Education

In France the Jesuit schools and the schools of other teaching orders created at the time of the Renaissance had reconciled the teaching of the new humanism with the established doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church and flourished with special brilliance. But, despite the changes brought about by the Renaissance and the attention given to the sciences in the 17th and 18th centuries, it was not until the advent of the French Revolution that the universal right to education was proclaimed (1791).

That principle was compromised when Napoleon came to power, however. Although he maintained that the matter of education was an important issue and thought that a common culture with common ideals was essential to nation-building, he felt that, from a political standpoint, the bourgeoisie and upper classes were most important. His national education system therefore served children of those classes. This led to reorganization of the structure of secondary and higher education in a unified state system, with secondary schools maintained by the communes, and with state lycées, universities, and special institutions of higher education. Within this structure the rector of a university headed a teaching body, recruited by the state and supervised by an inspectorate, ranging through various grades up to the university council. Grades of proficiency in studies—from simple certificates to the degrees of baccalauréat, licence, and doctorate—were awarded on the result of examinations, and these tests were made a necessary condition of entry into such professions as medicine, law, and teaching. This structure, despite many modifications, has survived until modern times. Development of state education

French educational history in the 19th century is essentially the story of the struggle for the freedom of education, of the introduction at the secondary level of the modern and scientific branches of learning, and, under the Third Republic, of the establishment of primary education—at once secular and compulsory—between the ages of 6 and 12. There were also a middle education between the ages of 13 and 16 and, finally, a professional and technical education.

Under the restoration of the monarchy in 1814, education fell inevitably under the control of the church. However, during the bourgeois monarchy of Louis Philippe, a law was passed in 1833 that laid the foundations of modern primary instruction, obliging the communes to maintain schools and pay the teachers. The higher primary schools that were founded were suppressed by Roman Catholic conservatives in 1850 (their restoration later constituted one of the great positive services rendered by the Third Republic to the cause of popular education). The 1850 law restored the “liberty of teaching” that, in effect, meant free scope for priestly schools, but it also made provision for separate communal schools for girls, for adult classes, and for the technical instruction of apprentices. In 1854 France was divided for purposes of educational administration into 16 districts called académies, each administered by a rector and each with a university at the apex of the educational structure. The rector not only was made the chief administrator of the university but also was responsible for secondary and higher education within his académie. He nominated candidates for administrative positions in his area, appointed examination committees, supervised examination content and procedures, and presided over an academic council. Unlike the political division in some other countries, the académies were given little power or authority of their own; rather, they were administrative arms of the national ministry of education.

After the Franco-Prussian War, the Third Republic addressed itself to the organization of primary instruction as “compulsory, free, and secular.” The law of 1878 imposed on communes the duty of providing school buildings and provided grants-in-aid. The national government also henceforth paid salaries throughout the public sector of education. In 1879 a law was passed compelling every department to maintain training colleges for male and female teachers. The law of 1881 abolished fees in all primary schools and training colleges, the law of 1882 established compulsory attendance, and, finally, the law of 1886 enacted that none but laypersons should teach in the public schools and abolished in those schools all distinctively religious teaching. Secondary education

In European systems of education, secondary education was preeminently a preparation for the university, with aims and ideals of general culture that differentiated it radically and at the very outset from education of the elementary type. Down to the beginning of the 20th century, the French system could be regarded as a typical and extreme example of the European theory.

The characteristic European organization has been called the dual plan. Elementary and secondary education were distinct types, and only a minority of the elementary school pupils passed on to the secondary schools, generally only if they were bright and could win scholarships through a competitive examination. The secondary schools were of two kinds: lycées and communal colleges. The lycées, maintained by tuition fees and state scholarships, taught the ancient languages, rhetoric, logic, ethics, mathematics, and physical science. The communal colleges, established by municipalities or individuals and maintained by tuition fees, offered a partial lycée curriculum, featuring Latin, French, mathematics, history, and geography. Pupils who did not complete a secondary education program generally entered civil service or other white-collar occupations. With the development of commerce and industry in the 19th century, France instituted the écoles primaires supérieures, or “higher primary schools,” for those who did not go on to universities but who needed a better education than the primary schools could give. The curricula of these schools were somewhat more advanced than those of the primary schools; pupils remained longer (up to age 16) and were prepared for employment in business as white-collar workers but generally at a lower level than pupils who came from the lycées. In effect, the different types of schools tended to maintain class cleavages since students of the secondary schools enjoyed higher social and occupational prestige than those of the upper primary schools.

The foundation of secondary schools for girls was in its way one of the most notable achievements of the Third Republic. It was inaugurated by the law of December 22, 1880, named for its author, the Loi Camille Sée. Until World War II the curricula were different from those of the boys’ schools, and the course of study was only five years. There were no ancient languages, and mathematics was not carried to so high a level as in the boys’ lycées. England

Influenced by doctrines of laissez-faire, England hesitated a long time before allowing the state to intervene in educational affairs. At the beginning of the 19th century, education was regarded as entirely the concern of voluntary or private enterprise, and there was much unsystematic philanthropy. Attempts were made to channel and concentrate it, and many hoped that the Church of England and the dissenting churches would join in a concerted effort to provide a national system of elementary education on a voluntary basis. But discordant views prevented such cooperation, and two voluntary societies were founded, one representative of the Church of England and the other of dissent. In 1829 the Roman Catholics were emancipated by law from disabilities they had long suffered, and so they also were able to provide voluntary schools. Other religious bodies joined in the effort to meet the growing need for elementary schools, but it was soon evident that voluntary finance would not be equal to this formidable task. In 1833 the government made a small building grant to these societies, and in this modest way state intervention began. Six years later a committee of the Privy Council was established to administer the state grants, now made annually, and to arrange for the inspection of voluntary schools aided from public funds. The work involved led to the establishment of a small central education department, which was the beginning of the ministry of education.

Matthew Arnold was influential in pressing upon the English conscience the importance of public education for the state. While serving as inspector of elementary schools from 1851 to 1886, he studied European school systems and contrasted the meagre educational contributions of the English state with the more generous ones of Continental states.

Matthew Arnold, detail of an oil painting by G.F. Watts; in the National Portrait Gallery, LondonCourtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, London Elementary Education Act

England prolonged its reliance on voluntary initiative for year after year as population increased and, with the growing industrialization, people crowded into the new towns. At last in 1870 Parliament, after long, acrimonious debates, passed an Elementary Education Act, the foundation upon which the English educational system has been built. Religious teaching and worship were the crucial issues in the debates, and the essentials of the settlement agreed upon were (1) a dual system of voluntary and local-authority schools and (2) careful safeguards to ensure as far as possible that no child would receive religious teaching that was at variance with the wishes of his parents. It was left to the school boards—as these first local education authorities were called—to decide on an individual basis whether to make elementary education compulsory in their districts. In 1880, however, it was made compulsory throughout England and Wales, and in 1891 fees were abolished in all but a few elementary schools. Secondary and higher education

Secondary education was still left to voluntary and private enterprise. Attention was focused on the “public” schools (independent secondary schools such as Eton and Harrow, usually for boarders from upper- and well-to-do middle-class homes), which under the leadership of outstanding headmasters such as Thomas Arnold were thoroughly reformed. As headmaster of Rugby School (1828–42), Arnold is credited with changing the face of public education in England by instilling a spirit of moral responsibility and intellectual integrity grounded in Christian ethics. Arnold’s aims of school life—religious and moral principles, gentlemanly conduct, and intellectual ability—were to have an enduring influence on the English public school system.

Several new universities were founded during the 19th century, and the latter half of it saw the founding of a number of girls’ high schools and boarding schools offering an education that was comparable to that available in boys’ public schools and grammar schools. Several training colleges for teachers were established by voluntary agencies, and universities and university colleges toward the end of the century undertook the training of postgraduates as teachers in departments of education created for this purpose. Russia

At the beginning of the 19th century, Alexander I" class="md-crosslink">Tsar Alexander I—influenced by the disintegration of the serf system, the trend toward industrialization and modernization, and the democratic ideas of the French Revolution—tried to institute new educational reforms. The statutes of 1803 and 1804 followed the pattern set by Peter I (the Great) and Catherine II (the Great) in the 18th century for utilitarian, scientific, and secular education. The old Catherinian schools were remodeled and new schools founded. Schools were to be free and under state control. Rural peasants were to be taught reading, writing, arithmetic, and elements of agriculture at the parochial schools (prikhodskiye uchilishcha); pupils in the district schools of urban areas (uyezdnye uchilishcha) and the provincial schools (gimnazii) were to be prepared for careers as civil servants or for other white-collar occupations (law, political economy, technology, and commerce). The elementary and secondary schools were integrated with the universities.

Nicholas I, coming to the throne in 1825, considered this democratic trend harmful and decreed that:

It is necessary that in every school the subjects of instruction and the very methods of teaching should be in accordance with the future destination of pupils, that nobody should aim to rise above that position in which it is his lot to remain.

A new statute of 1828 decreed that parochial schools were intended for the peasants, the district schools for merchants and other townspeople, and gimnazii for children of the gentry and civil servants. Instruction in the gimnazii in Latin and Greek was increased. Although the legislation of Nicholas I established a class system, the utilitarian character of the whole system remained.

The Russian radical intelligentsia was fiercely opposed to the privileged schools for the gentry and demanded the reestablishment of a democratic system with a more modern curriculum in secondary schools. This was coupled with the demand for the emancipation of the serfs and the equality of women in education. The new tsar in 1855, Alexander II, inaugurated a period of liberal reforms. The serfs were emancipated in 1861, and thus all social restrictions were removed. A new system of local government in rural areas (zemstvo) was enacted with a right to found schools for the peasantry, which were now free. Combined efforts of the government, zemstvos, and peasant communities produced a growth of schools in the rural areas. The utilitarian trend was evident in the establishment of technical schools with vocational differentiation. The education of women was promoted, and the first higher courses for women were founded in main cities.

The reign of Alexander II, which was later marked by reactionary measures and political oppression, ended in his assassination in 1881 by the terrorist branch of the Narodniki revolutionary organization. A period of reaction followed under his successor, Alexander III. All reforms were suspended, and the growth of educational institutions was interrupted. The chief procurator of the Holy Synod attempted to build up a rival system of parochial schools under the control of the Orthodox clergy, and the minister of public instruction tried to return to the class system of Nicholas I. These reactionary measures set back the growth of education. Four-fifths of all children were deprived of education. The result was that at the turn of the century nearly 70 percent of Russia’s male population and 90 percent of its female population were illiterate (1897 census). The aboriginal dwellers of Russia’s national outskirts (more than one-half of the country’s population) were almost totally illiterate. J.J. Chambliss The United States

Administered locally everywhere, schooling of the United States’ masses in the republic’s younger days was immensely diverse. In New England, primary schooling enjoyed public support. In the South, apart from supplying a meagre learning to pauper children, the states abstained from educational responsibility. In the middle states, elementary schools were sometimes public; more often they were parochial or philanthropic. Only beyond the Alleghenies was there any federal provision for education. There, under the Articles of Confederation, the Ordinance of 1787 reserved a plot of land in every prospective township for the support of education. The measure not only laid the groundwork for education in the states of the Ohio valley and the Great Lakes, it also became a precedent for national educational aid. Thus, in 1862 the Morrill Act granted every state establishing a public agricultural college 30,000 acres (12,000 hectares) of public land for each of its lawmakers in Congress.

Several of the Founding Fathers expressed belief in the necessity of public education, but only Thomas Jefferson undertook to translate his conviction into actuality. Convinced that democracy could be effective only in the hands of an enlightened people, he offered Virginia’s lawgivers a plan in 1779 to educate schoolchildren at public cost for three years and a few gifted boys beyond that. The proposal encountered resistance from both the ruling classes and the clergy, who regarded instruction as a private or an ecclesiastical prerogative. Jefferson’s initial plan was rejected, as was another plan he submitted some 40 years later. Although his ideas enlightened educational thought throughout the country, only one of Jefferson’s dreams reached actuality in his lifetime: the University of Virginia, which opened in 1825 and was the most up-to-date institution of its sort, the first frankly secular university in America, and the closest to a modern-day conception of a state university. The educational awakening

When Jefferson died in 1826, the nation stood on the threshold of a stupendous transformation. During the ensuing quarter century it expanded enormously in space and population. Old cities grew larger and new ones more numerous. The era saw the coming of the steamboat and the railroad. Commerce flourished and so did agriculture. The age witnessed the rise of the common man with the right to vote and hold office. It was a time of overflowing optimism, of dreams of perpetual progress, moral uplift, and social betterment.

Such was the climate that engendered the common school. Open freely to every child and upheld by public funds, it was to be a lay institution under the sovereignty of the state, the archetype of the present-day American public school. Bringing the common school into being was not easy. Against it bulked the doctrine that any education that excluded religious instruction—as all state-maintained schools were legally compelled to do—was godless. Nor had there been any great recession of the contention that education was not a proper governmental function and for a state to engage therein was an intrusion into parental privilege. Still more distasteful was the fact that public schooling would occasion a rise in taxes.

Yet the common school also mustered some formidable support, and finally, in 1837, liberal Massachusetts lawmakers successfully carried through a campaign for a state board of education. Massachusetts credits its educational regeneration especially to Horace Mann, the board’s first secretary. To gather data on educational conditions in the state, Mann roved the entire commonwealth. He lectured and wrote reports, depicting his dire findings with unsparing candour. There were outcries against him, but when Mann resigned, after 12 years, he could take pride in an extraordinary achievement. During his incumbency, school appropriations almost doubled. Teachers were awarded larger wages, and in return they rendered better service. To help them, Massachusetts established three state normal schools, the first in America. Supervision was made professional. The school year was extended. Public high schools were augmented. Finally, the common school, under the authority of the state though still beset by difficulties, slowly became the rule.

Horace MannCourtesy of Antioch College, Yellow Springs, Ohio

What Mann accomplished in Massachusetts, Henry Barnard (1811–1900) achieved in Connecticut and Rhode Island. More reserved than Mann, Barnard has come down the ages as the “scholar of the educational awakening.” He became the first president of the Association for the Advancement of Education and editor of its American Journal of Education, in whose 30 volumes he discussed virtually every important pedagogical idea of the 19th century.

Similar campaigns were under way in other areas. In Pennsylvania the assault centred on the pauper school; in New York it was against sectarianism. On the westward-moving frontier, old educational ideas and traditions had to compete in an environment antagonistic to privilege and permanence. There was controversy everywhere, however, over the state’s right to assume educational authority and especially over its power to levy school taxes. Future handling of this issue in the West was foretold in 1837, when Michigan realized a state-supported and state-administered system of education in which the state university—the University of Michigan under the leadership of Henry Tappan—played an integral part. Secondary education

Once the common school was solidly entrenched, the scant opportunity afforded the lower classes for more than a rudimentary education fell under increasing challenge. If it was right to order children to learn reading, writing, and arithmetic and to offer them free tax-supported schooling, then, some reasoned, it was also right to accommodate those desiring advanced instruction. Before long, a few common schools, yielding to parental insistence, introduced courses beyond the elementary level. Such was the germ of the high school in the United States.

The first high school in the United States opened in Boston in 1821 as the English Classical School, a designation that soon was changed to English High School. Designed for the sons of the “mercantile and mechanic classes,” it provided three years of free instruction in English, mathematics, surveying, navigation, geography, history, logic, ethics, and civics. In 1825 New York City inaugurated the first high school outside New England. The next year Boston braved free secondary education for girls, judiciously diluted and restricted to 130. When the number of applicants vastly exceeded this figure, the city fathers abandoned the project.

The high school movement was spurred less by these diffuse developments than by legislation by Massachusetts in 1827 that ordered towns of 500 families to furnish public instruction in American history, algebra, geometry, and bookkeeping, in addition to the common primary subjects. Furthermore, towns of 4,000 were to offer courses in history, logic, rhetoric, Latin, and Greek. The measure lacked public backing, but it set the guideposts for similar legislation elsewhere. The contention that government had no right to finance high schools remained an issue until the 1870s, when Michigan’s supreme court, finding for the city of Kalamazoo in litigation brought by a taxpayer, declared the high school to be a necessary part of the state’s system of public instruction. Education for females

Though the common school vouchsafed instruction to girls, their chances of attending high school—not to say college—were slight. The “female academies,” attended mainly by daughters of the middle class, were not numerous, and they varied in their emphases, often stressing social or domestic subjects. In fact, as late as the 1840s, when even the lowliest man could vote and hold office, women were haltered by taboos of every sort. But as America advanced industrially and more and more women flocked to the mill and the office, their desire for greater educational opportunity grew. As in the struggle for the common school, the cause of women’s education bred leaders, many of whom founded schools and communicated internationally. In 1833 Oberlin College in Ohio hazarded coeducation, and 20 years later Antioch College (also in Ohio) followed suit. Beyond the Mississippi River, every state university except that of Missouri was coeducational from its beginning. Eastern universities, however, moved more cautiously. Higher education

While women were crusading for greater educational opportunity, the college itself was undergoing alteration. It had begun as a cradle of divinity, but, as the 18th century waned, it was displaying a mounting secularity. In the course of the 19th century, not only did colleges surge in number, but some of the more enterprising of them also moved toward reshaping their purpose. Soon after its opening in 1885, Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania announced courses for the master’s and doctor’s degrees. Inspired by the scholarly accomplishments of German universities, Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore (founded in 1867) put its weight on research. Twenty years later Clark University in Massachusetts opened as a purely graduate institution. Soon the graduate trend invaded older schools as well.

The early normal schools, or teacher-training schools, were primitive. Often they were merely higher elementary schools, rehearsing their students for a year in basic reading and arithmetic, rectitude and piety, some history, mathematics, and physiology, and, if they survived, a rudimentary pedagogy. After the 1860s the ideas and experiments of Pestalozzi and Froebel combined with widespread social-democratic influences on education and advances in psychological thought to change schooling. This confluence, which was most noticeable in elementary education, resulted in the appearance of the kindergarten and in methods proceeding from the nature of the child and including content representing more of the present society. While much of the rationale was religious or mystical, the outcome was socially and psychologically more realistic. Since the early phases of schooling were initially the only concern of teacher training, it was natural that the idea of preparing teachers to use techniques derived from the new concepts, including the greater systematization introduced by Herbart, and the necessity for teachers to learn specifically about the child would substantially augment teacher-training programs and lay the groundwork for immense institutional expansion in the first half of the 20th century. Adolphe Erich Meyer Robert Frederic Lawson The British dominions Canada

In the early period of the 19th century, until about 1840, schooling in Canada was much the same as it was in England; it was provided through the efforts of religious and philanthropic organizations and dominated by the Church of England. Although there was overlap among types of schools (identified historically), there are records of parish schools, charity schools, Sunday schools, and monitorial schools for the common people. The instructional fare was a rudimentary combination of religious instruction and literacy skills, perhaps supplemented by some practical work.

More advanced education was limited to the upper social classes and was given in Latin grammar schools or in private schools with various curricular extensions on the Classical base. Academies, largely supported by the middle class of nonconformist groups, presented a broad curriculum of liberal arts that spanned the secondary and higher levels of education. In general, instruction relied on a simple chain concept of “transmission-absorption-mental storage,” which was kept going by direct application of reward or punishment.

In the middle period, which lasted until about 1870, public systems of education emerged, accommodating religious interests in a state framework. Public support was won for the common school, leading toward universal elementary education. Secondary and higher education began to assume a public character. The principle of local responsibility under central provincial authority was elaborated in the respective provinces.

Of central importance in the development of Canadian education was the kind of agreement reached on church-state relations in education during this period. At one extreme was the arrangement made in Newfoundland from 1836 to accommodate all numerically represented denominations separately within a loose system (not until 1920 was a unified system of education developed, which still worked through five denominational subsystems). At the other extreme were the arrangements made in British Columbia, which became decisive when it entered the Canadian Confederation, to establish and maintain a free, unified, centralized nonsectarian system. Other provinces eventually developed patterns that represented compromises. The Nova Scotia–New Brunswick pattern, for instance, provided a unified system that in principle was nonsectarian but that allowed the grouping of Roman Catholic children for education, thus legalizing sectarian schools within the system. Ontario placed separate Catholic schools within a unified school system. Québec supported a dual confessional system from the 1840s to the 1960s, with parallel structures for Roman Catholic and Protestant schooling at both the local and provincial levels. Manitoba adopted Québec’s dual confessional system in 1871, then changed to a unified, centralized nonsectarian system amid much controversy in 1896.

The British North America Act of 1867, Canada’s constitution, lodged authority for education in the provinces, at the same time guaranteeing denominational rights (in the “minority-school protective clause”) if such rights existed by law at the time of entry into confederation. These two provisions established the pluralistic nature of Canadian education, and the union of the provinces and the entrance of western provinces gave Canada, by 1880, a national base on which to build the Canadian institution of education.

The final years of the 19th century were years of structural formalization of the educational foundations developed in the productive middle period. In this, Ontario’s leadership was evident, especially as it affected the model of education evolving in the western territories. After Alberta and Saskatchewan were admitted as provinces in 1905, some divergence from Ontario took place: notably, both provinces required that Roman Catholic taxes go to separate Catholic schools (the decision in Ontario was based on free choice), and Alberta allowed separate school privileges through the secondary level. (Saskatchewan extended full funding of Roman Catholic separate schools to the end of high school in the early 1960s, Ontario in the late 1980s).

Toward the end of the 19th century, elementary schooling, by then established, was becoming compulsory. The cost of secondary education was diminishing, and the distinction in level and curriculum between the secondary and the elementary school was sharpened in the system of public schools. Communities were responsible for maintaining schools through a combination of local taxes and provincial grants, while provincial departments standardized the conduct of schooling through inspections, examinations, and prescription of course content and materials.

Changes in instructional theory, taking place during the latter part of the 19th century throughout the Western world, revolutionized the classroom. One major shift was from the imposition of knowledge on the mind of the learner to an emphasis on the learner’s activity of perception and comprehension of knowledge. The impact of science on the higher school curriculum was matched by its impact on educational theory and, consequently, on teacher training. Both scientific disciplines (such as educational psychology) and scientific methods of teaching became necessary to the training of teachers who were to operate in a new setting of teacher-pupil and subject-matter relations. Australia

The development of Australian education through the 19th century was affected by a pervasive British influence, by a continuous economic struggle against harsh environmental conditions, and by the tendency for population to be concentrated in centres that accrued and extended political authority over the region. The particular historical thread around which educational developments took place was the question of denominational schools.

From the first immigrant landing in 1788 through the early decades of the 19th century, education was provided on an occasional and rather haphazard basis, by the most expedient means available. In general, the assumption and the practice was that schooling would be provided by the church or by church organizations, such as the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (SPGFP), and colonial governments made small grants to aid such provision. It was also assumed that the Church of England would dominate the religious-educational scene, and a Church and School Corporation was set up in 1826 to administer endowments for Church of England efforts. Even at this early stage, however, the resistance of Nonconformists, especially Presbyterians and Roman Catholics, shortly defeated the attempt to “establish” Church of England institutions. The only early organized attempt at mass education was through monitorial systems.

In 1833 the governor of New South Wales asserted government responsibility for education by proposing the introduction of a nondenominational system that would reduce religion in schools to reading commonly approved scriptures and to providing release time for sectarian instruction by clergymen. The importance of the proposal lay in its spirit of religious compromise and its initiation of state responsibility for education, both of which were predictive of future development.

Because of sectarian resistance, mainly from Anglican and Catholic groups, so-called national schools were introduced alongside denominational schools in 1848 as a dual system, administered by two corresponding boards. Throughout the middle period of the century, similar sectarian compromises were found in other Australian colonies. The establishment of state systems were, however, seriously impeded by the extremity of the struggle for survival in hostile geographic conditions. In New South Wales a Public Schools Bill was passed in 1866, creating a single Council of Education. State aid to denominational schools was continued but under conditions stipulated by the state.

Victoria became a separate colony in 1850 and was initially fraught with particular problems occasioned by the arrival of a migrant gold-rush population. Little was accomplished in education, other than increased assistance to religious denominations, until 1856. After that the move for a state system gained impetus, and a Common Schools Bill was passed in 1862, establishing a system similar to that accepted in New South Wales. Soon after separation, Queensland’s Primary Education Bill was passed in 1860, subordinating denominational schools and reinforcing the principle of common school development in Australia. South Australia held to a continuous development of a general system based on common Christianity, but Western Australia’s Elementary Education Bill of 1871 returned to dual support for both government and voluntary schools.

The support for state educational systems increased during the 1860s and 1870s as an alternative to interdenominational conflict was sought. In this development the Protestants, gradually and sometimes reluctantly, acquiesced. Catholic resistance was never overcome, and the consequent evolution of a separate Roman Catholic school system did not diminish Catholic dissatisfaction with the movement to state schools. The dilemma of Catholic citizens with regard to nonsectarian public education was universal: as citizens, they were financially obligated for the public schools; as Roman Catholics, they were committed to education in schools of their own faith.

The intention to educate all children and to raise the quality of instruction in common schools required governmental actions that could transform voluntary, exclusive, uneven provisions into uniform public standards. In Australia, particular motivating factors were the dramatic increases in population and economic growth and the recognized inadequacy of existing schools. The establishment of secular public school systems under government control was made unequivocal through the passage of legislation between 1872 and 1895. These bills did not abolish general Christian instruction, nor did they generally refuse release time for sectarian instruction. They did, however, disallow sectarian claims for financial support and for a place in public education. The decision was for the operation of schools for all children, undertaken by the one agency that could act on behalf of the whole society, the government. New Zealand

In New Zealand’s early colonial period, between 1840 and 1852, certain provisions were made for endowments for religious and educational purposes, but education was considered, in accordance with prevailing views in England, a private or voluntary matter. Corresponding to general social distinctions, academic education was relegated to denominational, fee-charging schools, and common education was provided as a charitable service. Religious preference was avoided as much as possible, with the aim of minimizing sectarian conflict.

Secular opposition to religious bias, even on a pluralistic basis, was, however, already evident. In 1852 New Zealand was granted self-government under the Constitution Act, and responsibility for education was placed in the councils of the six provinces. Although each province acted independently and somewhat according to the traditions of the dominant cultural group, the general sentiment moved in the next 20 years toward the establishment of public school systems. By 1876, when the provincial governments were abolished, the people of New Zealand, through varying regional decisions, had accepted governmental responsibility for education, had opted for nonsectarian schools, and had started on the path to free, compulsory common schooling.

The basic national legislation was passed in 1877. The Education Act provided for public elementary education that would be secular, free to age 15, and compulsory to age 13. Because of enforcement difficulties and legal exceptions, the compulsory clause was rather loose, but it instituted the rule. It was strengthened between 1885 and 1898, and high school enrollments increased steadily after 1911. The act of 1877 also revised the administrative structure under a national ministerial Department of Education. Initially, the central department was little more than a funding source, while critical control was vested in regional boards elected by local school committees. In the competitive struggle between the department and the regional boards that waxed and waned well into the 20th century, neither gained the exclusive dominance sometimes sought. The primary position of the central authority in educational administration was confirmed in the reform period between 1899 and 1914, however, when control of inspectors, effective control of primary teacher appointment and promotion, and stipulative control in fund granting went to the Department of Education. These developments, together with curriculum and examination reforms, marked a new beginning in New Zealand education. Robert Frederic Lawson The spread of Western educational practices to Asian countries India Education under the East India Company

Originally the British went to India as tradesmen, but gradually they became the rulers of the country. On Dec. 31, 1600, the East India Company was established, and, like all commercial bodies, its main objective was trade. Gradually during the 18th century the pendulum swung from commerce to administration. The deterioration of Mughal power in India, the final expulsion of French rivals in the Seven Years’ War, and the virtual appropriation of Bengal and Bihar in a treaty of 1765 had all made the company a ruling power. In spite of this, the company did not recognize the promotion of education among the people of India as a part of its duty or obligation. For a long time the British at home were greatly opposed to any system of public instruction for the Indians, just as they were for their own people.

The feelings of the public authorities in England were first tested in the year 1793, when the philanthropist William Wilberforce proposed to add two clauses to the company’s charter act of that year for sending out schoolmasters to India. This encountered the greatest opposition in the council of directors, and it was found necessary to withdraw the clauses. For 20 years thereafter, the ruling authorities in England refused to accept responsibility for the education of Indian people. It was only in 1813, when the company’s charter was renewed, that a clause was inserted requiring the governor-general to devote not less than 100,000 rupees annually to the education of Indians.

William Wilberforce, detail of an unfinished painting by Sir Thomas Lawrence, 1828; in the National Portrait Gallery, LondonCourtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, London

Some organization was required in order to disburse the educational grant. A General Committee of Public Instruction, constituted in Calcutta (Kolkata) in 1823, started its work with an Orientalist policy rather than a Western-oriented one, since the majority of the members were Orientalists. The money available was spent mainly on the teaching of Sanskrit and Arabic and on the translation of English works into these languages. Some encouragement was also given to the production of books in English.

Meanwhile, a new impetus was given to education from two sources of different character. One was from the Christian missionaries and the other from a “semirationalist” movement. The Christian missionaries had started their educational activities as early as 1542, upon the arrival of St. Francis Xavier. Afterward the movement spread throughout the land and exercised a lasting influence on Indian education. It gave a new direction to elementary education through the introduction of instruction at regular and fixed hours, a broad curriculum, and a clear-cut class system. By printing books in different vernaculars, the missionaries stimulated the development of Indian languages. But hand in hand with the study of the vernaculars went “English education,” or the teaching of Western subjects through the medium of English.

Besides the missionaries, there were men in Bengal who, though admitting the value of Oriental learning for the advancement of civilization, thought that better things could be achieved through the so-called English education. In 1817 these semirationalists, led by the celebrated reformer Ram Mohun Roy, founded the Hindu College in Calcutta, the alumni of which established a large number of English schools all over Bengal. The demand for English education in Bengal thus preceded by 20 years any government action in that direction.

In the meantime the influence of the Orientalists was waning in the General Committee, as younger members with more radical views joined it. They challenged the policy of patronizing Oriental learning and advocated the need for spreading Western knowledge through the medium of English. Thus arose the controversy as to whether educational grants should be used to promote Oriental learning or Western knowledge. The controversy between the Orientalists and the Anglicists was decided in favour of the latter by the famous Minute on Education of 1835 submitted by Thomas Babington Macaulay, the legal member of the governor-general’s executive council. His recommendations were accepted by Lord William Bentinck, the governor-general. The decision was announced on March 7, 1835, in a brief resolution that determined the character of higher education in India for the ensuing century. Although the schools for Oriental learning were maintained for some years, the translation of English books into Sanskrit and Arabic was immediately discontinued. Thus, the system of “English education” was adopted by the government. It should be noted, however, that primary education did not attract any attention at all.

Bentinck’s resolution was followed by other enactments accelerating the growth of English education in India. The first was the Freedom of Press Act (1835), which encouraged the printing and publication of books and made English books available at low cost. Two years later, Persian was abolished as the language of record and the courts (to the dismay of the Muslims) and was replaced by English and Indian languages in higher and lower courts, respectively. Finally, Lord Hardinge, as governor-general, issued a resolution on October 10, 1844, declaring that for all government appointments preference would be given to the knowledge of English. These measures strengthened the position of English in India, and the lingering prejudices against learning English vanished forever.

Although English education held its ground in Bengal, the Bengal government did not neglect vernacular education altogether. Moreover, in Bombay (Mumbai), Madras (Chennai), and the North-Western Provinces there was as yet little effective demand for English, and the tendency was to lay the main stress on Indian languages. Bombay adopted the policy of encouraging primary education and spreading Western science and knowledge through the mother tongue. This was done under the able guidance of Mountstuart Elphinstone, then the governor, even though the government also conducted an English school in almost every district in the province. Between 1845 and 1848 a bitter controversy arose regarding the language of instruction, but the issue was between the mother tongue and English, and not between a Classical language and English as it was in Bengal. The controversy gathered strength every day, and, in those days of centralization, the matter had to be referred to the Bengal government, which advised the Bombay government to concentrate its attention on English education alone, thus throttling the growth of education through the mother tongue in Bombay. Meanwhile, the Madras government was biding its time, leaving the field of positive effort open to Christian missionaries; as a result of this missionary initiative, English education in the Madras presidency was more extensively imparted than in Bombay.

A laudable experiment in the field of vernacular education was carried out by Lieutenant Governor James Thomason in the North-Western Provinces. Thomason’s ḥalqabandī system attempted to bring primary education within easy reach of the common people. In each ḥalqah (circuit) of villages, a school was established in the most central village so that all the villagers within a radius of two miles might avail themselves of it. For the maintenance of these schools the village landholders agreed to contribute at the rate of 1 percent of their land income. The experiment proved successful, and in 10 years Thomason opened 897 schools and provided elementary education for 23,688 children. Indian universities

The next step in the history of Indian education is marked by Sir Charles Wood’s epoch-making Dispatch of 1854, which led to (1) the creation of a separate department for the administration of education in each province, (2) the founding of the universities of Calcutta, Bombay, and Madras in 1857, and (3) the introduction of a system of grants-in-aid. Even when the administration of India passed from the East India Company into the hands of the British crown in 1858, Britain’s secretary of state for India confirmed the educational policy of Wood’s Dispatch.

The newly established universities did not initially undertake any teaching responsibilities but were merely examining bodies. Their expenses were confined to administration and could be met from the fees paid by the candidates for their degrees and certificates. Although the establishment of the universities did result in a rapid expansion of college education and although the products of the new learning displayed keen scholarship, the value of learning nevertheless soon decayed. In such circumstances it was ironic for the Indian Education Commission of 1882 to declare, “The university degree has become an accepted object of ambition, a passport to distinction in public services and in the learned professions.” Another undesirable practice was the domination of the universities over secondary education through their entrance examinations. University policies regarding curricula, examination systems, language of instruction, and other vital problems began to be chalked out by university teachers who had little experience in schoolteaching and who kept the administrative needs and requirements of colleges in the forefront. Thus, secondary schools increasingly prepared their students for a college education and not for life in general.

The new system also became top-heavy. It must be stated that the commission of 1882 made a very valuable recommendation that the “elementary education of the masses, its provision, extension and improvement requires strenuous efforts of the state in a still larger measure than heretofore.” It also desired to check the wild race for academic distinction and “to divert some part of the rapidly swelling stream of students into channels of a more practical character.” Despite this warning, however, alternative courses in commerce, agriculture, and technical subjects that were offered in a limited number of selected schools did not prove popular. The educated classes could not be diverted from their conventional path.

In a general view of education during the last two decades of the 19th century, drift was more apparent than government resolve. Elementary education was starved and undernourished, and secondary education was suffering from want of proper supervision. There was an unplanned growth of high schools and colleges since the Education Commission had given a free charter to private enterprise. Many of these private institutions were “coaching institutions rather than places of learning.” The universities had no control over them, and state control was negligible because the government had adopted a laissez-faire policy.

The second half of the 19th century is, nonetheless, of great significance to the country because modern India may indeed be said to be a creation of this period. It brought about a renaissance by breaking down geographic barriers and bringing different regions and long-separated Indian communities into close contact with one another. The blind admiration for Western culture was gradually passing away, and a new vision and reorientation in thought were coming about. A feeling of dissatisfaction also developed toward the existing governmental and missionary institutions. It was felt by some of the Indian patriots that the character of Indian youths could be built by Indians themselves. This led to the establishment of a few notable institutions aiming at imparting sound education to Indian youth on national lines—institutions such as the Anglo-Mohammedan Oriental College in Aligarh (1875), the D.A.V. College in Lahore (1886), and the Central Hindu College in Varanasi (1898). The politically minded classes of the country had also come to regard education as a national need. They were critical of the government’s educational policy and resented any innovation that might restrain the pace of educational advance or diminish liberty. S.N. Mukerji Japan The Meiji Restoration and the assimilation of Western civilization

In 1867 the Tokugawa (Edo) shogunate, a dynasty of military rulers established in 1603, was overthrown and the imperial authority of the Meiji dynasty was restored, leading to drastic reforms of the social system. This process has been called the Meiji Restoration, and it ushered in the establishment of a politically unified and modernized state.

In the following generation Japan quickly adopted useful aspects of Western industry and culture to enhance rapid modernization. But Japan’s audacious modernization would have been impossible without the enduring peace and cultural achievements of the Tokugawa era. It had boasted a high level of Oriental civilization, especially centring on Confucianism, Shintōism, and Buddhism. The ruling samurai had studied literature and Confucianism at their hankō (domain schools), and the commoners had learned reading, writing, and arithmetic at numerous terakoya (temple schools). Both samurai and commoners also pursued medicine, military science, and practical arts at shijuku (private schools). Some of these schools had developed a fairly high level of instruction in Western science and technology by the time of the Meiji Restoration. This cultural heritage helped equip Japan with a formidable potential for rapid Westernization. Indeed, some elements of Western civilization had been gradually introduced into Japan even during the Tokugawa era. The shogunate, notwithstanding its isolationist policy, permitted trade with the Dutch, who conveyed modern Western sciences and arts to Japan. After 1853, moreover, Japan opened its door equally to other Western countries, a result of pressures exerted by the United States Navy under Admiral Matthew C. Perry. Thenceforth, even before the Meiji Restoration, Japanese interest in foreign languages became intense and diverse.

Perry, MatthewMatthew Perry, detail of a Japanese watercolour, c. 1853; in the Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia.The Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia, Norfolk Newspapers' Art Trust Purchase and Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Victor Spark in Memory of their Son Donald, 52.55.2

Western studies, especially English-language studies, became increasingly popular after the Restoration, and Western culture flooded into Japan. The Meiji government dispatched study commissions and students to Europe and to the United States, and the so-called Westernizers defeated the conservatives who tried in vain to maintain allegiance to traditional learning. Establishment of a national system of education

In 1871 Japan’s first Ministry of Education was established to develop a national system of education. Ōki Takatō, the secretary of education, foresaw the necessity of establishing schools throughout the country to develop national wealth, strength, and order, and he outlined a strategy for acquiring the best features of Western education. He assigned commissioners, many of whom were students of Western learning, to design the school system, and in 1872 the Gakusei, or Education System Order, was promulgated. It was the first comprehensive national plan to offer schooling nationwide, according to which the country was divided into eight university districts, which were further divided into 32 middle school districts, each accommodating 210 primary school districts. Unlike the class-based schooling offered during the Tokugawa period, the Gakusei envisioned a unified, egalitarian system of modern national education, designed on a ladder plan. Although the district system was said to have been borrowed from France, the new Japanese education was based on the study of Western education in general and incorporated elements of educational practice in all advanced countries. Curricula and methods of education, for instance, were drawn primarily from the United States.

This ambitious modern plan for a national education system fell short of full realization, however, because of the lack of sufficient financial support, facilities and equipment, proper teaching materials, and able teachers. Nevertheless, the plan represented an unprecedented historic stage in Japanese educational development. Under the Gakusei system, the Ministry of Education, together with local officials, managed with difficulty to set up elementary schools for children aged 6 to 14. In 1875 the 24,000 elementary schools had 45,000 teachers and 1,928,000 pupils. This was achieved by gradually reorganizing terakoya in many areas into modern schools. The enrollment rate reached only 35 percent of all eligible children, however, and no university was erected at all.

In 1873 David Murray, a professor from the United States, was invited to Japan as an adviser to the Ministry of Education; another professor, Marion M. Scott, assumed direction of teacher training and introduced American methods and curricula at the first normal school in Tokyo, established under the direct control of the ministry. Graduates of the normal school played an important role in disseminating teacher training to other parts of the country. By 1874 the government had set up six normal schools, including one for women. The normal school designed curricula for the primary schools, modeled after those of the United States, and introduced textbooks and methods that spread gradually into the elementary schools of many regions. The conservative reaction

Following the repression of the Satsuma Rebellion, a samurai uprising in 1877, Japan again forged ahead toward political unity, but there was an increasing trend of antigovernment protest from below, which was epitomized by the Movement for People’s Rights. Because of the Satsuma Rebellion, the government faced serious financial difficulties. Also, with the people’s inclination toward Western ideas fading away, a conservative reaction began to emerge, calling for a revival of the Confucian and Shintō legacies and a return to local control of education as practiced in the pre-Restoration era.

Discontent had been mounting among the rural people against the Education System Order of 1872, mainly because it had imposed upon them the financial burdens of establishing schools and yet had not lived up to expectations. Another cause of dissatisfaction was a sense of irrelevance that Japanese attributed to schooling largely based on Western models. The curriculum developed according to the 1872 order was perceived to have little relation to the social and cultural needs of that day, and ordinary Japanese continued to favour the traditional schooling of the terakoya. The deputy secretary of education, Tanaka Fujimaro, just returning from an inspection tour in the United States, insisted that the government transfer its authority over education to the local governments, as in the United States, to reflect local needs in schooling. Thus, in 1879 the government nullified the Gakusei and put into force the Kyōikurei, or Education Order, which made for rather less centralization. Not only did the new law abolish the district system that had divided the country into districts, it also reduced central control over school administration, including the power to establish schools and regulate attendance. The Kyōikurei was intended to encourage local initiatives. Such a drastic reform to decentralize education, however, led to an immediate deterioration of schooling and a decline in attendance in some localities; criticism arose among those prefectural governors who had been striving to enforce the Gakusei in their regions.

As a countermeasure, the government introduced a new education order in 1880 calling for a centralization of authority by increasing the powers of the secretary of education and the prefectural governor. Thereafter, the prefecture would provide regulations within the limits of criteria set by the Ministry of Education; some measure of educational unity was thus reached on the prefectural level, and the school system received some needed adjustment. Yet, because of economic stagnation, school attendance remained low.

Conservatism in education gained crucial support when the Kyōgaku Seishi, or the Imperial Will on the Great Principles of Education, was drafted by Motoda Nagazane, a lecturer attached to the Imperial House in 1870. It stressed the strengthening of traditional morality and virtue to provide a firm base for the emperor. Thereafter, the government began to base its educational policy on the Kyōgaku Seishi with emphasis on Confucian and Shintōist values. In the elementary schools, shūshin (national moral education) was made the all-important core of the curricula, and the ministry compiled a textbook with overtones of Confucian morality. Establishment of nationalistic education systems

With the installation of the cabinet system in 1885, the government made further efforts to pave the way for a modern state. The promulgation of the Meiji constitution, the constitution of the empire of Japan, in 1889 established a balance of imperial power and parliamentary forms. The new minister of education, Mori Arinori, acted as a central figure in enforcing a nationalistic educational policy and worked out a vast revision of the school system. This set a foundation for the nationalistic educational system that developed during the following period in Japan. Japanese education thereafter, in the Prussian manner, tended to be autocratic.

Based on policies advocated by Mori, a series of new acts and orders were promulgated one after another. The first was the Imperial University Order of 1886, which rendered the university a servant of the state for the training of high officials and elites in various fields. Later that year orders concerning the elementary school, the middle school, and the normal school were issued, forming the structural core of the pre-World War II education system. The ministry carried out sweeping revisions of the normal school system, establishing it as a completely independent track, quite distinct from other educational training. It was marked by a rigid, regimented curriculum designed to foster “a good and obedient, faithful, and respectful character.” As a result of these reforms, the rate of attendance at the four-year compulsory education level reached 81 percent by 1900.

Together with these reforms, the Imperial Rescript on Education (Kyōiku Chokugo) of 1890 played a major role in providing a structure for national morality. By reemphasizing the traditional Confucian and Shintō values and redefining the courses in shūshin, it was to place morality and education on a foundation of imperial authority. It would provide the guiding principle for Japan’s education until the end of World War II. Promotion of industrial education

Ever since the Meiji Restoration in 1868, the national target had been fukoku-kyōhei (“wealth accumulation and military strength”) and industrialization. From the outset the Meiji government had been busy introducing science and technology from Europe and America, but it nevertheless had difficulties in realizing such goals.

Inoue Kowashi, who became minister of education in 1893, was convinced that modern industries would be the most vital element in the future development of Japan and thus gave priority to industrial and vocational education. In 1894 the Subsidy Act for Technical Education was published, followed by the Technical Teachers’ Training Regulations and the Apprentice School Regulations. The system of industrial education was in general consolidated and integrated. These measures contributed to the training of many of the human resources required for the subsequent development of modern industry in Japan. Arata Naka Nobuo Shimahara Education in the 20th century Social and historical background

International wars, together with an intensification of internal stresses and conflicts among social, racial, and ideological groups, characterized the 20th century and had profound effects on education. Some of the changes that had far-reaching effects were the rapidly spreading prosperity but widening gaps between rich and poor, an immense increase in world population but a declining birth rate in Western countries, the growth of large-scale industry and its dependence on science and technological advancement, the increasing power of both organized labour and international business, and the enormous influence of both technical and sociopsychological advances in communication, especially as utilized in mass media. Other pivotal changes included challenges to accepted values, such as those supported by religion; changes in social relations, especially toward versions of group and individual equality; and an explosion of knowledge affecting paradigms as well as particular information. These and other changes marked a century of social and political swings toward a more dynamic and less categorical resolution. The institutional means of handling this uncertain world were to accept more diversity while maintaining basic forms and to rely on management efficiency to ensure practical outcomes.

The two World Wars weakened the military and political might of the larger European powers. Their replacement by “superpowers” whose influence did not depend directly on territorial acquisition and whose ideologies were essentially equalitarian helped to liquidate colonialism. As new independent countries emerged in Africa and Asia and the needs and powers of a “third world” caused a shift in international thinking, education was seen to be both an instrument of national development and a means of crossing national and cultural barriers. One consequence of this was a great increase in the quantity of education provided. Attempts were made to eradicate illiteracy, and colleges and schools were built everywhere.

The growing affluence of masses of the population in high-income areas in North America and Europe brought about, particularly after World War II, a tremendous demand for secondary and higher education. Most children stayed at school until 16, 17, or even 18 years of age, and a substantial fraction spent at least two years at college. The number of universities in many countries doubled or trebled between 1950 and 1970, and the elaboration of the tertiary level continued thereafter.

This growth was sustained partly by the industrial requirements of modern scientific technology. New methods, processes, and machines were continually introduced. Old skills became irrelevant; new industries sprang up. In addition, the amount of scientific—as distinct from merely technical—knowledge grew continually. Researchers, skilled workers, and high-level professionals were increasingly in demand. The processing of information underwent revolutionary change. The educational response was mainly to develop technical colleges, to promote adult education at all levels, to turn attention to part-time and evening courses, and to provide more training and education within the industrial enterprises themselves.

The adoption of modern methods of food production diminished the need for agricultural workers, who headed for the cities. Urbanization, however, brought problems: city centres decayed, and there was a trend toward violence. The poorest remained in those centres, and it became difficult to provide adequate education. The radical change to large numbers of disrupted families, where the norm was a single working parent, affected the urban poor extensively but in all cases raised an expectation of additional school services. Differences in family background, together with the cultural mix partly occasioned by change of immigration patterns, required teaching behaviour and content appropriate to a more heterogeneous school population. Major intellectual movements Influence of psychology and other fields on education

The attempt to apply scientific method to the study of education dates back to the German philosopher Johann Friedrich Herbart, who called for the application of psychology to the art of teaching. But not until the end of the 19th century, when the German psychologist Wilhelm Max Wundt established the first psychological laboratory at the University of Leipzig in 1879, were serious efforts made to separate psychology from philosophy. Wundt’s monumental Principles of Physiological Psychology (1874) had significant effects on education in the 20th century.

William James, often considered the father of American psychology of education, began about 1874 to lay the groundwork for his psychophysiological laboratory, which was officially founded at Harvard University in 1891. In 1878 he established the first course in psychology in the United States, and in 1890 he published his famous The Principles of Psychology, in which he argued that the purpose of education is to organize the child’s powers of conduct so as to fit him to his social and physical environment. Interests must be awakened and broadened as the natural starting points of instruction. James’s Principles and Talks to Teachers on Psychology cast aside the older notions of psychology in favour of an essentially behaviourist outlook. They asked the teacher to help educate heroic individuals who would project daring visions of the future and work courageously to realize them.

James’s student Edward L. Thorndike is credited with the introduction of modern educational psychology, with the publication of Educational Psychology in 1903. Thorndike attempted to apply the methods of exact science to the practice of psychology. James and Thorndike, together with the American philosopher John Dewey, helped to clear away many of the fantastic notions once held about the successive steps involved in the development of mental functions from birth to maturity.

Interest in the work of Sigmund Freud and the psychoanalytic image of the child in the 1920s, as well as attempts to apply psychology to national training and education tasks in the 1940s and ’50s, stimulated the development of educational psychology, and the field became recognized as a major source for educational theory. Eminent researchers in the field advanced knowledge of behaviour modification, child development, and motivation. They studied learning theories ranging from classical and instrumental conditioning and technical models to social theories and open humanistic varieties. Besides the specific applications of measurement, counseling, and clinical psychology, psychology contributed to education through studies of cognition, information processing, the technology of instruction, and learning styles. After much controversy about nature versus nurture and about qualitative versus quantitative methods, Jungian, phenomenological, and ethnographic methods took their place alongside psychobiological explanations to help educationists understand the place of heredity, general environment, and school in development and learning.

The relationship between educational theory and other fields of study became increasingly close. Social science was used to study interactions and speech to discover what was actually happening in a classroom. Philosophy of science led educational theorists to attempt to understand paradigmatic shifts in knowledge. The critical literature of the 1960s and ’70s attacked all institutions as conveyors of the motives and economic interests of the dominant class. Both social philosophy and critical sociology continued to elaborate the themes of social control and oppression as embedded in educational institutions. In a world of social as well as intellectual change, there were necessarily new ethical questions—such as those dealing with abortion, biological experimentation, and child rights—which placed new demands on education and required new methods of teaching. Traditional movements

Against the various “progressive” lines of 20th-century education, there were strong voices advocating older traditions. Those voices were particularly strong in the 1930s, in the 1950s, and again in the 1980s and ’90s. Essentialists stressed those human experiences that they believed were indispensable to people of all time periods. They favoured the “mental disciplines” and, in the matter of method and content, put effort above interest, subjects above activities, collective experience above that of the individual, logical organization above the psychological, and the teacher’s initiative above that of the learner.

Closely related to essentialism was what was called humanistic, or liberal, education in its traditional form. Although many intellectuals argued the case, Robert M. Hutchins, president and then chancellor of the University of Chicago from 1929 to 1951, and Mortimer J. Adler, professor of the philosophy of law at the same institution, were its most recognized proponents. Adler argued for the restoration of an Aristotelian viewpoint in education. Maintaining that there are unchanging verities, he sought a return to education fixed in content and aim. Hutchins denounced American higher education for its vocationalism and “anti-intellectualism,” as well as for its delight in minute and isolated specialization. He and his colleagues urged a return to the cultivation of the intellect.

Opposed to the fundamental tenets of pragmatism was the philosophy that underlay all Roman Catholic education. Theocentric in its viewpoint, Catholic Scholasticism had God as its unchanging basis of action. It insisted that without such a basis there can be no real aim to any type of living, and hence there can be no real purpose in any system of education. The church’s

whole educational aim is to restore the sons of Adam to their high position as children of God. [It insists that] education must prepare man for what he should do here below in order to attain the sublime end for which he was created. (From Pius XI, encyclical on the “Christian Education of Youth,” Dec. 31, 1929.)

Everything in education—content, method, discipline—must lead in the direction of humanity’s supernatural destiny. New foundations

The three concerns that guided the development of 20th-century education were the child, science, and society. The foundations for this trilogy were laid by so-called progressive education movements supporting child-centred education, scientific-realist education, and social reconstruction. Progressive education

The progressive education movement was part and parcel of a broader social and political reform called the Progressive movement, which dated to the last decades of the 19th century and the early decades of the 20th. Elementary education had spread throughout the Western world, largely doing away with illiteracy and raising the level of social understanding. Yet, despite this progress, the schools had failed to keep pace with the tremendous social changes that had been going on.

Dissatisfaction with existing schools led several educational reformers who wished to put their ideas into practice to establish experimental schools during the last decade of the 19th century and in the early 20th century. The principal experimental schools in America until 1914 were the University of Chicago Laboratory School, founded in 1896 and directed by John Dewey; the Francis W. Parker School, founded in 1901 in Chicago; the School of Organic Education at Fairhope, Ala., founded by Marietta Johnson in 1907; and the experimental elementary school at the University of Missouri (Columbia), founded in 1904 by Junius L. Meriam. The common goal of all was to eliminate the school’s traditional stiffness and to break down hard and fast subject-matter lines. Three main traits characterized these schools: each school adopted an activity program; each school operated on the assumption that education was something that should not be imposed upon the child from the outside but should instead draw forth the latent possibilities from within the child; and each school believed in the democratic concept of individual worth.

Dewey, whose writings and lectures influenced educators throughout the world, laid the foundations of a new philosophy that affected the whole structure of education, particularly at the elementary level. His theories were expounded in School and Society (1899), The Child and the Curriculum (1902), and Democracy and Education (1916). For Dewey, philosophy and education render service to each other. Education becomes the laboratory of philosophy. Society should be interpreted to the child through daily living in the classroom, which acts as a miniature society. Education leads to no final end; it is something continuous, “a reconstruction of accumulated experience,” which must be directed toward social efficiency. Education is life, not merely a preparation for life.

The influence of progressive education advanced slowly during the first decades of the 20th century. Nevertheless, a number of progressive schools were established, including the Play School and the Walden School in New York City; the Shady Hill School in Cambridge, Mass.; the Elementary School of the University of Iowa; and the Oak Lane Day School in Philadelphia. Helen Parkhurst’s Dalton Plan, introduced in 1920 at Dalton, Mass., pioneered individually paced learning of broad topics. Carleton Washburne’s Winnetka Plan, instituted in 1919 at Winnetka, Ill., viewed learning as a continuous process guided by the child’s own goals and capabilities. The Gary Plan, developed in 1908 at Gary, Ind., by William Wirt, established a “complete school,” embracing work, study, and play for all grades on a full-year basis.

The spread of progressive education became more rapid from the 1920s on and was not confined to any particular country. In the United States the Progressive Education Association (PEA) was formed in 1919. The PEA did much to further the cause of progressive education until it ended, as an organization, in 1955. In 1921 Europe’s leading progressives formed the New Education Fellowship, later renamed the World Education Fellowship.

The notions expressed by progressive education influenced public school systems everywhere. Some of the movement’s lasting effects were seen in activity programs, imaginative writing and reading classes, projects linked to the community, flexible classroom space, dramatics and informal activities, discovery methods of learning, self-assessment systems, and programs for the development of citizenship and responsibility. Child-centred education

Proponents of the child-centred approach to education typically argued that the school should be fitted to the needs of the child and not the child to the school. These ideas, first explored in Europe, notably in Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Émile (1762) and in Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi’s How Gertrude Teaches Her Children (1801), were implemented in American systems by pioneering educators such as Francis W. Parker. Parker became superintendent of schools in Quincy, Mass., in 1875. He assailed the mechanical, assembly-line methods of traditional schools and stressed “quality teaching,” by which he meant strategies such as activity, creative self-expression, excursions, understanding the individual, and the development of personality.

Francis ParkerCourtesy of Chicago Historical Society

A different approach to child-centred education arose as a result of the study and care of the physically and mentally handicapped. Teachers had to invent their own methods to meet the needs of such children, because the ordinary schools did not supply them. When these methods proved successful with handicapped children, there arose the question of whether they might not yield even better results with nonhandicapped children. During the first decade of the 20th century, the educationists Maria Montessori of Rome and Ovide Decroly of Brussels both successfully applied their educational inventions in schools for ordinary boys and girls.

The Montessori method’s underlying assumption was the child’s need to escape from the domination of parent and teacher. According to Montessori, children, who are the unhappy victims of adult suppression, have been compelled to adopt defensive measures foreign to their real nature in the struggle to hold their own. The first move toward the reform of education, therefore, should be directed toward educators: to enlighten their consciences, to remove their perceptions of superiority, and to make them humble and passive in their attitudes toward the young. The next move should be to provide a new environment in which the child has a chance to live a life of his own. In the Montessori method, the senses are separately trained by means of apparatuses calculated to enlist spontaneous interest at the successive stages of mental growth. By similar self-educative devices, the child is led to individual mastery of the basic skills of everyday life and then to schoolwork in arithmetic and grammar.

The Decroly method was essentially a program of work based on centres of interest and educative games. Its basic feature was the workshop-classroom, in which children freely went about their own occupations. Behind the complex of individual activities was a carefully organized scheme of work based on an analysis of the fundamental needs of the child. The principle of giving priority to wholes rather than to parts was emphasized in teaching children to read, write, and count, and care was taken to reach a comprehensive view of the experiences of life. The Montessori and the Decroly methods spread throughout the world and widely influenced attitudes and practices of educating young children.

Pestalozzian principles also encouraged the introduction of music education into early childhood programs. Research showed that music has an undeniable effect on the development of the young child, especially in such areas as movement, temper, and speech and listening patterns. The four most common methods of early childhood music education were those developed by Émile Jaques-Dalcroze, Carl Orff, and Zoltán Kodály, as well as the Comprehensive Musicianship approach. The Dalcroze method emphasized movement; Orff, dramatization; Kodály, singing games; and Comprehensive Musicianship, exploration and discovery. Another popular method, developed by the Japanese violinist Shinichi Suzuki, was based on the theory that young children learn music in the same way that they learn their first language. Scientific-realist education

The scientific-realist education movement began in 1900 when Édouard Claparède, then a doctor at the Psychological Laboratory of the University of Geneva, responded to an appeal from the women in charge of special schools for “backward” and “abnormal” children in Geneva. The experience allowed him to realize some of the defects of ordinary schools. Not as much thought was given, he argued, to the minds of children as was given to their feet. Their shoes were of different sizes and shapes, made to fit their feet. When would there be schools to measure? The psychological principles needed to adapt education to individual children were expounded in his Psychologie de l’enfant et pédagogie experimentale (1905; Experimental Pedagogy and the Psychology of the Child). Later Claparède took a leading part in the creation of the J.-J. Rousseau Institute in Geneva, a school of educational sciences to which came students from all over the world.

Theorists such as Claparède hoped to provide a scientific basis for education, an aim that was furthered by the Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget, who studied in a philosophical and psychological manner the intellectual development of children. Piaget argued, on the basis of his observations, that development of intelligence exhibits four chief stages and that the sequence is everywhere the same, although the ages in the stages of development may vary from culture to culture.

The first stage takes place during infancy, when children, even before they learn to speak, put objects together (addition) and then separate them (subtraction), perceiving them as collections, rings, networks, and groups. By the age of two or three, a basis has been laid. The children have developed kinetic muscular intelligence to some degree—they can think with their fingers, their hands, and their bodies. Aided by language, the capacity for symbolic thinking slowly develops, constituting the second stage. Up to the age of seven or eight, some of the fundamental categories of adult thinking are still absent; there is seldom any notion, for instance, of cause-and-effect relationships.

The third stage is that of concrete operation. The child has begun to know how to deal with mental symbols and acquires abstract notions, such as “responsibility.” But the child operates only when in the presence of concrete objects that can be manipulated. Pure abstract thinking is still too difficult. Teaching at this stage must be exceedingly concrete and active; purely verbal teaching is out of place. Only after about 12 years of age, with the onset of adolescence, do children develop the power to deal with formal mental operations not immediately attached to objects. Only then do theories begin to acquire real significance, and only then can purely verbal teaching be used.

The child’s total development, particularly emotional and social growth, also concerned educational reformers. They pointed out the error in assuming that incentives to mental effort are the same for adults and children. The English philosopher Alfred North Whitehead, in his doctrine of the “Cycle of Interests,” put forward a theory in line with the ideas of the reformers. Romance, precision, and generalization, said Whitehead, are the stages through which, rhythmically, mental growth proceeds.

Education should consist in a continual repetition of such cycles. Each lesson in a minor way should form an eddy cycle issuing in its own subordinate process.

Whitehead believed that any scheme of education must be judged by the extent to which it stimulates a child to think. From the beginning of education, children should experience the joy of discovery. Social-reconstructionist education

Social-reconstructionist education was based on the theory that society can be reconstructed through the complete control of education. The objective was to change society to conform to the basic ideals of the political party or government in power or to create a utopian society through education.

In the first half of the 20th century, communist education was possibly the most pervasive version of operational social-reconstructionism in the world. Originally based on the philosophy of Karl Marx and institutionalized in the Soviet Union, it reached a large proportion of the world’s youth. In the 1950s much attention was paid to the ideal of “polytechnization.” The human being, so the argument ran, is not simply Homo sapiens but rather Homo faber, the constructor and builder. He attains full mental, moral, and spiritual development through entering into social relations with others, particularly in cooperative efforts to produce material, artistic, and spiritual goods and achievements. The school should prepare pupils for such productive activities—for instance, by studying and, if possible, sharing in the work done in field, farm, or factory.

A different social-reconstructionist movement was that of the kibbutzim (collective farms) of Israel. The most striking feature of kibbutz education was that the parents forgo rearing and educating their offspring themselves and instead hand the children over to professional educators, sometimes immediately after birth. The kibbutzim type of education developed for both practical and economic reasons, but gradually four educational considerations gained prominence: (1) that the kibbutz way of life makes for complete equality of the sexes, (2) that the education of children in special children’s houses is the best way of perpetuating the kibbutz way of life, (3) that collective education is more “scientific” than education within the family, inasmuch as children are reared and trained by experts—i.e., qualified nurses, kindergarten teachers, and other educators—in an atmosphere free of the tensions engendered by family relationships, and (4) that collective education is more democratic than traditional education and more in keeping with the spirit of cooperative living. Major trends and problems

The idea of social-reconstructionist education was based on a 19th-century belief in the power of education to change society. In the last quarter of the 20th century there was considerable pessimism, but the idea that schooling could influence either society or the individual was widely held, affecting the growth of tertiary-level alternatives, management strategies, and education of disadvantaged people, in both industrialized and developing countries.

The international concern with assistance to people in the non-Western world was paralleled by the inclusiveness that characterized education in the 20th century. Education was seen as a primary instrument in recognizing and providing equality for those suffering disadvantage because of sex, race, ethnic origin, age, or physical disability. This required revisions of textbooks, new consciousness about language, and change in criteria for admission to higher levels. It led to more demanding definitions of equality involving, for example, equality of outcome rather than of opportunity.

The inclusion of all children and youth was part of a general integrative trend that accelerated following World War II. It related to some newer developments as well. Concern for the Earth’s endangered environment became central, emphasizing in both intellectual and social life the need for cooperation rather than competition, the importance of understanding interrelationships of the ecosystem, and the idea that ecology could be used as an organizing concept. In a different vein, the rapid development of microelectronics, particularly the use of computers for multiple functions in education, progressed far beyond the possibilities of earlier technological advances. Although technology was thought of by some as antagonistic to humanistic concerns, others argued that it made communication and comprehension available to a wider population and encouraged “system thinking,” both ultimately integrative effects.

The polarization of opinion on technology’s effects and most other important issues was a problem in educational policy determination. In addition to the difficulties of governing increasingly large and diverse education systems, as well as those of meeting the never-ending demands of expanding education, the chronic lack of consensus rendered the system unable to respond satisfactorily to public criticism and unable to plan for substantive long-range development. The political and administrative responses were to attend to short-run efficiency by improving management techniques and to adopt polar responses to accommodate polar criticisms. Thus, community and community schools were emphasized along with central control and standardization, and institutional alternatives were opened while the structure of main institutions became more articulated. For example, the focus of attention was placed on the transition stages—from home to school, from primary to secondary to upper secondary, from school to work—which earlier were virtually ignored. Tertiary institutions were reconceived as part of a unified level, testing became more sophisticated, and credentials became more differentiated either by certificate or by transcript. Alternative teaching strategies were encouraged in theory, but basic curriculum uniformity effectively restricted the practice of new methods. General education was still mainly abstract, and subject matter—though internally more dynamic—still rested on language, mathematics, and science. There was an increasing reliance on the construction of subject matter to guide the method of teaching. Teachers were entrusted with a greater variety of tasks but were less trusted with knowledge, leading political authorities to call for upgrading of teacher training, teacher in-service training, and regular assessment of teacher performance.

Reform efforts focused on integrating general and vocational education and on encouraging lifelong or recurrent education to meet changing individual and social needs. Thus, not only did the number of students and institutions increase as a result of inclusion policies, but the scope of education also expanded. This tremendous growth, however, raised new questions about the proper functions of the school and the effectiveness for life, work, or intellectual advancement of current programs and means of instruction. Western patterns of education The United Kingdom Early 19th to early 20th century

English education was less consciously nationalist than that of continental European countries but was deeply influenced by social class structure. Traditionally, the English held that the activity of the government should be restricted to essential matters such as the defense of property and should not interfere in education, which was the concern of family and church. The growth of a national education system throughout the 19th century continued without a clear plan or a national decision. The cornerstone of the modern system was laid by the Elementary Education Act of 1870, which accepted the principle that the establishment of a system of elementary schools should be the responsibility of the state. It did not, however, eliminate the traditional prominence of voluntary agencies in the sphere of English education or provide for secondary education, which was conducted largely by voluntary fee-charging grammar schools and “public” schools. These public schools were usually boarding schools charging rather high fees. Their tradition was aristocratic, exclusive, formal, and classical. Their main goal was to develop “leaders” for service in public life. In 1900 one child in 70 could expect to enter a secondary school of some kind. The grammar schools copied the curriculum of the public schools, so that only the intellectual and social elite were able to attend.

In 1899 an advance was made toward the development of a national system encompassing both elementary and secondary education by creating a Board of Education as the central authority for education. The Balfour Act of 1902 established a comprehensive system of local government for both secondary and elementary education. It created new local education authorities and empowered them to provide secondary schools and develop technical education. The Education Act of 1918 (The Fisher Act) aimed at the establishment of a “national system of public education available for all persons capable of profiting thereby.” Local authorities were called upon to prepare plans for the orderly and progressive development of education. The age of departure from formal education was raised to 14, and power was given to local authorities to extend it to 15. Education Act of 1944

The Education Act of 1944 involved a thorough recasting of the educational system. The Board of Education was replaced by a minister who was to direct and control the local education authorities, thereby assuring a more even standard of educational opportunity throughout England and Wales. Every local education authority was required to submit for the minister’s approval a development plan for primary and secondary education and a plan for further education in its area. Two central advisory councils were constituted, one for England, another for Wales. These had the power, in addition to dealing with problems set by the minister, to tender advice on their own initiative. The total number of education authorities in England and Wales was reduced from 315 to 146.

The educational systems of Scotland and Northern Ireland were separate and distinct from that of England and Wales, although there were close links between them. The essential features of the Education Act of 1944 of England and Wales were reproduced in the Education Act of 1945 in Scotland and in the Education Act of 1947 in Northern Ireland. There were such adaptations in each country as were required by local traditions and environment.

The complexity of the education system in the United Kingdom arose in part from the pioneer work done in the past by voluntary bodies and a desire to retain the voluntary element in the state system. The act of 1944 continued the religious compromise expressed in the acts of 1870 and 1902 but elaborated and modified it after much consultation with the parties concerned. The act required that, in every state-aided primary and secondary school, the day should begin with collective worship on the part of all pupils and that religious instruction should be given in every such school. As in earlier legislation, however, there was a conscience clause, and another to ensure that no teacher should suffer because of religious convictions. Religious instruction continued to be given in both fully maintained and state-aided voluntary schools, and opportunities existed for religious training beyond the daily worship and minimum required instruction. In many schools the religious offering became nondenominational, and in areas of high non-Christian immigrant population consideration might be given to alternative religious provisions.

Two fundamental reforms in the act of 1944 were the requirement of secondary education for all, a requirement that meant that no school fees could be charged in any school maintained by public authority; and the replacement of the former distinction between elementary and higher education by a new classification of “three progressive stages to be known as primary education, secondary education, and further education.” To provide an adequate secondary education in accordance with “age, ability, and aptitude,” as interpreted by the Ministry of Education, three separate schools were necessary: the grammar school, modeled on elite public schools; the less intellectually rigorous secondary modern school; and the technical school. If, in exceptional circumstances, such provisions were made in a single school, then the school would have to be large enough to comprise the three separate curricula under one roof. Children were directed to the appropriate school at the age of 11 by means of selection tests.

The tripartite system of grammar, secondary modern, and technical schools did not, in fact, flourish. The ministry had never been specific about the proportion of “technically minded” children in the population but, in terms of school places provided in practice, it was about 5 percent. Since, on the average, grammar school places were available to 20 percent, this left 75 percent of the child population to be directed to the secondary modern schools for which the ministry advocated courses not designed to lead to any form of qualification. The comprehensive movement

Selection procedures at the age of 11, through what is called the “eleven-plus” examination, proved to be the Achilles’ heel of the grammar school–secondary modern system. Various developments contributed to the downfall of selection at 11: first, the examination successes of the students in modern secondary schools; second, the failure of a significant proportion of the children so carefully selected for grammar schools; and third, the report of a committee appointed by the British Psychological Society, which supported arguments that education itself promotes intellectual development and that “intelligence” tests do not, in fact, measure genetic endowment but rather educational achievement.

The main issue in the 1950s and ’60s was whether or not the grammar schools should be retained with selection at 11-plus. One of the main arguments used was that the right of “parental choice” must be upheld. Another was that it was in the “English tradition” to retain a selective system. But gradually the number of comprehensive (nonselective) schools increased.

During the election of 1964, the Labour Party promised to promote the establishment of the comprehensive school and to abolish selection at 11-plus. Upon taking office, however, the Labour government, instead of legislating, issued a circular in the belief that this would enlist local support and encourage local initiative. The result was conflict between national policy and local policy in some areas. The Conservative government elected in 1970 declared its intention of leaving decisions about reorganization to the local authorities. The comprehensive principle became dominant, and the number of comprehensive schools grew under both Labour and Conservative governments, so that most state-maintained secondary schools were comprehensive. The administrative compromise of leaving organizational options open to local authorities permitted variations to continue, however, and 5 to 6 percent of the school population attended completely independent private schools. Enrollment at the exclusively academic, often prestigious, and costly independent secondary schools might be preceded by attendance at private preparatory schools.

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.

The Volksschule was universal, free, and compulsory. The fundamental subjects were taught along with gymnastics and religion, which held important places in the curriculum. Girls and boys were taught in separate schools except when it was uneconomical to do so. Boys usually received training in manual work, and girls in domestic science. Graduates of the Volksschule found it almost impossible to enter the secondary school, which was attended almost exclusively by graduates of private preparatory schools charging fees. The Volksschule led its students directly to work and was thus separate and parallel to the secondary school program rather than sequential.

Boys who, at the age of nine, were about to enter secondary school had to decide on one of the three types of schools, each offering a different curriculum. The traditional classical Gymnasium stressed Latin and Greek. The Realgymnasium offered a curriculum that was a compromise between the humanities and modern subjects. The Oberrealschule stressed modern languages and sciences. Although Kaiser William II threw his influence on the side of the modernists in 1890, the Gymnasium continued to overshadow the other two schools until after World War II.

Secondary schools for girls were recognized by Prussia in 1872 and were extended and improved in 1894 and again in 1908. These schools were fee-paying and were thus available chiefly to the upper social and economic strata. The course of instruction lasted 10 years, from age 6 to 16. This 10-year school was called the Lyzeum, the first three years being preparatory. Beyond it was the Oberlyzeum, which was divided into two courses: the Frauenschule, which offered a two-year general course, and the Lehrerinnenseminar, which offered a four-year course for prospective elementary school teachers. Girls who wanted a secondary school education similar to that of the boys transferred at the age of 13 to the Studienanstalt.

Continuation schools for the working class augmented apprenticeship training with part-time education. They were the forerunners of the part-time vocational Berufsschulen, which continued through the close of the century. Greatly influenced by the ideas of Georg Kerschensteiner, these schools increased in importance in the early 20th century. Between 1919 and 1938 they filled out the secondary sector to ensure attendance at some kind of school for all youth to the age of 18. Weimar Republic

In no sphere of public activity did the establishment of the Weimar Republic after 1919 cause more creative discussion and more far-reaching changes than in that of education. A four-year Grundschule was established, free and compulsory for all children. It was the basic building block for all subsequent social liberalization in education. Besides the elementary subjects and religion, the child was instructed in drawing, singing, physical training, and manual work. The Oberstufe, the four upper classes of the elementary school, combined with the Grundschule to form a complete whole. Most elementary schools thus provided an eight-year course of study. Intermediate schools (Mittelschulen) were established for children who wished a longer and more advanced elementary school course and were able to pay modest fees.

The Weimar constitution preserved the religious tradition, which had been an essential part of the school curriculum in Germany since the Reformation. No pupil, however, could be compelled to study religion, and no teacher could be forced to teach it. Communities were accorded the right to establish schools in accordance with the particular religious beliefs of the pupils.

As regards secondary education, the Weimar Republic kept the prewar division of Gymnasium, Realgymnasium, and Oberrealschule. (There were three comparable schools for girls.) In addition, there was established the Aufbauschule, which was a six-year school following completion of the seventh year of the elementary school, and the Deutsche Oberschule, a nine-year school that required two modern foreign languages and stressed German culture. Nazi Germany

After Adolf Hitler’s accession to power in 1933, the Nazis set out to reconstruct German society. To do that, the totalitarian government attempted to exert complete control over the populace. Every institution was infused with National Socialist ideology and infiltrated by Nazi personnel in chief positions. Schools were no exception. Even before coming to power, Hitler in Mein Kampf (1925–27; “My Struggle”) had hinted at his plans for broad educational exploitation. The Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda exercised control over virtually every form of expression—radio, theatre, cinema, the fine arts, the press, churches, and schools. The control of the schools began in March 1933 with the issuing of the first educational decree, which held that “German culture must be treated thoroughly.”

The Nazi government attempted to control the minds of the young and thus, among other means, intruded Nazi beliefs into the school curriculum. A major part of biology became “race science,” and health education and physical training did not escape the racial stress. Geography became geopolitics, the study of the fatherland being fundamental. Physical training was made compulsory for all, as was youth labour service. Much of the fundamental curriculum was not disturbed, however. Changes after World War II

Immediately after World War II, the occupying powers (Britain, France, and the United States in the western zones and the Soviet Union in the east) instituted education programs designed to clean out Nazi influence and to reflect their respective educational values. These efforts were soon absorbed into independent German educational reconstruction. The Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) of May 1949 granted autonomy in educational matters to the Land (state) governments. Although efforts to strengthen the federal government’s presence waxed and waned, Land governments remained independent and divided along political lines on educational reforms.

The two main political issues dividing the states had always been confessional schooling and the tripartite division of secondary schooling, with conservative states like Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg on one side and socially progressive states like Hessen and West Berlin on the other. After a 20-year period of reform discussion on these issues, marked by influential state or national proposals, the balance shifted in the mid-1970s to the conservatives—albeit with a great deal of internal liberalization. That is, confessional schools and confessional instruction in schools remained, but the latter was increasingly in ecumenical or ethical versions. This change, like others, was supported by the presence of a large number of non-German children representing various cultural beliefs and behaviours. On the issue of dividing secondary schools, in spite of continued strong intellectual and political support from some quarters, the movement toward comprehensive schools had, at least for the time being, died out. Even where comprehensive schools (Gesamtschulen) existed, they usually incorporated separate secondary paths. Nevertheless, the effective extension of common schooling through an “orientation stage” between elementary and secondary schooling, the attempt to develop each level so that it better served more youth—even if differentially—and the functional integration of school branches through curriculum reform and transfer possibilities all pointed to a comprehensiveness within the system.

Education was compulsory from age 6 to 18. In general, pupils spent four years in the elementary school (Grundschule), six years in one of the lower secondary branches, and two years in one of the upper secondary branches. The first two years of the lower secondary school constituted the “orientation stage.” Long governed by entrance examination, the choice of secondary school was now made by the parents. However, performance at the orientation stage—especially in the subjects of German, mathematics, and foreign language (English)—influenced decisions.

In the late 20th century about 25 percent of secondary-school-age children entered the Gymnasium, which, with different academic emphases, remained the successor to its Classical ancestor. Roughly 40 percent attended the nonselective Hauptschule (“main school”), which offered basic subjects to grade 9 or 10 and was followed by apprenticeship with part-time vocational school or by full-time vocational school. Approximately 25 percent attended the Realschule (formerly Mittelschule), which offered academic and prevocational options. It led to vocational school or technical school, which in turn led to commercial, technical, or administrative occupations. The vocational-technical sector was always given careful government and industry attention, and the network included a wide range of methods and content alternatives, with levels up to a university equivalent. All these institutions encompassed general education, theory of the trade or industrial field, and work practice. The schools could be reentered from work and could provide an alternative path to the university.

One of the means of coordinating differences among Land systems was through the Conference of the Cultural Ministers of the states, and one of the important resolutions of this body, in 1973, was for reform of the upper secondary stage. Attention was given to equalizing opportunities at this stage. This affected the Gymnasium by shifting much of the traditional load to the upper level. Although the first stage was still academically demanding, the foreign-language requirement was much more flexible, and many students left for work at the end of the 10th school year. The upper level was required to reach the Abitur, qualifying the student for university entrance. Although the range of subjects was extended, courses were diversified, and final achievement was indicated by a cumulative point system. The upper level of the Gymnasium was characterized by breadth of knowledge at a high intellectual standard, including cultural essentials as well as an academic concentration, and thus still captured the German educational ideal.

Whether due to periodic change, German tradition, or inadequate understanding of the reform process, the educational system had irresistibly returned to basic principles. The incorporation of new alternatives and individual opportunities yielded an open rather than a fundamentally changed system. This may have been the best way for education to meet the major political themes of 20th-century Germany: individual rights as the criterion of policy determination and the European community as the broader context of national development. France The Third Republic

The establishment of the Third Republic (1870) brought about the complete renovation of the French schools, in the process of which education became a national enterprise. In 1882 primary education was made compulsory for all children between the ages of 6 and 13. In 1886 members of the clergy were forbidden to teach in the public schools, and in 1904 the teaching congregations were suppressed. France had thus established a national free, compulsory, and secularized system of elementary schooling. (Although secularization was a necessary government strategy, it was also necessary to permit private Catholic schools, and these continued to enroll a significant number of French children.)

In spite of the attempt to unify education through national purpose and centralized means, two parallel systems existed: that of the public elementary schools and higher primary schools and that of the selective, overwhelmingly intellectual secondary lycées and their preparatory schools. The lycées emphasized Classical studies through the study of Greek and Latin. It was not until 1902 that this exclusive emphasis was challenged by a reform promoting the study of modern languages and science and not until the period between World Wars I and II that education was seen to have a vocational function, other than grossly in a social-class sense, and thus to require democratization.

The administration of education in France remained highly centralized and continued to be concerned with every aspect of national education, including curricula, syllabi, textbooks, and teacher performance. At the head of the system was the minister of national education, who was advised and assisted by a hierarchy of officials. The country was divided into 27 educational administrative areas, each known as an “academy.” The chief education officer was the rector, the minister’s most important representative, who administered the laws and regulations. The inspectorate, represented by regional inspectors under an inspecteur d’académie and by national inspectors, had extensive bureaucratic and supervisory powers. Changes after World War II

From 1946 education was included in the plans developed by the central planning commission in France. In general, government was friendly to educational development and reform. Student protests in the late 1960s caused an antagonistic reaction, however, and teacher resistance appeared to work against many government reform initiatives. Government reform trends moved toward increasing administrative efficiency and accountability, meeting national economic needs through improved technological education, improving the articulation of system parts, opening the school to the community, and correcting inequalities, through both curricular and organizational provisions. Attention was given not only to “socializing” the system but also to correcting inequalities suffered by French ethnic minorities and immigrant children, to amending social-geographic inequalities, and to increasing options for the handicapped in both special schools and, after the mid-1970s, regular schools.

In 1947 a commission established to examine the educational system recommended a thorough overhauling of the entire school system. Education was to be compulsory from age 6 to 18. Schooling was to be divided into three successive stages: (1) 6 to 11, aimed at mastery of the basic skills and knowledge, (2) 11 to 15, a period of guidance to discover aptitudes, and (3) 15 to 18, a stage during which education was to be diversified and specialized. The system consistently developed from one featuring a common elementary school to one incorporating a progression into separate paths. Reforms aimed to provide equality of educational experience at each stage and to create curricular conditions that furthered career advancement without abridging general education or forcing students to choose a profession prematurely.

Preschool education was given in the école maternelle, in which attendance was voluntary from age 2 to 6. Education was both compulsory and free between 6 and 16 years of age. The five-year elementary school was followed by a four-year lower secondary school, the collège unique, which was the object of much attention. The first two years at the collège unique constituted the observation cycle, during which teachers observed student performance. During the remaining two years, the orientation cycle, teachers offered guidance and assisted pupils in identifying their abilities and determining a career direction.

At the upper secondary level, from age 15 to 18, students entered either the general and technological high school (lycée d’enseignement général et technologique), successor to the traditional academic high school, or the vocational senior high school (lycée d’enseignement professionel), encompassing a range of vocational-technical studies and qualifications. Students entering the former chose one of three basic streams the first year, then concentrated the next two years on one of five sections of study: literary-philosophical studies, economics and social science, mathematics and physical science, Earth science and biological science, or scientific and industrial technology. The number of sections and, particularly, the number of technological options were scheduled for expansion. There was a common core of subjects plus electives in grades 10 and 11, but all subjects were oriented to the pupil’s major area of study. In grade 12 the subjects were optional. The baccalauréat examination taken at the end of these studies qualified students for university entrance. It consisted of written and oral examinations. More than half of the 70 percent who passed were females. The proportion of the age group reaching this peak of school success increased continuously, with corresponding effects on entrance to higher education.

Vocational-technical secondary education included a wide variety of options. Each of the courses leading to one of the 30 or so technical baccalauréats required three years of study and prepared students for corresponding studies in higher education. Students might also choose to obtain, in descending order of qualification requirements and course demands, the technician diploma (brevet de technicien), the diploma of vocational studies (brevet d’études professionelles), or the certificate of vocational aptitude (certificat d’aptitude professionelle). A one-year course conferring no specialized qualification was also available. As an alternative, youths might opt for apprenticeship training in the workplace.

Higher education was offered in universities, in institutes attached to a university, and in the grandes écoles. Students attended for two to five years and sat either for a diploma or, in certain establishments, for university degrees or for a competitive examination, such as the agrégation. Undergraduate courses lasted for three or four years, depending on the type of degree sought.

The universities went through a period of violent student dissatisfaction in the late 1960s. Reforms ensued encouraging decentralization, diversification of courses, and moderation of the importance of examinations. Nevertheless, the failure or dropout rate in the first two years remained high, and there were marked differences in status among institutions and faculties.

Teachers were graded according to the results of a competitive academic examination, and their training and qualifications varied by grade. The five grades ranged from the elementary teacher to the highly qualified graduate agrégé, who enjoyed the lightest teaching load and the highest prestige and who taught at the secondary level or higher. The differences had long been a matter of concern, as had the entrenchment of the higher levels of the teaching establishment. The system had resisted reforms calling for more uniformity in teacher status, changes in method and content orientation, teacher cooperation, interdisciplinarity, and technological familiarity. Reforms to extend the level of common education, to increase options at the upper secondary level, to strengthen the technological component, and to introduce steps to improve the link between school and work were nonetheless achieved. Internal reform proposals included the more flexible organization of time and content and the addition of extracurricular activities appropriate to the real life of youth and society. Government forays into decentralization promoted community links at the school level and school program initiatives. The outcomes affected the system at best gradually, however. Other European countries

Until the early 1990s most eastern European education systems followed the old Soviet model (see below Russia: From tsarism to communism). In Europe many countries were influenced by the British, German, and French systems, but there were numerous variations, some of which are treated here. Italy

Education in Italy up to 1923 was governed by the Casati Law, passed in 1859, when the country was being unified. The Casati Law organized the school system on the French plan of centralized control. In 1923 the entire national school system was reformed. The principle of state supremacy was reinforced by introducing at the end of each main course of studies a state examination to be taken by pupils from both public and private schools.

Eight years of schooling became compulsory beginning in 1948, although this plan was not realized until 1962. The five-year elementary school, for pupils aged 6 to 11, was followed by the undifferentiated middle or lower secondary school (scuola media) for pupils from 11 to 14. There continued to be a strong private (mainly Roman Catholic) interest in preschools and in teacher training for elementary and preschool levels.

Although reform proposals called for an extension of the unitary principle through the five-year upper secondary level, this level was highly diversified, with classical and scientific licei (schools) and a vast array of programs in vocational and industrial technical institutes. Shorter courses were given in institutes for elementary teachers and in art schools.

Entrance to Italian universities was gained by successful completion of any of the upper secondary alternatives. Universities were basically the only form of postsecondary education. They required the passing of a variable number of examinations, after which the students sat for a degree (laurea), which gave them the title of dottore. To be able to exercise any profession—such as that of lawyer, doctor, or business consultant—the students were required to take a state examination. Students who did not complete their studies in the normal period of time (from four to six years) might remain at the university for several years as fuori corso (“out of sequence”).

The unification of the lower levels and the expansion of academic and particularly vocational-technical alternatives at the upper level were notable advances, but the Italian education system still suffered from fragmentation and lack of articulation. Indications of low achievement and regional inequalities, in spite of relatively heavy public investment, suggested problems with system effectiveness. The force of conservative political, religious, and educational resistance to change likely maintained divisions of policy and outcome. The Netherlands

The first modern school law in the Netherlands was passed in 1801, when the government laid down the principle that each parish had the right to open and maintain schools. A debate between the proponents of denominational and nondenominational schools went on during the 19th century. The controversy was closed by a law of 1920, which declared that denominational schools were fully equal with state schools, both types being eligible for public funds. The resultant decentralization was unique. Roughly two-thirds of the Dutch school-age children attended private schools. In return for public funds, the private school—which might be Protestant, Roman Catholic, or secular—had to provide a curriculum equivalent to that offered by the public schools.

Religious-philosophical diversity was a characteristic feature of Dutch schools. Secondary education comprised four main types: preuniversity, general, vocational, and miscellaneous, which might be part-time. Selection decisions were strongly influenced by examinations. Preprimary and primary schools were later combined into single eight-year schools for children aged 4 to 12. Other changes included the growth of vocational education at the postsecondary level and the increase in opportunity for females, as indicated by increasing enrollment at higher levels and by the establishment of special programs, such as those giving women whose schooling was interrupted the chance to return and finish their education. Switzerland

The Swiss constitution of 1874 provided that each canton (state) or half canton must organize and maintain free and compulsory elementary schools. The federal government exercised no educational function below the university level, except to help finance the municipal and cantonal schools. The Swiss school system thus consisted of 26 cantonal systems, each having its own department of education, which set up its own school regulations. The Swiss Conference of Cantonal Directors of Education increased its efforts to achieve some educational unity, but great diversity remained.

In general, schooling was compulsory for eight or nine years, beginning at the age of six or seven. The elementary and lower secondary curriculum continued to stress mathematics and language. Cantonal differences in the training of elementary school teachers remained a matter of concern, but provisions for additional training of in-service teachers were good. Each cantonal system began to diversify at the lower secondary level and was even further differentiated at the post-compulsory upper secondary level. The pupil’s future professional life was a decisive factor in the selection of post-compulsory schooling. Most pupils entered one of the many vocational courses, in which apprenticeship had long played a serious role. Among preuniversity schools, three types were added to the two traditional ones emphasizing Classical languages; the new schools stressed mathematics and science (1925), modern languages (1972), and economics (1972). Later proposals favoured the consolidation of the preuniversity schools. Sweden

After World War II the Swedish government began to extend and unify the school system, which had historically been the domain of the Lutheran church. In 1950 the National Board of Education introduced a nine-year compulsory comprehensive school, with differentiation of pupils postponed until late in the program. This grundskola replaced all other forms in the compulsory period by 1972–73. Following the unification of the elementary and lower secondary levels was the systematic integration of the upper secondary level, spanning ages 16 to 19. This gymnasieskola used organizational and extracurricular means of integration, but students were separated into 25 “lines,” many of which were general-academic, though most were vocational. Reforms were implemented to make higher education available to more people, and adult education was encouraged.

The Swedish reform attracted much attention in Europe for several reasons. It achieved the earliest unequivocal unification of the compulsory-school sector. While moving toward increased levels of integration in the system, the reciprocity of differentiation and integration was used as a principle of school development. As a result, the vocational sector was incorporated into the general upper secondary school. Theory and practice were recognized as components of all programs. The reform process, which specified a long period of experimentation and voluntary action (1950 to 1962) and a correspondingly long period of implementation (1962 to 1972), was singularly well conceived to build planning into participation and practice. The resultant organization was stable but open to change on the same principles. Thus, the new equality thrust went beyond establishing equal opportunity to providing compensatory measures, even though they sometimes limited free choice—as, for example, in the use of sex quotas to bring women or men into occupations where they were underrepresented.

Attention also focused on the Swedish approach to recurrent education, which introduced the idea of interchanging school and work as early as the secondary level. The coordination of school and work life, which was a worldwide goal, was not only built into institutional programs in Sweden but also pursued there at a grass-roots level through local councils. Joseph Albert Lauwerys Roland Lee Swink Robert Frederic Lawson The United States

As the United States entered the 20th century, the principles that underlay its educational enterprise were already set. Educational sovereignty rested in the states. Education was free, compulsory, universal, and articulated from kindergarten to university, though the amount of free schooling varied from state to state, as did the age of required school attendance. Although a state could order parents to educate their children, it could not compel them to send their children to a public school. Parents with sectarian persuasions could send their offspring to religious schools. In principle, there was to be equal educational opportunity. Expansion of American education

Although such principles remained the basis of America’s educational endeavour, that endeavour—like America itself—underwent a vast evolution. The once-controversial parochial schools not only continued to exist but also increasingly drew public financial support for programs or students. The currency of privatization, carrying the idea of free choice in a private-sector educational market, strengthened the bargaining position of religious as well as other private schools. The issue of equality succeeded the issue of religion as the dominant topic of American educational debate.

Conditions varied markedly among regions of the country. Definitions of equal opportunity became more sophisticated, referring increasingly to wealth, region, physical disability, race, sex, or ethnic origin, rather than simply to access. Means for dealing with inequality became more complex. From the 1950s, measures to open schools, levels, and programs to minority students changed from the passive “opportunity” conception to “affirmative action.” Measured by high school completion and college attendance figures—both generally high and continually rising in the United States—and by standardized assessment scores, gains for African American and other minority students were noteworthy from the 1970s.

Although state departments of education used equalization formulas and interdistrict incentives to reach the poorest areas under their jurisdiction, conditions remained disadvantageous and difficult to address in some areas, particularly the inner cities, where students were mostly minorities. City schools often represented extremes in the array of problems facing youth—generally drug and alcohol abuse, crime, suicide, unwanted pregnancy, and illness—and the complex situation seemed intractable. Meeting the needs of a racially and ethnically mixed population, however, turned from the problem of the cities and from an assimilationist solution toward educational means of knowing and understanding the disadvantaged groups. States mandated multicultural courses in schools and for teachers. Districts introduced bilingual instruction and provided instruction in English as a second language. Books were revised to better represent the real variety in the population. The status of women was given attention, particularly through women’s studies, through improved access to higher education (women were now a majority of U.S. college students) and to fields previously exclusive to men, and through attempts to revise sexist language in books, instruction, and research.

A persistent idea in American democracy is that everyone, regardless of condition, should have a fair chance. Such is the tenet that underlay the establishment of the free, tax-supported common school and high school. As science pointed the way, the effort to bridge the gulf between the haves and have-nots extended to those with physical and mental handicaps. Most states and many cities undertook programs to teach the handicapped, though financially the going was difficult. In 1958 Congress appropriated $1 million to help prepare teachers of mentally retarded children. Thenceforward, federal aid for the handicapped steadily increased. With the Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975—and with corresponding legislation in states and communities—facilities, program development, teacher preparation, and employment training for the handicapped advanced more rapidly and comprehensively than in any other period. In 1990 the act underwent revision and was renamed the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA); the law was significantly updated again in 2004. Reforms aimed to place handicapped children in the least-restrictive environment and, where possible, to “mainstream” them in regular schools and classes.

At the turn of the 20th century, American youths attended an eight-year elementary school, whereupon those who continued went to a four-year high school. This “eight–four system” wholly prevailed until about 1910, when the “six–three–three system” made a modest beginning. Under the rearrangement, the pupil studied six years in the elementary school and three in the junior and senior high schools, respectively. Both systems were in use, there being almost the same number of four-year high schools and three–three junior–senior high school arrangements. There was a change at the elementary–junior high connection to include a system in which children attended an elementary school for four or five years and then a middle school for three or four years. The rapid growth of preschool provisions—with the establishment of an immense body of early-childhood teachers, day care workers, new “nannies,” producers of learning materials, and entrepreneurs—secured the place of the kindergarten as an educational step for five-year-olds and made available a wide, but mainly nonpublic, network of education for younger children.

In 1900 only a handful of the lower school’s alumni—some 500,000—advanced into the high school. Of those who took their high school diploma during this early period, some three out of every four entered college. The ratio reversed, as high school enrollments swelled 10-fold over the first 50 years of the century, with only one of every four high school graduates going on to higher learning. As even more students finished high school, demands for access to the postsecondary level increased accordingly. Curriculum reforms

From such experimental programs as the Dalton Plan, the Winnetka Plan, and the Gary Plan, and from the pioneering work of Francis W. Parker and notably John Dewey, which ushered in the “progressive education” of the 1920s and ’30s, American schools, curricula, and teacher training opened up in favour of flexible and cooperative methods pursued within a school seen as a learning community. The attempt to place the nature and experience of the child and the present life of the society at the centre of school activity was to last long after progressive education as a defined movement ended.

Some retrenchment occurred in the 1950s as a result of scientific challenges from the Soviet Union in a period of international political tension. Resulting criticisms of scientific education in the United States were, however, parried by educationists. America’s secondary school attuned itself more and more to preparing the young for everyday living. Consequently, though it still served prospective collegians the time-honoured academic fare, it went to great lengths to accommodate the generality of young America with courses in areas such as automobile driving, cookery, carpentry, and writing. In addition to changes in the form of earlier practical subjects, the curriculum responded to social issues by including such subjects as consumer education (or other applications of the economics of a free-enterprise society), ethnic or multicultural education, environmental education, sex and family-life education, and substance-abuse education. Interest in vocational-technical education was directed toward establishing specialized vocational schools, improving career information resources, integrating school and work experience, utilizing community resources, and meeting the needs of the labour market.

National prosperity and, even more, the cash value that a secondary diploma was supposed to bestow upon its owner enhanced the high school’s growth. So did the fact that more and more states required their young to attend school until their 16th, and sometimes even their 17th, birthday. However, economic strains, the ineffectiveness of many schools, and troubled school situations in which the safety of children and teachers was threatened led to questions about the extension of “compulsory youth” in high schools.

Criticisms were also leveled at the effects and aftereffects on education of 1960s idealism and its conflict with harsh realities. The publicized emphases on alternatives in lifestyle and on deinstitutionalization were ultimately, in their extreme form, destructive to public education. They were superseded by conservative attitudes favouring a return to the planning and management of a clearly defined curriculum. The dramatic fall in scores on the Scholastic Aptitude Test (a standardized test taken by a large number of high school graduates) between 1963 and 1982 occasioned a wave of public concern. A series of national, state, and private-agency reviews followed. The report of the National Commission on Excellence in Education, A Nation at Risk (1983), set the tone. The emphasis was now on quality of school performance and the relation of schooling to career. The main topics of concern were the curriculum, standardization of achievement, credentialing, and teacher preparation and performance. In order to clarify what was expected of teachers and students, states increasingly detailed curricula, set competency standards, mandated testing, and augmented the high school diploma by adding another credential or by using transcripts to show superior achievement. Curriculum reforms accentuated the academic basics—particularly mathematics, science, and language—as well as the “new basics,” including computers. Computers became increasingly important in education, not only as a field of study but also as reference and teaching aids. Teachers were using computers to organize and prepare course materials; children were taught to use computers at earlier ages; and more and more institutions were using computer-assisted instruction systems, which offered interactive instruction on a one-on-one basis and could be automatically modified to suit the user’s level of ability. In the 1990s the growth of the Internet significantly increased the availability and, in many areas, the quality of education.

The reports on the state of education also expressed concern for gifted children, who tended to be neglected in American education. Until psychologists and sociologists started to apply their science to the superior child, gifted children were not suspected of entertaining any particular problems. Eventually, however, augmented with federal, state, and sometimes foundation money, one city after another embarked on educational programs for the bright child. From the 1970s on, gifted children were directly recruited into special academic high schools and other local programs. American education was still aimed at broadening or raising the level of general provision, however, so neither programs for the gifted nor those for vocational education were treated as specifically as in some other countries. Federal involvement in local education

Although the U.S. Constitution has delegated educational authority to the states, which in turn passed on the responsibility for the daily administration of schools to local districts, there is no lack of federal counsel and assistance. Actually, national educational aid is older than the Constitution, having been initiated in 1787 in the form of land grants. Seventy-five years later the Morrill Act disbursed many thousands of acres to enable the states to promote a “liberal and practical education.” Soon thereafter the government created the federal Department of Education under the Department of the Interior and in 1953 established the Office of Education in the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. As the independent Department of Education from 1980, this agency took a vigorous role in stating national positions and in researching questions of overall interest. Its findings proved influential in both state and local reforms.

Education funding was shared among local districts, states, and the federal government. Beginning with the Smith–Lever Act of 1914, Congress legislated measure upon measure to develop vocational education in schools below the college plane. A new trail was opened in 1944, when the lawgivers financed the first “GI Bill of Rights” to enable veterans to continue their education in school or college.

During the 1960s, school difficulties experienced by children from disadvantaged families were traced to lack of opportunities for normal cognitive growth in the early years. The federal government attempted to correct the problem and by the mid-1960s was giving unprecedented funding toward compensatory education programs for disadvantaged preschool children. Compensatory intervention techniques included providing intensive instruction and attempting to restructure home and living conditions. The Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 provided for the establishment of the Head Start program, a total program designed to prepare children for success in public schools. It included medical, dental, social service, nutritional, and psychological care. Head Start grew steadily following its inception, spawning similar programs, including one based in the home and one for elementary-school-age children. In the 1970s, child-development centres began pilot programs for children aged four and younger. Other general trends of the late 1970s included extending public schools downward to include kindergarten, nursery school, child-development centres, and infant programs; organizing to accommodate culturally different or exceptional children; including educational purposes in day care; extending the hours and curriculum of kindergartens; emphasizing the early-childhood teacher’s role in guiding child development; “mainstreaming” handicapped children; and giving parents a voice in policy decisions. Early-childhood philosophy infiltrated the regular grades of the elementary school. Articulation or interface programs allowed preschool children to work together with first graders, sharing instruction. Extended to higher grades, the early-childhood learning methods promoted self-pacing, flexibility, and cooperation. Changes in higher education

The pedagogical experimentalism that marked America’s elementary learning during the century’s first quarter was less robust in the high school and feebler still in the college. The first venture of any consequence into collegiate progressivism was undertaken in 1921 at Antioch College in Ohio. Antioch required its students to divide their time between the study of the traditional subjects and the extramural world, for which, every five weeks or so, they forsook the classroom to work at a full-time job. In 1932 Bennington College for women, in Vermont, strode boldly toward progressive ends. Putting a high value on student freedom, self-expression, and creative work, it staffed its faculty largely with successful artists, writers, musicians, and other creative persons, rather than Ph.D.’s. It also granted students a large say in making the rules under which they lived.

Such developments in America’s higher learning incited gusty blasts from Robert M. Hutchins, president and then chancellor of the University of Chicago from 1929 to 1951. He recommended a mandatory study of grammar, rhetoric, logic, mathematics, and Aristotelian metaphysics. One consummation of the Hutchins prescription was the study of some 100 “great books,” wherein resided the unalterable first principles that Hutchins insisted were the same for all people, always and everywhere.

The vocationalism that Hutchins deplored was taken to task by several others but with quite different results—notably by Harvard University in its report on General Education in a Free Society (1945). Declaring against the high school’s heavy vocational leaning, it urged the adoption of a general curriculum in English, science, mathematics, and social science.

In the great expansion of higher education between about 1955 and 1975, when expansionist ideas about curriculum and governance prevailed, colleges became at times almost ungovernable. New colleges and new programs made the higher-education landscape so blurred that prospective students and admissions officers in other countries needed large, coded volumes to characterize individual institutions. The college curriculum, like that of the high school, was altered in response to vocal demands made by groups and had expanded in areas representing realities of contemporary social life. Internal reviews, undergraduate curriculum reforms, and the high standards set by some universities demonstrated to some observers that quality education was being maintained in the university. Other critics, however, felt that grade inflation, the multiplication of graduate programs, and increasing economic strains had led to a decline in quality. Financial problems and conservative reactions to the more extreme reforms led some universities to place a strong emphasis on management.

Probably the most significant change in higher education was the establishment and expansion of the junior college, which was conceived early in the century by William Rainey Harper, the first president of the University of Chicago. He proposed to separate the four-year college into an upper and a lower half, the one designated as the “university college” and the other as the “academic college.” The junior college was sometimes private but commonly public. It began as a two-year school, offering early college work or extensions to secondary education. It later expanded to include upper vocational schools (including a wide range of technical and clerical occupations), community colleges (offering vocational, school completion, and leisure or interest courses), and pre- or early-college institutions. Junior colleges recruited from a wide population range and tended to be vigorous innovators. Many maintained close relationships with their communities. Colleges limited to the undergraduate level, especially in articulated state systems, might not differ much from well-developed junior colleges. Professional organizations

American educators began to organize as early as 1743, when the American Philosophical Society was founded, and continued to do so in increasing numbers. Not a few of their organizations, such as the American Historical Association, the Modern Language Association of America, and the American Home Economics Association, were for the advancement of some specialty. Others were more concerned with the interests of the general educational practitioner. Of these, the National Education Association (NEA) was the oldest. Founded in 1857, it undertook “to elevate the character and advance the interest of the teaching profession.” Despite its high mission, it had little influence until the 1870s, when it began to grow and prosper. With headquarters in Washington, D.C., the NEA conducted its enormous enterprise through a brigade of commissions and councils. A youngster by comparison, the American Federation of Teachers, an affiliate of the AFL-CIO, was formed in 1916. Through collective bargaining and teachers’ strikes, it successfully obtained for teachers better wages, pensions, sick leaves, academic freedom, and other benefits. The distinction between a union and a professional organization became neither as clear nor as important an issue as it was in earlier days.

Such bodies as the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, the American Association of University Professors, the American Educational Research Association, the National Commission on Teacher Education and Professional Standards, and the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education laboured industriously and even with a fair success to bring order and dignity to the teaching profession. Nevertheless, teaching became an increasingly arduous profession in the United States. Even the security formerly associated with the profession was in question as waves of teacher shortages and surpluses generated frantic responses by educational authorities. Educational reviews addressed teaching inadequacies by encouraging prospective teachers to earn degrees in other subjects before beginning studies in the field of education. They recommended establishing proficiency tests, regular staff-development activities, certification stages, and workable teacher-evaluation and dismissal procedures. They insisted on the necessity for the reform and evaluation of training programs, and some questioned the institutional context of teacher training. Adolphe Erich Meyer Robert Frederic Lawson Canada

Although a Canadian nation had been formed by the end of the 19th century, separate political, economic, and geographic influences continued through the 20th century to restrain unified educational development. The historical principle of maintaining minority rights resulted in a truly pluralistic cultural concept, recognized to some extent in religious and linguistic concessions in schools. Each provincial system developed unilaterally, thus producing separately centralized educational units; and, even within a province, the evolving principle of local responsibility and the sparseness of settlement in many areas of Canada challenged the effectiveness of simple control principles. Different production emphases and differential advantages of territorial acquisition after confederation in 1867 created basic inequalities among the provinces, with a corresponding effect on schools. Finally, European principles of education were slow to be reconciled with those evolving out of the North American environment. Canadian educational development was consequently marked by eclectic, pragmatic actions rather than by philosophically or politically unified decisions.

It was nevertheless possible, because of a common national experience and because of the communication stimulated by national development, to describe education in national terms. Educational movements afoot in the early 20th century and associated with “progressive education” (such as child study, kindergarten development, and curriculum integration) had a relatively mild impact on traditional practices and forms. Instruction in the Canadian school remained essentially teacher-centred, with a strong emphasis on obedience and conformity. Canadian educational reforms

The major change in school structure occurred at the secondary level. The standard eight-year elementary program was first extended by continuation classes or schools alongside exclusive secondary schools, producing an uneven, overlapping postelementary structure. In the 1930s an expanded school population, reaching into the secondary grades, led to decisive action on compulsory attendance and to standardization of high school provisions. Junior high schools were introduced in some provinces as a transitional level between elementary and secondary schooling, while some provinces simply developed junior and senior stages of a total secondary program. The two extremes in secondary development were probably represented by Quebec and the west. In the French-speaking schools of Quebec, the secondary system consisted of private classical colleges leading to a baccalauréat on the one side and terminal courses in special schools or institutes on the other. Only after 1956 were public high schools with a variety of courses established. The administration of the system was unified under a ministry of education in 1964, although with continuing provision for local school boards of a distinctly Roman Catholic or Protestant nature. In the western provinces, large regional schools and composite high schools were developed extensively, Alberta having proceeded apace in this direction. British Columbia, following the Chant Commission Report in 1960, reorganized its secondary program to include five core streams, only one of which was academic-technical.

In general, the secondary curriculum was modified by expanding the catalog of optional subjects and by reorganizing to include new courses of study. Secondary schools in Canada were now mainly comprehensive and enrolled about 85 percent of the age group. After extensive provincial reviews in the 1980s, emphasis was returned to academic standards and newly placed on the relation of education to work, in response to the economic needs both of society and of the individual. This new emphasis included teaching specific job skills and industrial information, coordinating vocational and academic studies in school programs, and cooperating with industry through work-study programs. Alternatives to the basic choice between university preparation and a general terminal course appeared.

In response to the requirements of an expanded school population in the first half of the century and to the later demand for increased access—particularly for women, native peoples, immigrants, and low-income groups—changes to structure, curriculum, and methods occurred regularly from the 1960s. Many revisions originated with developments in the United States but took a particularly Canadian form. The first wave of reforms emphasized openness (open-area schools and classrooms, curriculum choice), comprehensiveness (composite high schools, consolidated rural schools, group work, and peer cooperation), and continuity up the school ladder (although with an abundance of alternatives). From the late 1970s, reforms shifted toward renewed emphasis on basic learning, selection of students, moral and social values, increased administrative control, and assessment procedures for school, system, and aggregate student performance.

The educational scene showed characteristics of both periods of reform. Some of the notable innovations included the provision of preschool classes in most elementary schools or systems; the use in early elementary grades of new educational methods developed at the preschool level; a concentrated attempt to decrease newly discovered functional illiteracy at all levels, including the adult level; the rapid introduction of electronic learning programs and instructional assistance; and direct concern with values instruction, usually secular and oriented to both personal and social issues. Both the attempt to reconcile individual educational requirements with the demands of mass systems and the emphasis on essential subject matter led to a search for new techniques of selecting and transmitting knowledge in schools.

The most demanding issues of the second half of the century reached beyond the traditional time and scope of public schooling: early-childhood education, adult education, private schooling, postsecondary education, and bilingual multicultural provisions. Whether as a reflection of concern over the direction of public schools, of an increasingly pluralistic society, or of affluence among parents, private school attendance rose steadily. It was still a small proportion of the school-age group in Canada, but the increase in interest as well as in attendance put pressure on provincial governments for funding. Most provinces now offered limited grants to authorized private schools, though at a level far below public school financing.

Consistent with Canada’s claim to multicultural social development and bolstered by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, multicultural and bilingual emphases made perhaps the strongest single impact on schooling. French-language instruction, both as a mother tongue and as a second language, expanded in traditionally English-speaking areas. Restrictions were placed on English-language schooling in Quebec as the French-language population struggled for cultural survival in North America. Court challenges against required Christian religious exercises and religious instruction in elementary schools were successful. Demands were made to give attention to other languages as languages of instruction and to revise the exclusively Western bias of curriculum content. The administration of public education

A new dimension in higher education was added with the establishment of provincial universities in the west (1901–08). This completed a set of regional patterns for university development that was continued. Canadian universities, within these patterns, drew their criteria from French, British, or American models. From the 1950s a boom in Canadian higher education led to increasingly independent considerations on the role of universities in Canadian development. While the 1950s and ’60s saw a great expansion of universities, the 1970s and ’80s saw rapid growth in postsecondary, nonuniversity education in provincially funded colleges. These colleges all offered some range of vocational programs. Their relationships with universities varied: some offered university transfer programs (Alberta), some offered university prerequisites (Quebec), and some had no formal relationship (Ontario). With an increasing student population in a wider range of postsecondary alternatives, the rationalization, planning, and funding of this sector was a primary issue for provincial governments.

The administration of public education was the exclusive responsibility of the provinces, which had worked out schemes of local authority under provincial oversight. Although the specific structure of the departments of education varied among the provinces, they conformed to a basic structure. Each was headed by a politically appointed minister of education, who might be advised by a council. The main functions of educational supervision were usually carried out through specific directorates for such areas as curriculum, examinations, vocational education, teacher training and certification, and adult education. Three developments, however, strengthened local autonomy in educational administration. Throughout the second quarter of the 20th century, consolidation of rural schools and administrative units took place in the west, thus resulting in stronger educational units that were more competent to act independently. Moves toward regional decentralization, especially in Ontario, Quebec, and New Brunswick, produced rather independent subprovincial units. Finally, urban development led to relatively autonomous city school operations. Provincial authority was reemphasized, however, with the demands for better system articulation and for standardization of requirements, programs, and testing.

Canada’s federal government had no constitutional authority in education and therefore maintained no general office dealing directly with educational matters. Federal activities in education were nevertheless carried out under other areas of responsibility, and certain functions of an office of education were subsumed under the secretary of state. The Council of Ministers of Education, Canada, brought together the chief educational officers of the provinces and ensured national communication at the governmental level. Under its responsibility for native peoples and its jurisdiction over extra-provincial territories, the federal government—through the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development—financed and supervised the education of aboriginal Canadians. In the Yukon, schools were administered by the territorial government, though largely financed from Ottawa.

Through agricultural and technical assistance acts in 1913 and 1919, the federal government began to promote vocational education, and this principle was extended through emergency programs in the depression years of the 1930s and during World War II. Vocational programs of wide scope were later introduced on a principle of federal support and provincial operation. The Technical and Vocational Assistance Act of 1960 was followed by a great surge in vocational education, including the construction of new schools and school additions, special institutes, and the preparation of vocational teachers. Program definitions in this area later became ever broader.

The federal government maintained and supported the education of armed-forces personnel. Research and development in higher education were promoted directly through grants from national research councils for social sciences and humanities, for the natural sciences and engineering, for medicine, and for the arts. Statistics Canada disseminated organized statistical information on schools and on social factors affecting education. Perhaps less direct but of great importance were national agencies operating in the area of mass communications media, such as the National Film Board. Together, the activities of the federal government not only supported but also strongly influenced certain areas of education and completed a picture of local-provincial-federal involvement in Canadian education. Australia and New Zealand Australia

The 20th-century development of Australian education continued to be influenced by British models and to be characterized by the exercise of strong central authority in the states. Yet, because Australian national development began in that century, increasing attention was given to the role of education in nation building.

Educational systems were built through the establishment of primary schools by the end of the 19th century, the extension of these through continuation programs, and the development of state secondary schools in the early part of the 20th century. The independent secondary schools that offered the bulk of secondary education before 1900 continued to be influential, either as components of the separate Roman Catholic system or as “elite” private schools of denominational or nondenominational character, but the growth of state systems carried the state high schools into numerical prominence.

The early development of educational systems before and around the turn of the 20th century was a crude beginning, the minimal provisions being accentuated by poor teacher preparation, administrative thrift schemes, and excess in the exercise of administrative authority. Improvement of these conditions and systematic positive development can be dated from the Fink Report of 1898 in Victoria and similar reform appeals in other states between 1902 and 1909. The steady pace of progress from that time was broken by a surge of growth and innovation in Australian institutions after World War II.

Education in small, isolated communities throughout the vast Australian area required special attention. As a means of reaching isolated children and adults, correspondence education was begun in 1914 in Victoria, and other states followed after 1922. The procedures were gradually refined and the levels extended. More formal early efforts included the introduction of provisional schools, itinerant teachers, and central schools in the outback. The small one-teacher bush schools became typical after federation in 1901. Much attention was given to methods of teaching in the one-room school, earning Australia international recognition for expertise in this area. Progress toward rural school consolidation began in Tasmania in 1936. The Tasmanian model combined special features of school independence, pupil freedom, involvement in agricultural projects, and parental cooperation with the “area school” movement. There was later a rapid decline in one-teacher all-age schools in Australia in favour of consolidated schools in central locations.

Education was a state, rather than a federal, responsibility in Australia. Authority was concentrated in a state department of education. The political head was the minister of education, and the permanent official in charge was the director or director general of education. The main divisions of the department were those for primary, secondary, and technical education, each directed by a senior official. Additional divisions, such as for special education or in-service training, were particular to the states. Department policy was executed through a hierarchy of educational experts. In the 1980s, major changes in administrative organization took place in all state systems toward devolution of authority to local regions and schools. A corporate style of management became current, using criteria of rationalization, effectiveness, and economic efficiency to guide organizational decisions.

After World War II, with the financial assets of exclusive income-taxing power, the federal (Commonwealth of Australia) government played an increasing role in educational development, particularly at the tertiary level. Through the States Grants Act in 1951, the Murray Report in 1957, the Martin Report in 1964, the Karmel Report in 1973, and the 1988 Policy Statement on higher education, the federal government moved into the planning as well as the funding of postsecondary education concurrently with the states. After four decades of rapid expansion in higher education, the government set a course toward a unified national system at the tertiary level. The government negotiated directly with higher education institutions, without the traditional buffer of consultative councils, and moved directly to amalgamate institutions and otherwise to rationalize the system. The organizational rationale was based on the contribution of higher education to the national economic interest, and strategies linked higher education to the training needs of the economy. System integrity, efficiency and output measures, and indications of privatization (a private university, tertiary fees, sale of educational services) characterized the political thrust. The Commonwealth Office of Education was established in 1945 to advise on financial assistance to the states and on educational matters generally, to act as a liaison agent among the states and between Australia and other countries, and to provide educational information and statistics. Renamed several times in subsequent decades, it brought together education and training policy with employment strategy at the national level.

About three-quarters of Australian schools were public. The remainder were made up of Roman Catholic schools (which constituted about 80 percent of the nonpublic schools) and other private schools, many of which had considerable influence in the leadership of Australian society. The curriculum and syllabus for each program or course in the state schools was prescribed by the Department of Education, and nonpublic schools generally followed this standard. From 1965, significant government funding was provided to private schools. There was a resurgence of interest in and a consequent increase of influence from this sector again in later years.

Primary schools were normally of six years’ duration, to about age 12, though some schools retained the seventh year of the old pattern. Within primary schools, pupils were organized in grades and advanced by annual promotion. Secondary education was offered for five or six years, generally in comprehensive schools. The minimum school-leaving age was 15 (16 in Tasmania). From the 1950s to the mid-1970s, rapid growth occurred throughout the systems but especially at higher levels. The technical and further education (TAFE) sector had a singular influence, operating at upper secondary and tertiary levels and providing widespread nonformal activities. TAFE colleges enrolled about 700,000 students of school-leaving age annually and served the great majority of Australian tertiary students. Later moves improved cross-crediting between TAFE and other tertiary institutions.

From the 1970s, three educational goals emerged: the first emphasized equality, diversity, devolution, and participation; the second, national and social unity; the third, effective means of managing what had become, because of rapid growth, a huge and nearly ungovernable education sector. As a result, there were internal reforms in teaching practice, curriculum, school organization, teacher education, and methods of assessment.

The attempts to increase the number of students continuing education and to improve or expand programs to serve the whole population raised interest in system unification, including such issues as establishing common curricula and stronger Australian content, improving the transition from school to work, and providing equal opportunity for Aborigines, the disabled, and other groups designated as disadvantaged. The government later highlighted recognition of the contribution of Aboriginal cultures as well as of Australian studies. New Zealand

The religious and regional issues that fettered educational development in other countries of the British Commonwealth were basically settled in New Zealand when the decisions were made in the last quarter of the 19th century to provide wholly secular primary schools and administrative centralization. The major issue in the 20th century was the achievement of equal educational opportunity. Although New Zealand accepted the responsibility to educate each child—without racial, social, or narrowly intellectual restriction—to the limits of the child’s ability, the unification of the total system to this end proved quite difficult.

The Education Act of 1914 consolidated the changes that had taken place since 1877. In subsequent reform periods during the 1930s and after World War II, barriers to pupil progress through the system were removed or modified. In 1934 the school-leaving certificate examination was established on a broader basis than the university entrance examination, and in 1936 the proficiency examination governing secondary entrance was abolished. In 1944–45 three additional changes were made: the school-leaving age was raised to 15; a common core of early secondary studies—including English, social studies, general science, mathematics, physical education, and a craft or fine-arts subject—was established; and universities agreed to accept accredited school courses without further examination for university entrance. These actions illustrated a gradual but steady facilitation of access through an increasingly coordinated system. The recommendations of the Currie Commission (1962) and the provisions of the Education Act of 1964 continued this direction.

Starting in 1877, education was supervised and funded by a central Department of Education, which was headed politically by a minister and permanently by a director general. Administrative duties were generally handled locally, however. Secondary schools were administered by their own boards of governors and primary schools by elected regional boards of education. Universities received grants negotiated by the University Grants Committee, and grants for other tertiary institutions were administered by the Department of Education. Three regional offices and teams of primary and secondary inspectors linked the central Department of Education and the network of local authorities. Education was free until the age of 19 for qualified pupils. University tuition was also paid for successful students.

New Zealand children generally started school at the age of five and spent eight years in primary school. The secondary system developed through the growth of three separate kinds of schools: the district high school, which represented more or less a secondary “top” on a primary school; the independent, academic, one-sex secondary school proper; and the technical school, which took shape between 1900 and 1908. The isolated position of the fee-charging secondary schools of the 19th century was compromised by free-place legislation in 1903, and by 1914 they were brought into the state system, though retaining a good deal of their independent status. The district high schools remained in the primary system, but their incorporation in the secondary inspection scheme and in secondary teacher classification placed them clearly within that sector of school operation. The technical high school evolved into a general high school with technical bias. Through common departmental inspection, curriculum, and examination standards, and through the effect of the movement for more general postprimary provisions after 1945, the secondary schools increasingly approximated a single pattern.

At the end of the 11th year of schooling, students took the School Certificate examination, a general test that partially determined admittance to the upper secondary level (12th and 13th years). Youths qualifying for university entrance found that admission to professional schools was limited. Although the technical institutes and community colleges were expanded after 1970, demand continued to increase for these programs. Enrollment in teachers’ colleges was limited because of a declining school population.

An extensive Roman Catholic private school system grew up after the secularization of state education. From 1970 these schools were subsidized, and after 1975 most became integrated into the state system and funded by the state.

Rural and native education was given increasing attention in New Zealand. Consolidated schools, served by an extensive transportation system, were a longtime feature of rural education. The expansion of community colleges and the establishment of rural education activity programs extended regional opportunities. Children and adults in isolated districts were served by several correspondence schools. Maori education became a responsibility of the Department of Education in 1879. Starting in 1962, the government attempted to balance the need for remediation of deficiencies in general schooling with Maori cultural rights. As in other countries, equity and the relationship between school and work were the two main issues facing the New Zealand school system. Together they represented growing social and economic demands that were potentially incompatible with the traditional order of schooling. Robert Frederic Lawson Revolutionary patterns of education Russia: from tsarism to communism Before 1917

At the turn of the 20th century the Russian Empire was in some respects educationally backward. According to the census of 1897, only 24 percent of the population above the age of nine were literate. By 1914 the rate had risen to roughly 40 percent. The large quota of illiteracy reflected the fact that by this time only about half the children between the ages of 8 and 12 attended school. The elementary schools were maintained by the zemstvo (local government agencies), the Orthodox church, or the state and the secondary schools mainly by the Ministry of Education.

After the Revolution of 1905, the Duma (parliament) made considerable efforts to introduce compulsory elementary schooling. At the upper stages of the educational system, progress was significant, too; nevertheless, the secondary schools (gimnazii, realnyye uchilishcha) were only to a small degree attended by students of the lower classes, and the higher institutions even less. Preschool education as well as adult education was left to the private initiative of the educationally minded intelligentsia, who were opposed to the authoritarian character of state education in the schools. In 1915–16 the minister of education, Count P.N. Ignatev, started serious reforms to modernize the secondary schools and to establish a system of vocational and technical education, which he regarded as most important for the industrialization of Russia. During the Provisional Government (February to October 1917, Old Style), the universities were granted autonomy, and the non-Russian nationalities received the right of instruction in their native languages. The education system envisaged by the liberal-democratic and moderate Socialist parties was a state common school for all children based on local control and the direct participation of society. 1917–30

After the October Revolution of 1917, the Bolshevik Party proclaimed a radical transformation of education. Guided by the principles of Karl Marx and influenced by the contemporary movement of progressive education in the West as well as in Russia itself, the party and its educational leaders—Nadezhda K. Krupskaya and Anatoly V. Lunacharsky—tried to realize the following revolutionary measures as laid down in the party’s program of 1919: (1) the introduction of free and compulsory general and polytechnical education up to the age of 17 within the Unified Labour School, (2) the establishment of a system of preschool education to assist in the emancipation of women, (3) the opening of the universities and other higher institutions to the working people, (4) the expansion of vocational training for persons from the age of 17, and (5) the creation of a system of mass adult education combined with the propaganda of communist ideas. In 1918 the Soviet government had ordered by decree the abolition of religious instruction in favour of atheistic indoctrination, the coeducation of both sexes in all schools, the self-government of students, the abolition of marks and examinations, and the introduction of productive labour. In 1919, special workers’ faculties (rabfaks) were created at higher institutions and universities for the development of a new intelligentsia of proletarian descent.

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin addressing a crowd during the Russian Revolution of 1917.© Photos.com/Thinkstock

During the period of the New Economic Policy (1921–27), when there was a partial return to capitalistic methods, the revolutionary spirit somewhat diminished, and the educational policy of party and state concentrated on the practical problems of elementary schooling, the struggle against juvenile delinquency, and the schooling of adult illiterates. When the policy of five-year plans began in 1928 under the slogan of “offensive on the cultural front” and with the help of the Komsomol (the communist youth league), the campaign against illiteracy and for compulsory elementary schooling reached its climax. The Stalinist years, 1931–53

In connection with the policy of rapid industrialization and collectivization of farmers and with the concentration of political power in the hands of Joseph Stalin, the Soviet educational policy in the 1930s experienced remarkable changes. Starting with the decree of 1931, the structure and the contents of school education underwent the following process of “stabilization” in the next few years: (1) four years was laid down as the compulsory minimum of schooling for the rural districts, and seven years for the cities, (2) the new system of general education embraced the grades one to four (nachalnaya shkola), the grades five to seven, which continued the elementary stage on the lower secondary level (nepolnaya srednyaya shkola), and the grades eight to 10, which provided a full secondary education (polnaya srednyaya shkola), (3) the new curriculum was to provide the students with a firm knowledge of the basic academic subjects and was to be controlled by a system of marks and examinations, (4) the decisive role of the teacher within the educational process was reestablished, while the Pioneers and Komsomol organizations (for youth aged 10 to 15 years and 14 to 26 years, respectively) were above all to instill a sense of discipline and an eagerness for learning, and (5) manual work disappeared from the school curriculum as well as from the teacher-training institutions. In addition, the ideas of progressive education were rejected, and older Russian traditions began to be cultivated. During World War II the idea of Soviet patriotism emerged fully, penetrating the theory and practice of education. The principles of the outstanding educator Anton S. Makarenko, with their emphasis on collectivism, gained ground upon the former influence of Western educational thought.

Joseph Stalin.Photos.com/Thinkstock

The institutions of higher learning were reshaped in the 1930s, too. The number of students in institutions providing secondary specialized education, usually called tekhnikumy, rapidly grew from one million in 1927–28 to 3.8 million in 1940–41. The number of students in institutions of higher education (vyssheye uchebnoye zavedeniye) grew from 168,554 to 811,700 in the same period. The main characteristics of higher education that developed in this period remained unchanged for the next decades: the paramount task of higher learning was to provide specialized vocational training within the framework of manpower policy and economic plans; strict control of the student’s program was to be imposed by the central authorities; and the system of evening and correspondence instruction on the level of higher and secondary specialized education (vecherneye i zaochnoye obrazovaniye) was to parallel full-time studies.

During the 1940s, “labour reserve” trade schools and factory schools for skilled and semiskilled labour were filled by drafting youths between the ages of 14 and 17. In the period 1940 to 1958, an average of 570,000 persons were annually subjected to such recruitment. The draft first affected those students who were unsuccessful academically in regular secondary schools and could not achieve even the seventh grade. For youngsters of this kind and for people who could not continue general secondary education, schools for the working youth (shkoly rabochey molodyozhi) and schools for rural youth (shkoly selskoy molodyozhi) were established in 1943–44 as part-time institutions. The main features of education policy, developed in the late 1930s, remained in force after the war: the orientation of all kinds of schooling and training to the paramount necessities of the economic system; the inculcation of communist discipline and Soviet patriotic attitudes; and finally a rigid control of the whole educational system by party and state administration. The Khrushchev reforms

After the death of Stalin in 1953, changes in official policy affected both education and science. The 20th Party Congress in 1956 paved the way for a period of reforms inaugurated by Nikita S. Khrushchev. The central idea was formulated as “strengthening ties between school and life” at all levels of the educational system. The Soviet reform influenced to a high degree similar reforms in the eastern European countries.

The old idea of polytechnical education was revived, but mainly in the sense of preparing secondary-school students for specialized vocational work in industry or agriculture. Since the early 1950s there had been a growing imbalance between the output of secondary-school graduates desiring higher education and the economic demands of skilled manpower at different levels. The educational reforms of 1958 pursued the aim of combining general and polytechnical education with vocational training in a way that directed the bulk of young people after the age of 15 straight into “production.”

The new structure of the school system after 1958 developed as follows: the basic school with compulsory education became the eight-year general and polytechnical labour school, for ages 7 to 15 (vosmiletnyaya shkola); and secondary education, embracing grades 9 to 11, was provided alternatively by secondary general and polytechnical labour schools with production training (srednyaya obshcheobrazovatelnaya trudovaya politekhnicheskaya shkola s proizvodstvennym obucheniem) or by evening or alternating-shift secondary general education schools (vechernyaya smennaya srednyaya obshcheobrazovatelnaya shkola).

The connection of study and productive work was to be continued during the course of higher education. Great emphasis was laid upon the further expansion of evening and correspondence education, both at the level of secondary specialized education and at the level of the universities and other higher institutes. In the academic year 1967–68, 56.3 percent of all Soviet students in higher education (of the total number of 4,311,000) carried out their studies in this way.

The reform of 1958 also brought a transformation of the former labour-reserve schools into urban vocational-technical schools or rural schools of the same type (gorodskiye i selskye professionalno-tekhnicheskiye uchilishcha). As a rule, these schools required the completion of the eight-year school, but in fact there were many pupils with lower achievements; the length of training ranged from one to three years, depending upon the type of career.

Besides introducing polytechnic education and productive labour, the Khrushchev reforms emphasized the idea of collective education from early childhood. Preschool education for the age group up to seven years was to be rapidly developed within the newly organized unified crèches and nursery schools (yasli i detskiye sady); and, as a new type of education, boarding schools (shkoly-internaty) that embraced grades one to eight or one to 11 had been created in 1956. Some party circles wanted this kind of boarding education for the majority of all young people, but development lagged behind planning, and the idea of full boarding education was later abandoned.

The polytechnization of the Soviet school system as it took shape during the Khrushchev period turned out, in the course of its realization, to be a failure. A revision of the school reform carried out between August 1964 and November 1966 brought about several important results: (1) the grade 11 of the secondary school (except for the evening school) was abolished and general education returned to the 10-year program, (2) vocational training in the upper grades was retained only in a small number of well-equipped secondary schools, and (3) new curriculum and syllabi for all subjects were elaborated. After 1958 hundreds of secondary schools for gifted pupils in mathematics, science, or foreign languages were developed in addition to the well-known special schools for music, the arts, and sports. They recruited students mainly from the urban intelligentsia and were therefore sometimes criticized by adherents of egalitarian principles in education. From Brezhnev to Gorbachev

Leonid I. Brezhnev assumed leadership after Khrushchev retired in 1964. On Nov. 10, 1966, a decree was issued outlining the new policy in the field of general secondary education. A union republic Ministry of Public Education was established to augment the already existing central agencies for higher and secondary specialized education and for vocational-technical training. The main aim of educational policy in the 1970s was to achieve universal 10-year education. In 1977 it was claimed that about 97 percent of the pupils who graduated from the basic eight-year school continued their education at the secondary level. An important step toward the realization of universal secondary education was the creation of secondary vocational-technical schools (srednye professionalno-tekhnicheskiye uchilishcha) in 1969. These schools offered a full academic program as well as vocational training. Preschool education for children under seven years of age was extended: enrollments in nursery schools, kindergartens, and combined nursery-kindergarten facilities increased from 9.3 million in 1970 to 15.5 million in 1983. The number of institutions for higher education also grew steadily (from 805 in 1970 to 890 in 1983), meeting regional demands. Day, evening, and correspondence courses were provided.

The quantitative gains achieved during this period were not matched by corresponding improvements in the quality of education. Government authorities, as well as teachers and parents, expressed growing dissatisfaction with student achievement and with student attitude and behaviour. The youngsters themselves often felt alienated from the official value system in education. Furthermore, there was a growing imbalance between the careers preferred by general-school graduates and the national economic requirements for skilled manpower—an unforeseen result of the policy of universal secondary education. Therefore, in 1977 the scope of labour training in the upper grades of the general school was enhanced in order to provide youngsters with a basic practical training and to direct them into so-called mass occupations after leaving school.