flexible.
The compromise regarding school organization was representative of the British educational administration’s attempt to balance local and national interests delicately. Local education authorities were responsible for basic school operations, and much of the professional responsibility was passed on to the school. This representation of community and professional interest was underscored in policy documents, such as the 1980 Education Act’s stipulation that governing boards include at least two parent and two teacher representatives. Local education authorities maintained a professional administrative staff and administered school finances, which were funded primarily by government grants and local property taxes.
Ultimate authority for education was at the national level, with the Department of Education and Science (formerly the Ministry of Education) headed by the secretary of state for education and science. The department was the agent of governmental policy. It reached schools through circulars and directives as well as through Her Majesty’s Inspectors of Schools. The inspectors increasingly advised and reported on the general condition of schooling.
Under the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher, emphasis was placed on management efficiency. While decentralization applied to operational decisions, the government increasingly pushed for standardization of curriculum and streamlining of assessment procedures. Traditionally, curriculum had been decentralized to the extreme in the United Kingdom, being a matter of teacher’s professional judgment, unified only informally (though effectively) through the influence of teacher training, publicized curriculum projects, textbook choices, and public examination syllabi. This resulted in a great deal of curriculum agreement in the common schooling period, narrowing to a secondary core to age 16, including a wide range of options in the comprehensive school, and different basic curricula in selective systems. Independent schools showed some variations, particularly in the requirement of Latin, and the upper secondary stage was characterized by specialization. Through the 1970s and ’80s, however, there was central pressure on curriculum improvement in science, practical elements, technical and vocational education, and the relationship of education to economic life. Influential publications proposed standardization of the curriculum nationally.
Margaret Thatcher, 1983.AP
Probably the issue that received the most attention was the relationship of education to the economy, to industry, and to work. Much of the impact of this attention was on the post-compulsory sector. Schemes developed outside the educational establishment provided training for young school-leavers. The Technical and Vocational Education Initiative called for local education authority cooperation with the Manpower Services Commission in the introduction of technical courses that spanned school and post-school training. Reforms to the examination and certification system exemplified the government’s thrust toward improvement of the education–economy link, toward rationalization of the system, and toward coordinated, standardized assessment procedures. Further education
Further education was officially described as the “post-secondary stage of education, comprising all vocational and nonvocational provision made for young people who have left school, or for adults.” Further education thus embraced the vast range of university, technical, commercial, and art education and the wide field of adult education. It was this sector of education, which was concerned with education beyond the normal school-leaving ages of 16 or 18, that experienced the most astonishing growth in the number of students.
In the 19th century, the dominance of the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge was challenged by the rise of the civic universities, such as London, Manchester, and Birmingham. Following the lead of the 18th-century German universities and responding to a public demand for increased opportunity for higher education, Britain’s new civic universities quickly acquired recognition—not only in technological fields but also in the fine and liberal arts.
Many new post-school technical colleges were founded in the early 20th century. The Fisher Act of 1918 empowered the local authorities to levy a rate (tax) to finance such colleges. The universities, on the other hand, received funds from the central government through the University Grants Committee, established in 1911 and reorganized in 1920, after World War I.
A new type of technical college established in the 1960s, the polytechnic, provided mainly university-level technological as well as general courses in the arts and sciences. Polytechnics were chartered to award degrees validated by a Council for National Academic Awards.
Thus, the tertiary level in the United Kingdom was made up of colleges of further education, technical colleges, polytechnics, and universities. The colleges offered full-time and part-time courses beyond compulsory-school level. Polytechnics and universities were mainly responsible for degrees and research. The innovative Open University, with its flexible admission policy and study arrangements, was established in 1971. It used various media to provide highly accessible and flexible higher education for working adults and other part-time students. It served as an organizational model and provided course materials for similar institutions in other countries.
Changes in British education in the second half of the 20th century extended education by population, level, and content without changing the basic values of the system. New areas for expansion included immigrant cultural groups and multicultural content, the accommodation of special needs, and the development of tools and content in the expanding fields of microelectronics. Germany Imperial Germany
The formation of the German Empire in 1871 saw the beginning of centralized political control in the country and a corresponding emphasis on state purposes for education. Although liberal and socialist ideas were discussed—and even practiced in experimental schools—the main features of the era were the continued systematization of education, which had progressed in Prussia from 1763, and the class-based division of schools. Education for the great bulk of the population stressed not only literacy but also piety and morality, vocational and economic efficiency, and above all obedience and discipline. The minority of citizens in the upper social and economic strata were educated in separate schools according to a classical humanist rationale of intelligence and fitness that equipped them to fill the higher positions in the Reich. Reform proposals in the last decade of the 19th century led to an overhaul of the education system, but the changes did not remove class privileges.