Introduction

This chapter traces the history of education policy in the UK before briefly discussing the international context. It then looks at the impact of policy developments, positive and negative.

A short history of UK education policy

Origins

In the UK, schools developed over the course of the late 18th and 19th centuries as a means to provide a basic education for the emerging class of industrial workers and a more advanced education for owners, managers and professionals. Their function was as much about sorting as about educating, and there were huge inequities in provision and participation. It was not until after the Second World War that free primary and secondary education was provided for all. But there continued to be massive inequities in the length and quality of schooling. The postwar system of secondary education was officially ‘tripartite’, comprising: ‘grammar’ schools teaching academic subjects; ‘technical’ or ‘central’ schools teaching applied skills; and ‘secondary modern’ schools providing basic secondary education. The technical schools did not take off, leaving a system made up of grammar schools for those who passed the ‘11+ ‘ academic exam and secondary moderns for everyone else. Gradually, this system was eroded with the rise of ‘comprehensive’ secondary schools, which admitted students regardless of prior attainment. The push for comprehensive schools was driven both by the demands of organised labour for better education and by the demands of the middle classes, fearful that their own children might not get into grammar schools.