Discussion Exercises

XV. Read the text “The Great Education Debate” from the book by Karen Hewitt ‘Understanding Britain’. Answer the questions that follow it.

If you ask almost any teacher in Britain what he or she thinks of the situation in our schools today, you will receive everything from torrents of articulate anger to frenzied cries by those who think they are going crazy! Ask parents and you will find they are confused and often distressed. Ask the Government, and you will be faced with proposals, commissions, investigations and endless alterations to a mass of rales and regulations. Ask statisticians, and you will discover that more children are leaving school with better qualifications than ever before. Ask the children, and naturally you will hear contradictory verdicts.

Our education is in a state of crisis. The reasons are extremely interesting, and if explained fully would reveal to you much about the workings of our society and the conflicting philosophies on which it is based. In a short chapter, I can only outline a few of the issues. In no way is this a comprehensive account.

Russian textbooks on English education still tend to examine the arguments about grammar-and-secondary-modern schools versus comprehensive schools. This was the great educational debate of the nineteen sixties. Today the issues are different. My description is of the present system in England and Wales − arrangements in Scotland are not quite the same, and there are variations in Northern Ireland. In all parts of the United Kingdom, although laws govern the ages at which our children must attend school, and the hours that they must work during the year, the organisation of education is the responsibility of each local authority (elected council controlling a certain area). Therefore there are many variations of detail from one authority to the next.

The present government would like the system to be more centralised, as it is in France or, indeed, was in the Soviet Union. Since, in practice, education is paid for by the state (from our taxes) with only a small proportion of the costs paid from local taxes, the government argues that it should have more control over what happens in schools. Local authorities argue that they understand local conditions better, and that they are more directly responsible to the parents of the children they educate. One educational consequence of this quarrel is that the government passed laws to ensure that all children spent a high proportion of their time on a group of “core subjects” − English, mathematics, science, and, in the secondary schools, a foreign language. Nobody doubts that these are very important subjects; problems arise when teachers or local autlionties argue that other subjects should be given more time because they also are important. How do you squeeze into a timetable not only the core subjects but also history and geography, other sciences (a choice of physics, biology, chemistry, instead of a general science course), art, another foreign language, music, practical subjects like woodwork and needlework, maybe Latin, even Greek, P.E. (physical education), religious studies, courses for personal development − and what about economics, politics, commercial subjects...? The list can continue for a long time if we count all the different kinds of courses offered in normal comprehensive schools across the country. Not all courses exist in all schools; but local authorities argue for variety, central government is concerned that all children should have a proper basic education.

Arguments about what should be studied in the schools are closely related to the structure of the schools, and also the relationship between state and private schools. In England, about 93% of children attend state schools. The other 7% attend 'private' schools, sometimes called “independent” schools. A minority of these private schools are boarding schools where children live as well as study. You will probably have read about such schools in English novels and stories, and you may have the impression that most British school children go to them. In fact, probably less than 3% of children are “boarders”. Private schools are very expensive, whether they are day schools or boarding schools, so the pupils at them are the children of our privileged elites. But many parents who could afford to send their children at least to a day school actively choose not to do so. The vast majority of children, including those from professional and business homes, attend state schools.

All children are required by law to attend school full-time between the ages of 5 and 16. For younger children there are a few state kindergartens, some private kindergartens and a few “nursery classes” in ordinary schools. About half our four-year-olds have a few hours of education a week, but for under-fours very little is provided.

A typical school day starts at about 9 a.m. with three hours of lessons (divided by short breaks) in the morning, followed by a “dinner hour” at which cheap meals are provided, and then two more hours of lessons in the afternoon. So school finishes around 3.30 or 3.45. For younger children the day is shorter. We have no school on Saturday or Sunday. Instead of one very long holiday in the summer with very short breaks at other times, our children have three “terms” in a year, with about 254 weeks of holiday at Christmas/New Year, 2 weeks at Easter and 6 or 7 weeks in the summer. In addition there are short mid-term breaks of a few days.

For the first two years of schooling (5-6) children are ex­pected to learn to read and write, to do simple sums, to learn basic practical and social skills, and to find out as much as they can about the world through stories, drama, music, crafts and through physical exercise. A good infants school is rather like the older years in one of your good kindergartens, except that much more emphasis is put on reading and writing, and children are perhaps more strongly encou­raged to do and make things themselves.

It is assumed that most children can read by the time they start their third year of schooling. Some of them will be fluent, others will still need help. For school work now depends on reading and writing. From 7 to about 11 or 12, children are at a school where the class teacher is still a central figure for them, because he or she teaches many basic lessons. But increasingly there is emphasis on subjects with subject teachers. There will probably be a special teacher for maths, another for crafts, another for French, if French is provided at this age. But at these ages, except perhaps for maths, children are not usually divided into different levels of ability. However, within each class there may be several different groups, each working on a different part of the subject, requiring different intellectual under­standing. Classrooms are often informal in arrangement. Children work at tables, and move around fairly freely in the course of studying a practical topic. Such learning methods are the pride of many teachers, parents and educationalists, and the despair of others. Do children learn essential skills and knowledge best if they are sitting in rows listening to a teacher in front of a blackboard, or if they can follow their own inclinations and work in their own way at their own pace? Of course, an obvious answer is that a mixture of both methods is probably best − and probably most often practised – but the discussion tends to divide people into opposing camps. “My child isn't learning anything! He just wastes time talking and playing! ” says one exasperated parent. “My child is bored to death! The teacher just talks at the children and never asks them for any response, ” says another. Or, if the parents are pleased, you can hear one parent saying proudly, “Annie was thrilled by the class study of “water”. They did all sorts of things – physics experiments, learning about the Indian monsoons and measuring rainfall, reading legends about the sea, writing poems about wet autumn days, and catching frogs in the local pond.” And another parent will be saying, 'Tom really knows his grammar and his rules of arithmetic. And he has written an interesting report of the geography expedition the teacher organised last week – and no misspellings. Not bad for a ten-year-old! ”

Which sort of teaching gives a better education? We know some answers. Clever children flourish in either type of class, and slow children will find both difficult, though they will probably enjoy the more active, informal teaching. The children in the middle – the majority – provide conflicting evidence. Formal teaching gives them solidly based skills, informal teaching encourages them to ask questions and understand relationships. But can you ask questions and understand relationships if you haven't got a solid basis of skills first?

The government is worried that children may be learning in an anarchical situation, and has introduced national testing of basic knowledge. Teachers complain that this takes up too much precious time, and that mechanical testing does not demonstrate real understanding.

At about 11 or 12 children move to a new school, usually a “comprehensive” that will accept all the children from three or four neighbouring junior schools. Changing to the “big” school is a great moment in life for them.

At this stage comes the debate about " streaming” − that is, dividing pupils into different groups according to ability. A few local authorities still send clever children to one school and slow children to another but now that the vast majority of secondary schools are comprehensive (i.e. accept children of all abilities) the decisions have to be made within the schools. Very few teachers believe that it is possible to educate children of all abilities together if some are going to study ad­vanced mathematics, for example. On the other hand, few teachers want to go back to rigid streaming where children were kept apart, and those at the bottom were always at the bottom.

Since Soviet schools did try to educate all children together, it is natural for your teachers now to be enthusiastic about streaming. But rigid streaming is considered reactionary in this country and unfair to children who are denied opportuni­ties for educational advancement because they are put into categories at an early age. However, it is easier to organise special help for slower children if they are all together in one group. And clever children like to work with clever children. So the schools are always in a dilemma. Parents are eager for 'their' child to do best; but the school and the teachers have to consider all children. The most common solution is to organise children into both classes of mixed ability and groups of similar ability, and to organise timetables in which they are moving between classes and groups….

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When the pupils reach the age of 14-15, some of those problems tend to solve themselves because of subject “options”. Russian school children sometimes believe that life in British schools must be wonderful because pupils can de­cide for themselves what they are going to study. Life is not quite so simple! Every pupil has to take a national examination at 16, called GCSE (General Certificate of Secondary Education). The examination must be taken in “core” subjects, plus three or four or five other subjects. These are chosen, in discussion with teaches, from a list. But there is no “free choice” because of timetables and demands for a coherent education. One of the subjects must be practical, another must be part of “social studies” – geography, history, etc. Academic pupils will be able to choose mostly academic subjects, those who find school work more difficult can concentrate on practical and technical subjects. The examinations involve written (and sometimes practical) papers, sometimes two papers in each subject, and they are marked nationally. There is a complicated (and changing) system of marking. We never have anything as simple as your “5” or “4” or “3”. Exams are usually marked, out of 100, and then “converted” into grades -maybe five or seven or eight grades. This means that there is far less subjective impression of whether this or that pupil deserves a good mark or a not-so-good mark.

At the end of the year in which he or she reaches 16, a British pupil can leave school. Many do; though of these, some go on to further training for employment. Although the situation has been improving slowly, far fewer children in the United Kingdom stay on after 16 at school than in most European countries including Russia. Why do children rush to leave school, even if their future is probably unemployment? Has school failed them? Are they already condemned to miserable lives because they have not been properly taught the essentials? Have they suffered from a lack of discipline? Or have they had too much discipline? Should lessons be devoted more to practical skills and 'training for jobs' so that, at least, they will find that school has been useful? (This is the present government's view.) Or is that a philistine approach? Would it be better to give these children a broad, liberalising education, so that their lives will not be too much bounded by work? Or should there be ever-greater insistence on qualifications, qualifications, qualifi­cations? These are the questions that are constantly raised in our intense and often bitter debates about what education is for.

Such debates are really about the nature of society. Should we be educating workers to become workers, thereby limiting the lives of children but making the capitalist system perhaps more efficient (from which they may possibly benefit) or should we be using education to break down these barriers? Is education primarily intended to turn children into citizens – in which case there should be a lot of emphasis on social education and working together in groups? Or should education be essentially 'child-centered', which is a phrase meaning that as far as possible the needs of the individual child should be put above the needs of the group. And is “child-centered education” eventually a way of confirming differences which separate children from each other, or is it a way of bringing them together in co-operation?

The school inspectors have a clear message. Teachers are the most important element in education, and children will do better or worse according to the expectations of their teachers. If a teacher has decided that a particular boy is stupid, he will do badly. If another teacher decides that he is intelligent, he will do better. Teachers too often expect too little of their pupils, say the inspectors. They should demand more. Teachers reply that improvement requires more books and other resources, and above all more time. They are spending too much time on administration and paperwork!

Pupils who stay at school can take a variety of further courses. The most important is the “A-level”, which is usually studied in three subjects. Pupils who want to enter university spend their last two years at school (17-18) studying intensively just those three subjects. It means that when they start their university' course they are already much more advanced than undergraduates in most other countries, and a first degree in three years is common practice. (And our undergraduates compare well with others.) But is that too narrow an education for adolescents? It is convenient for the universities, but is it fair on the pupils to be forced to specialise so soon? Some teachers and educationalists want a broader education for these older pupils, others support the present 'deep' education.

'A-levels' are also marked nationally. At this point the grades are crucial, because the university and polytechnic places are awarded on the basis of A-Ievel grades. Bad A-levels can change your life! And because they are marked nationally, there is no personal appeal against them.

All British universities and polytechnics are state institutions. Entry is by academic merit, and those who win place; get their fees paid and are also paid a grant (stipend), as ii your country. Students enter university at 18 or 19, are almost always living away from home, and are probably more independent in outlook than your students. 'Most of them complete their degrees in three years, a few in four years. A degree is awarded on the basis of examination, and sometimes оf “course work”. (I discuss this problem below.) Afterwards a minority compete for places to do graduate research work; the rest go out into the world to look for jobs. Jobs are not easy to find; and undergraduate unemployment can be quite high in the first few months after leaving university. Polytechnics also provide degree courses; and for those who do not reach university or polytechnic, there are all sorts of lower courses and qualifications by studying part-time at local colleges.

Another major debate at university level is about “assessment”, which, in turn, requires university lecturers to reconsider what is actually taught. This particular argument is now becoming ever more urgent in the secondary schools. It illustrates some of the biggest differences between your system and ours.

British education has traditionally been directed toward: academically clever children. These children have to “prove” them­selves from an early age by writing long examination papers. Emphasis has therefore been on memory, on clear expression of arguments, on intelligent selecting of evidence and reaching of conclusions – not just a memory test, but a test of knowledge and rational judgment. The same process happens in universities, where a degree used to be awarded on the basis of many examination papers taken at the end of the course.

Since the seventies, step by step, teachers have been introducing “continuous assessment” on the basis of “course work” – that is, the work which a pupil does during a course. Most of this will also be written, but some will be oral. It will be part of the normal day's lessons, a description perhaps, or a map with personally researched information about a distant country; or an effort to imagine (and write down) an account of contrasting lives of rich people and poor people in Victorian England. Teachers say that this kind of work should provide some of the marks for results at GCSE – and in many schools pupils follow a syllabus in which course work is marked as well as exam papers. Now, similar proposals are being made about degree courses. Should they depend wholly upon examinations, or should weekly or fortnightly essays also be taken into account? If so, there is much more opportunity for selecting 'optional short courses' which together make up a degree.

Some university lecturers are delighted at the freedom to build “mixed” courses, while others worry that pupils will have no coherent body of knowledge but just a mixture of bits and pieces for their degree. And there is another problem. Students quickly learn which lecturers are generous with their marks, which ones are harsh; and not surprisingly they join the courses where they can expect to get good marks even if they prefer the other topics or teachers. Results are crucial! Such a situation, which is bound to tempt some teachers into academic corruption, is mostly avoided if anonymous exa­mination papers are marked instead. However, many university lecturers and even more school teachers feel that continuous assessment and assessment of course work are fairer ways of judging a pupil than end-of-year exams.

It should be clear that neither in schools nor universities do we put much emphasis on oral work, and very little indeed on oral tests. The kind of oral examinations I have observed in Russian universities are unknown here. Perhaps that is why Russians are so fluent at talking while so many English adults hesitate and stumble. But most of us expect to be able to write fairly fluently.

The emphasis on written exams means that for long periods schoolchildren do not have to worry about any marks. Teachers are not expected to give marks for each lesson, or indeed for a whole week of lessons. And if they do, they often try to distinguish between “effort” and “achievement”. Every teacher knows the little boy who is trying very hard but who will never be very successful and the bone-idle boy or girl who can get good marks without effort. So they are always looking for ways of rewarding the first, and challenging the second. Written school reports which pupils have to present to their parents at the end of each year try to make these distinctions.

Teachers will recognize at least some of the problems I have tried to describe here. But why the sense of crisis? Consider: over the last few years, schools have been at the centre of quarrels between local and central government; they have been restructured within and without in response to local demands for comprehensive schooling, or because of falling birth-rates, or rearrangements of age-groups. Teachers have had to re-plan all their syllabuses and time-tables; some subjects have become central, others have been abandoned, even if the skills of the teachers do not fit with what is required. New national examinations (GCSE) have been introduced and new methods of assessment (GCSE by course work); the government has planned national “age-tests” against the wishes of most teachers; streaming has been abolished, re-introduced, re-organised, and is still the subject of fierce debate; more and more children stay on to compete for university places but there are in some subjects fewer teachers to teach them. Meanwhile an alarmingly high proportion of children leave school early. Written reports have been revised, restyled, and made mandatory; this takes a long time. Politicians are forever questioning teachers about their methods and expecting them to justify them. Behind it all there are three conflicting philosophies of education. Should schools provide training and vocational skills to prepare pupils for working life? Should they be providing social skills and prepare them to be good citizens; or should they be encouraging each child to develop his or her sense of their own worth? Each philosophy requires a different approach from the teacher, and conflicting methods of assessment. Every morning, it seems, teachers wake up to new directives from the government contradicting previous directives. Everybody is full of ideas but the ideas develop in opposite directions. This has been going on for several years British teachers now feel utterly exhausted at trying to respond to everything that has been demanded of them. Now they want money, time and quiet. But they will not get what they want – or maybe they will get just a little!