During the 1950’s and 60’s people started to criticise the divided system and sociologists were concerned about the lack of equal educational opportunity. They were also concerned about the idea of the 11+ and the whole idea of ‘intelligence’.
It was not until the labour party came into power though, in 1965, that the Labour Government began to introduce the comprehensive system. Comprehensive schools meant no selection into schools. The Comprehensive system fits with the Labour ideologies because it meant there was more equality and opportunity in education. The Labour party was opposed to streaming, setting and specialisation and believed in everyone having equality of opportunity.
In the 1980’s started the New Right ideology of the Conservatives. The ideas that education should be used to promote economic growth, that league tables should be published to create competition between schools, there should be an emphasis on raising standards through use of more tests. There should be a strong emphasis on parent choice and finally that the focus should be on traditional subjects in the curriculum. Some of these ideas were incorporated into the 1988 Education Act. The 1988 Act started the National Curriculum, more testing in schools (the SATs and GCSEs), parental choice as a policy of enrolment, Grant Maintained schools that could opt out of Local Authority Control and be funded directly by the government. The 1988 reflected the Conservative Party’s commitment to an education ‘market place’. They supported competition, diversity and choice.
At the same time in the late 1980’s independent schooling became very popular. These were schools which charged fees and don’t have to teach the national curriculum. The schools were mainly for upper class pupils that tended to go into the top jobs in society. It was supported by Conservatives because they believed it gave parents the right to choose their children’s education and that parents should have the freedom to spend their money on a better education for their children. However an assisted places scheme was started up that meant academically gifted children who couldn’t afford the high fees could be sponsored to have independent schooling as well.
The educational changes in 1997 brought around by the New Labour Government have been the most recent changes. They were a compromise between traditional and socialist ideologies the changes value freedom, individuality and equality, the New Right and the old Labour ideologies. They wanted to reduce class sizes. They brought in the home/school contract, literacy and numeracy hours, ambitious targets for schools and children, national college of schools to train head teachers, school inspections, homework clubs, education action zones and social exclusion units to combat inequality of opportunity, the ‘new deal’ to help young people/single parents etc and they abolished Grant Maintained schools. Their main aim was to abolish class sizes.
These were the main changes in education organization since 1944 and how they link to the political ideologies at the time.
