Schools today
Where are you going in our society? To the top? Are you going to become one of the TOP TEN per cent, that constitute the capitalist class? How are you going to get there? Perhaps, you think, via the educational system?
Commenting on the figures in Table IV below the London School of Economics Magazine (Sept. 1963) stated: “The easiest way to become a top person is to go to a public school (and) on to Oxford and Cambridge. . . .”
The figures in Table IV alone suggest this, but perusal of the other tables provide evidence that this observation is incorrect (compare Tables I and V). The percentages of incomes below £1,000 p.a. and pupils at state schools roughly coincide at 90 per cent. The same applies to incomes over £1,000 p.a. and pupils at non-state schools, i.e., 10 per cent. Coincidence do you think? Look at Table II. Could you or your parents afford those fees? Nine out of ten of the population definitely could not. In fact, a large proportion of workers earn less per annum than the fees per annum of the best known public schools, which provide the “leaders” of society. It is obvious that you do not have to go to public school and university to reach the top, but that you must be at the top in order to go to a public school and university. Table III shows how difficult it is for men from state schools to get into Oxford and Cambridge. Not only is the percentage of entrants smaller, but they come from a far greater number (see Table I). Women may find it easier; upper class girls go on to finishing schools instead of university, but note the number of places available.
These figures prove conclusively that it is easier to stay at the top than to get there. Further, if you are at the top you will have every opportunity to get the best education. But what do we mean by the best education? And what opportunities has the working class of receiving it?
The National Association of Schoolmasters in its pamphlet Educational Objectives in Further Education states that there are two views on education:
“In one view, men are divided into groups or classes, each with its own particular skill and qualities. Each group can play a part in increasing the total productivity of industry and thus, it is presumed, raise the sum of distributable wealth. Education would function so as to produce a hierarchy of producers ranging from an elite of managers and administrators at the top, to a large body of semi-skilled workers at the bottom. In the second view it is held that each individual’s life has the same value. This implies that each man has the right to develop his own individuality to the highest point that he is capable of reaching. In this case Education would aim at producing well-adjusted personalities.”
It is obvious which the capitalist class provides for itself, and it is equally obvious which the workers receive under capitalism. In fact, the two recent reports on education by Newsom and Robbins aim at making education in the first view more efficient.
The Times Educational Supplement (18/10/63) in its article on the Newsom Report states:
“. . . there is much unrealised talent, especially among boys and girls whose potential is masked by inadequate powers of speech and the limitations of the home background. . . The economic argument for investment in these children is that the future pattern of employment in this country will require a much larger pool of talent than is at present available. . . The need is not only for more skilled workers to fill existing jobs, but also for a generally better and intelligently adaptable labour force to meet new demands.”
Quite definite is it not? You are to be educated, if you are one of the half of the population which receive secondary modern education, to fill the “larger pool”; though probably some movement towards the second view will develop so that you do not become “rebellious,” and to make you more “adaptable.”
The same article also reported:
“. . . only a quarter (of the schools) in 1961 had an adequate library room . . ., more than a quarter had no library room at all. A third . . . had no proper science laboratories. Half had no special room for teaching music, and these included many schools in which the single hall had to serve for assembly, gymnasium and dining.”
The working class always receive the inferior goods and services under capitalism. Undoubtedly conditions in the grammar and technical schools are better than in the secondary modern. We do not have to think very hard to understand why. These children have more to contribute to capitalist society. The “economic argument for investment” is greater. Yet it is from these schools that state-educated children go to university. We have already seen when referring to Table III how difficult it is for them to obtain a place. The Robbins Report was the subject of an article in the Times Educational Supplement (25/10/63). As with Newsom, we have not the space to comment more fully, but there are points which are of interest to Socialists and should be to the working class—the 90 per cent. who receive or received a state education. Under the heading “The Present Emergency” the article stated: “In four years’ time it looks as if there will be a shortage of 25,000 university places.” Under “Aims and Principles” we find:
“There are four objectives for a higher education system : instruction in skills, promotion of the general powers of the mind, the advancement of learning, and the transmission of a common culture and common standards of citizenship.”
On “International Comparisons” the article states:
“The committee were impressed by the fact that plans for expansion (in Europe and America) often far surpassed present British plans.”
And on the question of “Future Demands”:
“It is highly misleading to suppose that one can determine an upper limit to the number of people who would benefit from higher education, given favourable circumstances, while the children of manual workers were generally much less successful than children of the same ability in other social groups, those children of manual workers who did continue their education were as successful as children of the same ability in other social groups.”
In education there has always been an emergency for the working class, always a state of great need; education in the second view above has never been provided for them. Why then is there a “present emergency”? For two reasons. First the British capitalist class has not the facilities to train workers to their optimum efficiency—optimum, that is, for making profit. Secondly, the other industrial communities in Europe and America have plans for realizing optimum efficiency from their workers which surpass those in Britain.
The Robbins Committee’s views on the aims of education are not unlike the first National Association of Schoolmasters’ view. And yet within the narrow limits of what capitalist society requires from the individual, rather than the wider second view of what the individual can offer society, “it is highly misleading to suppose that one can determine an upper limit to the number of people who would benefit from higher education, given favourable circumstances.” In other words the pool of ability is unplumbable. We know whose abilities capitalism wastes.
In fact, favourable circumstances will never be available for working class education under capitalism. Who will suffer from the growing shortage of places? Who have always suffered? Or can you imagine leaving Eton to read for an evening degree at Hatfield College of Technology, or leaving Gordonstoun to take a correspondence course through the University of Durham?
On thing Robbins has confirmed and that is that working class children, given the opportunity, are as successful as any other child in education. Unfortunately, they will not all get the opportunity until their parents establish Socialism.
K.K.
EDUCATION IN 1962
(Ministry of Education Report for England and Wales)
| Maintained schools | Direct grant schools | Independent schools | Totals | |
| No. of schools | 30,246 | 333 | 3,958 | 34,537 |
| Teachers | 284,437 | 7,180 | 31,044 | 322,661 |
| Pupils | 7,044,977 | 123,310 | 494,959 | 7,663,246 |
ANNUAL PUBLIC SCHOOL FEES
Eton £508
Gordonstoun £483
Harrow £462
Rugby £459
Winchester £453
Lowest fees about £290
Few below£300
Typical £330—£370
(Schools 1961, pub. Truman and Knightley)
ENTRANTS TO UNIVERSITIES
(These figures do not apply to overseas students)
| Type of School (by %) | |||
| Maintained | Direct grant | Independent | |
| MEN Oxford & Cambridge 1955 | 31 | 12 | 57 |
| MEN Oxford & Cambridge 1961 | 30 | 16 | 54 |
| MEN Other universities 1955 | 72 | 10 | 18 |
| MEN Other universities 1961 | 72 | 13 | 15 |
| WOMEN Oxford & Cambridge 1955 | 39 | 21 | 40 |
| WOMEN Oxford & Cambridge 1961 | 47 | 22 | 31 |
| WOMEN Other universities 1955 | 66 | 14 | 20 |
| WOMEN Other universities 1961 | 76 | 10 | 14 |
(Robbins Report on Education)
“TOP” PEOPLES, “TOP” SCHOOLS
Percentage entries in Who’s Who educated at:
42 Oxford & Cambridge
21 Other univ. and hospitals
9 Service colleges
5 Other advanced education
23 No information, no univ. mentioned
TOTAL 100
50 %Headmasters Conference Schools (Public Schools)
18 % which includes Eton, Harrow, Winchester,
(Times Survey on Top People) by Dr. Mark Abrams)
DISTRIBUTION OF INCOME
After taxation
44% earned less than £300 p.a.
46 % earned £500—£1,000 p.a.
9% earned £1,000—£2,000 p.a
1 % earned over £2,000 p.a.
N.B.—Above count husband and wife’s earnings as a single income.
(National Income and Expenditure 1961)