Educational Policies Detail

Question 1

1944 Education Act:
Policy features

Answer 1

• Introduced compulsory state education up to the age of 14
• Set up a tripartite system of ‘equal status’ schools: Grammar, Secondary Modern, Technical Schools
• Children would sit an IQ test at 11 that measured their innate ability (the 11+)
• Those who passed the 11+ exam would go to a grammar school (approx. 20%)

Question 2

1944 Education Act:
Policy aims

Answer 2

• Post war welfare state - creating a land fit for heroes
• Beveridge report - 5 ‘evils’: ignorance
• It wanted to abolish inequalities in state education
• The 11+ exam was seen as a fair and scientific way to measure ability that a child was ‘born with’

Question 3

1944 Education Act:
Evaluation

Answer 3

+ it provided upward social mobility for the working class
children who passed the 11+ and continues to provide a
high quality education for 5% of UK children that still go
to a grammar school
- Really only two schools choices as technical colleges were too expensive to build and were phased out
- Secondary modern and technical students were labelled failures and often not allowed to sit formal qualifications as a result of the labelling, wasting large swathes of working class talent
- Marxists were critical of the elaborate code that the 11+ exam was written in excluding working class children and ethnic minorities who spoke in more restricted code. Grammar schools were heavily populated by middle class students dispelling the notion of innate ability
- Feminists were critical as there were fewer girls grammar school places meaning that girls required a higher pass rate than boys to attend. It was assumed that most girls would aspire to the expressive role in the family.
- Disparity in grammar school places across the UK - 12% in places, 40% in others