present problems in the democratization of secondary and higher education

Present problems in the democratization of

secondary and higher education by A. le Gall J. A. Lauwerys, B. Holmes, A. B. Dryland S. Mattsson

Unesco Paris 1973

The development of higher education

Titles in this series

Published by Unesco: The development of higher education in Africa The teaching of sciences in African universities Training university administrators: a programme guide Present problems in the democratization of secondary and higher education

Published by Unesco jointly with the International Association of Universities Access to higher education : Vol. I: Director’s report, by Frank Bowles Vol. 11: National studies

Vol. I: Director’s report, by Howard Hayden Vol. 11: Country profiles, by Howard Hayden and the Office of the Study in

Vol. Ill: Part 1, High-level manpower for development, by Guy Hunter. Part 2,

Summary report and coilclusions

by Norman MacKenzie, Michael Eraut and Hywel C. Jones

Higher education and development in South-East Asia:

Kuala Lumpur

Language policy and higher education, by Richard Noss

Teaching and learning: an introduction to new methods and resources in higher education,

Some other publications on higher education

Industrial sociology, by J. H. Smith. (Unesco, 1961. The University Teaching of

Business management, by Roger GrCgoire. (Unesco, 1966. The University Teaching

World survey of education, Vol. IV: Higher education. (Unesco, 1966) A survey of the teaching of physics at universities. (Unesco, 1966. The Teaching of

International law. (Unesco, 1967. The University Teaching of Social Sciences series) Social science in higher technical education-an international survey. (Unesco, 1967.

Access to higher education in Europe. 1968. University libraries in developing countries. 1968. Methods of establishing equivalences between higher education diplomas and degrees. (1970. Association Internationale des UniversitCs. Studies on International Equi- valences of Degrees series)

International equivalences in access to higher education, by W. D. Halls. (Unesco, 1971. Association Internationale des UniversitCs. Studies on International Equi- valences of Degrees series)

Mathematics applied to physics. (Unesco, 1970. The University Teaching of Basic Sciences series)

Les laboratoires d’dectriciti de I’enseignement supirieur. (Unesco, 1971. The University Teaching of Basic Sciences series)

Social Sciences series)

of Social Sciences series)

Basic Sciences series)

The University Teaching of Social Sciences series)

Published by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, Place de Fontenoy, 75700 Paris Printed by Maison #Edition, Marcinelle

English edition: ISBN 92-3-101068-9 French edition: ISBN 92-3-201068-2 LC No 72-97137

@ Unesco 1913 Printed in Belgium

Preface

For some time now, democratization of education has been prominent in the concerns of educators throughout the world, particularly in respect of the need of individuals and groups to highlight their identity and assert their role in society. Education is the means to facilitate this identification and this assertion. Democratization must now move from an abstract concept towards a practical and active approach through participation by all concerned. The present publication is part of the operation undertaken by Unesco in

this direction; through numerous conferences, among them the Conference of Ministers of Education of European Member States of Unesco on Access to Higher Education, Vienna, 1967, and the International Conference on Education (thirty-second session), Geneva, 1970, aimed at improving effectiveness of educational systems, particularly through reduction of wastage at all levels of instruction, and through successive publications including Access to Higher Education by Frank Bowles, published jointly with the International Association of Universities, Unesco has attempted to arouse sensitivity in responsible educational circles concerning the problems of democratization: It is now launching in-depth research on the various aspects of the problems with a view to disseminating the results. This publication is composed of three studies by experts, preceded by an

introduction prepared by the Secretariat; the first study was carried out by A. le Gall, Inspector-General, Ministkre de Yeducation Nationale, Paris; the second by Professor J. A. Lauwerys, Director of the Atlantic Education Institute, Halifax, and his colleagues, B. Holmes and A. B. Dryland; and the third by S. Mattsson of the Ministry of Education, Stockholm. The points of view adopted by the authors, the facts stated or the opinions expressed with regard to those facts, as well as the presentation and content of the material in general, do not imply the expression of any opinion on the part of the Secretariat of Unesco. The Secretariat wishes to express its deep appreciation to the authors for

having previously accommodated its suggestions while the scripts were under preparation, and wishes to record its gratitude to them for the studies they prepared. It is hoped that these studies will promote reflection on the subject among educational philosophers, planners, administrators, professors and

students, and, above all, furnish a practical guide to action for the use of those responsible for determining educational policy. The designations employed and the presentation of the material in this

publication do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the Unesco Secretariat concerning the legal status of any country or territory, or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers.

Con tents

Foreword

Part One: Differentiation and democratization in secondary and higher education, by A. le Gall

I. 11. 111. 1v. V. VI. v11. VIII. IX. X. XI. x11. XIII.

Introduction Standards of living, the primary school and initial differentiations Structural factors affecting differentiation in lower secondary education Functional factors affecting differentiation in lower secondary education Structural factors affecting differentiation in upper secondary education Functional factors affecting differentiation in upper secondary education Differentiation in higher education (Section 1) Differentiation in higher education (Section 2) Higher education: continuity or innovation Differentiation and extramural education Lifelong education and the struggle against differentiation The living conditions of students: aid systems and differentiation Conclusion

Part Two: Secondary schools and the democratization of higher education, by J. A. Lauwerys, B. Holmes, A. B. Dryland

I. 11. 111. IV. V. VI. VTI. VIII. IX.

Introduction General considerations Second stage, first level Second stage, second level The new common school Teacher education Social aid Vocational and educational counselling Evening and correspondence courses

Part Three: State study assistance in Sweden and the other Scandinavian countries, by S. Mattsson

I. Presentation IT. Brief historical account of Swedish State study assistance

9

23 27 35 48 62 69 76 92 109 114 118 123 139

145 150 153 157 163 165 172 179 187

199 20 I

111. IV. V. VI. VII. VIII. IX. x.

The Swedish educational system Background of the educational welfare reforms of 1964 Present forms of State study assistance in Sweden Right to State study assistance for studies abroad Facilities for State study assistance to aliens in Sweden Total expenditure on study assistance in Sweden Administrative organization Study assistance in the other Scandinavian countries

Tables

Part One 1. Drop-out rates in primary education (estimates expressed as percentages) 2. Brazil: percentage of children 7-14 years old not receiving education,

3. Federal Republic of Germany: type of school attended by certificated

4. Transfer from primary education to the first stage of secondary education 5. France: pupils’ social and economic background and their choice of

6. France: repetition rates in lower secondary education (State education) for

7. Differentiations in upper secondary education 8. France: rates of repetition in the long upper secondary course (State

9. Ratio of students to total population by country

according to father’s educational level

leavers from upper secondary education. Statistics and forecasts

‘streams’

1968/69

education, 1968/69)

10. Rise in the number of students in higher education in Africa 11. Poland: number of students 1967/68 and number of students awarded

12. Higher-education grants in thirty-eight countries 13. France: relationship between father’s social and employment category

certificates 1966/67

and access to higher education

Part Three 1. Relation between taxable income and gross income, Sweden, 1970 (figu-

2. Total expenditure on study assistance in Sweden (1970/71) 3. Calculation of educational loans in Finland

res in kronor)

204 209 212 227 228 229 230 23 1

30

32

39 42

45

61 63

71 77 98

17 24

39

21 5 229 236

Foreword

The notion of differentiation, applied either to an individual or to a social phenomenon, usually evokes two opposite and even seemingly contradictory responses. The first lays stress on the differentiations of all kinds innate in an individual. Whatever the reason for their presence, they are held to be features which must change or disappear under the pressure of predetermined social moulds, the influence of which is justified according to the principle of equality. The second response also singles out individual differentiations for chief attention, but on the contrary, emphasis is placed here on the respect which society must accord to them, because it is considered a violation of the principle of liberty to seek to suppress or change purely individual characteristics from the outside. These two attitudes, which lay stress variously on one of the three features

of the problem-individual (‘natural’ or social in origin), structural and functional differentiations peculiar to a social system-may both be considered as too schematic. On the other hand, when looking at the matter from the point of view of education, which is assumed to help individuals to attain to both personal freedom and social cquality, it is helpful to develop this schematization. It highlights the possible consequences, for the individual and for society, of the concepts implicit in the two responses mentioned above, it helps to reveal the emotional elements concealed in these notions and it makes it possible to tackle more purposefully the essential political and practical problems that arise. If, to begin with, differentiations in an individual, which condition his

subsequent development and contribute, in fact, to the maintenance of a certain social determinism, are thought to be contrary to the principle of equality of opportunity and if the belief is held that individual success is assimilable to social succcss judged according to a single scale of values obtaining in a given society, then an educational system should be adopted in which everything is done to do away with differentiations. These will even be deliberately ignored on entry into the system, so that individuals will be educated to match clearly defined specifications of social utility. The myth of social equality would be honoured, since everyone would receive the same kind of education within each branch of the educational system and would thus, in theory, have the same openings to success. The restraints of the

9

Present problems in the democratization of secondary and higher education

system would, in fact, be the same for everyone, whatever their social background or individual characteristics. Failure could then only be ascribed to ‘individual deficiencies’ and it is unlikely that their origin could-or would deliberately-be thought of as residing in the very phenomenon it was hoped to eliminate, namely differentiation. Thus no traditional educational systems can be other than standardized

and static, with undifferentiated structures or, at best, structures differentiated as little as possible and in an immutable fashion. In this case, individual differentiations are consciously or unconsciously used as corresponding to social rather than to individual functions. It is thought that differentiations can be eliminated by denying them or by making them appear as a posteriori explanations of phenomena which, in fact, are the burning proof of their existence. As educational systems of this sort cannot be other than formal or inward-looking by nature and as their stages, narrowing as they rise, are thus invested with greater social prestige the nearer they are to the summit, ‘the elect who have managed’ first to enter and then to leave these systems as late as possible most frequently become the champions of the existing state of structural differentiations. They are, indeed, convinced that such systems are ‘neutral’, whereas they transmit, in fact, with the aim of social perpetuation, the values of one or more social groups to which, in most cases, these advocates belong. A system of this kind thus not only leads to immobility, but even tends to worsen the situation, since its Malthusian nature leads it, for political motives related to limitation of the size of the %lites’, to refuse to meet the increased demands made upon it. This simply sharpens differentiations at the level of access, thus working to the detriment of social groups who are, broadly speaking, always the same. The consequences of such systems, from the educational and political

points of view, go a long way to explain the reactions which they have aroused. These reactions result mainly from the development of social structures in industrialized countries in which the internal resources of the individual are increasingly neglected in favour of an intensive utilization of his productive capacities of every kind.l A reaction has emerged against the traditional partitioning of educational

systems and against the early and definitive stunting of the development of the personality occasioned by it. Educational theories and methods have appeared in which individual differentiations, psychological, sociological or material, form the basis of new systems, the structures and methods of which

1. Only the so-called developed, industrial countries are considered here, but it should not be forgotten that the situation in non-industrialized countries is often worse. This is a consequence, highly persistent, of the colonial era, responsibility for which is no longer imputable solely to external forces. The problems of differentiation will not be solved in these non-industrialized countries until radical educational solutions have been found-solutions which, it can be feared, may not be applied under the best possible conditions if their introduction is rushed because of the indefensible nature of existing differentiations.

10

Foreword

are geared to the priority given to the individual’s freedom to develop according to his own ‘will’. Taken to extremes, a theory like this would mean that the oneness of each individual, including the oneness of both his background and his social situation, would require, to meet the potential oneness of his demands, the establishment of as many systems of education as there were individuals. As this is impossible, one must then ask whether certain of these demands can be grouped together and according to what criteria. One answer to this question would, ideally, be provided by individual or

group self-education, but the problem is then to know what means should be employed to make this self-education possible. The essential condition for a genuine change in this direction would be the establishment of a very broad system of non-formal education incorporating a redefined formal education in which traditional teaching, completely reshaped as to methods and content, would be no more than one clement within educational structures as diversified, as opcn and as flexible as possible. In this way very different kinds of individuals could find what might satisfy the educational needs peculiar to the different stages of their life (psychological as much as social, thanks to a degree of mobility within these structures made as easy as possible and to methods equally diversified and adapted to these same needs). This range of mcans, however-as individualized as possible, without any one part enjoying, in principle, more social prestige than the others- presupposes the abandonment by society of a hierarchical conception of individual status and assumes that opportunities for social equality exist among individuals of very different origins, education and situation. One can then ask oneself a number of questions stemming from the

perhaps rather idealistic nature of the reaction underlying the preceding notion, but stemming, too, from the existence of certain social phenomena, both present and foreseeable.

If complete self-education is envisaged, theoretically at the outset, and even if account is taken of the social influences which will bring an individual to take a more particular interest in certain fields ‘favoured by the times in which he is living, it is hard to imagine a spontaneous adaptation of the needs and desires of this individual to the needs of a society, and its economic nceds in particular (but determined by whom?). In industrialized societies, especially, wherc the phenomena of mass production are over- developed, one may wonder how the demands of this production will be met if no one is willing to take an interest in it (a self-functioning and self- developing production system can, of course, be envisaged, but in a very distant future). A certain limitation will therefore have to be imposed on the individual’s freedom of choice if industrial and post-industrial production is to be ensured. This limitation, which is ‘normal’ in a relativist conception of freedom, nevertheless raises the problem of determining what options will be open, who will decide upon these options and according to what criteria.

11


It is at this point that the problem arises of a given society’s control over the educational process of its individual members. Self-education, by its very nature, can only take place outside the framework which was previously provided by the State. And at the present time, because non-formal education, organized in a somewhat pragmatic way at individual or small-group level (district, social, ethnic or family group), takes on the aspect of a reaction against the old educational systems, and also of a rebellion against the society which maintained these traditional systems in place. Further, this self-education needs intellectual and material means in order to succeed. One may then wonder whether a society which frequently reflects the dominant position of certain groups is ready to provide the means necessary for an individualized form of education which may often lead to criticism of that very society. Some may therefore see in the rapidly diminishing importance of the principal agents of education, such as States and organized social groups, the rather insidious danger of a recovery of control passing to those groups who are ready to make means available to individuals which might be refused to them by States. As these means are increasingly sophisticated and expensive-if they are to satisfy countless individual demands and the quantitative and qualitative development of the phenomenon of knowledge- the risk is run of seeing suppliers imposing their own specifications on them, all the more as they are frequently objectives characteristic of the phenomenon of industrial or post-industrial production described earlier, e.g. computers, equipment for programmed instruction, television, communication satellites, etc. One may then wonder whether the suppliers’ motives, unlike those of the social groups using ‘public education’, will be directed towards the more objective satisfaction of the demands of individua1s.l W e may then imagine a type of self-education relying on no particular

technical method but based simply on a knowledge of reality acquired through constant participation in the social environment, organized by those concerned on their own behalf. Such an approach, however, is impossible in many fields where the processes of acquiring knowledge are increasingly complex and sophisticated at the technical level. Mass production and its associated activities in fact demand greater and greater expertise together with an understanding of the major phenomena of present-day societies. This apprehension of reality is not possible either within the framework of self-education or within that of traditional disciplines, since the latter are frequently at the root of the structural differentiations of educational systems (the disputes

1. The methods recently introduced in the United States by commercial firms for teaching children to read (use of audio-visual methods and recourse to teachers recruited by these firms) illustrate this point. This action was only made possible because of the parents’ disappointment with traditional education and as a result of their dissatis- faction over the misuse of, and poor return from, the money which they were spending on it. This explains why the firms undertake to refund expenses if results are not satisfactory and why they award transistor radios or television sets to the children and shares to the teachers according to merit.

12

Foreword

about the ‘neutrality’ of science and its social uses are one example of the difficulty mentioned here). Generally speaking, then, the problem is that of determining whether an

educational system based on differentiations which are individual or social in origin contributes to their more effective stabilization through making them more bearable, since the individual is not cut off by his education from his native environment. The individual’s freedom of choice is certainly respected but he is not forced, as he would be by a rigid programme, to ‘discover’ unknown worlds and this, in principle, makes it possible to widen a choice limited at the beginning by social differentiations. These latter in fact frequently mark the boundaries between completely different and opposite intellectual, and hence social, worlds in the majority of existing industrialized societies.’ A further question posed is whether the complete achievement of

individual liberty within frameworks of varying rigidity determined by a given society (accompanied by the notion of increasing social prestige) can be a factor in the disappearance of the hierarchy in which these values are placed, and thus in the achievement of complete social equality, as those in favour of socially based education implicity lead one to hope. Indeed, starting with the present situation, in which individual social differences are very great to begin with, one may wonder how the passage from one form of concept or action to another will be possible (even if there is no accompanying idea of social progression or regression) if individuals are obliged to find their ‘satisfaction’ within a framework which is always the same, that of their original social environment. One way of escape out of this dilemma might consist in taking charge of

children from ‘deprived’ environments when they are a few months old and isolating them intellectually from this environment. A recent experiment thus isolating a group of children resultcd in their having, at age 34, on 1.Q one-third higher than that of their control group, the social conditions of the two groups remaining unchanged. The three possibilities which have just been mentioned-traditional

teaching, teaching within the social environment and teaching outside this environment but adapted to its characteristics-and the arguments in their favour, may thus appear as very generous, since they concern the ‘deprived’ sections of the population. Nevertheless, although the arguments in support of traditional education have been pulled to pieces, it is curious to note that the ‘new solutions’ also contribute to the defence of a certain kind of status quo. By rejecting the rigid framework of tradition and by seeking to insert each individual into an educational process, after adapting it to existing differentiations, one is often merely seeking to foster belief in that mythical society where education is no longer a privilege and where social classes no

1. Although differences between the pay and material situations of ‘manual’ and ‘intellectual’ workers are tending to disappear, differences in social prestige are growing more marked every day.

13


longer exist as a hierarchy of groups. Taking a child from his original environment and evaluating the results after he has undergone a refined form of ‘normal’ education in terms of constants which reflect the values of this education is a way of solving the problem while not changing the values existing at a given moment. These new solutions, therefore, claiming to be ‘neutral’ and even ‘human-

istic’, are often inspired by a somewhat utopian ideal, frequently paternalistic and thus politically oversimplified. They may also be perverse, since they represent a roundabout method of integration in an educational and, in the end, a political system which retains the broad outlines of existing systems in which the hierarchy of social groups will always exist. Highly diversified means will be used, however, so as to maintain this state of affairs through the unconscious intermediary of those upon whom assurances will be lavished that they are living an ‘egalitarian’ society: 1. Do not schools ‘adapted’ to the living conditions of ghettos as well as

traditional ‘communal’ schools finally tend towards the same aim, i.e. acceptance of the existing social order, whatever means they employ?

2. Is not the action of students who, within the framework of their courses, ‘go to the assistance of educationally deprived social groups’ (forerunner or consequence of social disapproval), completely opposed to its stated aim, which is a society without structural differentiation, since the movement is a one-way process and lays stress on these differentiations by giving to one social group a kind of charismatic power?

3. Are not classes for minority ethnic groups within a given society more frequently oriented, other things being equal, towards the more or less unconscious integration of these groups in that society, and for the benefit of that society-which, in most cases, was exploiting them? These classes, in fact, make more reference to the past of these groups than to the economic and political aspects of their present situation, which would obviously provide them with strong motives for rejecting integration and even at times for violent rejection of the society which suggested it.

This kind of action is often undertaken by persons who were formerly the most ardent defenders of their own privileges, rather than by those who have never had any. They find in it a distinguished and altruistic-seeming way of acquiring a clear conscience, and they even sincerely believe that they are working for the ‘common good’. They are ready to try out and put at the disposal of the public new means, new methods and new structures, which, in principle, would allow the greatest possible number of persons to acquire an education. They seem to forget, however, that the individual and social differentiations which served as the foundations for the planning and introduction of certain innovations are often going to prevent their use. The phenomenon of mass production already mentioned and in particular the problems of structure and method of use (and the vested interests involved) are often an obstacle to those whom it was hoped to assist by this means.

14

Foreword

The reason is that by taking refuge behind the concept of academic freedom, here not used in its original sense, it is easy to refuse to intervene in those fields ‘which have nothing to do with pure and neutral education’, since according to this hypothesis, educational systems are more or less enclosed worlds having fixed boundaries (materially, intellectually and politically, as people would often like to think or make others think). Thus when certain projects aimed at reducing differentiation do not in fact, for the reasons indicated, produce the results which wcrc expected of them, proof is provided of the failure of these ‘new methods’ themselves, since it appears that all the required means and conditions were present. Those, therefore, in univcrsity and secondary education circles, and in

certain political circles as well, who had said that they were ready to accept and even to support any evolution, are in fact not doing very much to allow the application of ideas which they have frequently recommended themselves and which would have only slightly changed the existing situation without even coming to the roots of the problem. A much more serious matter, however, is that thc more or less complete failure of these ideas has made it possible, and is still making it possible, not merely to provide a far too facile justification for a rcturn to traditional solutions but also to justify the use of the new means for purposes almost completely opposite to those for which they were intended. These means, in fact, are most frequently used by persons who have already ‘profited’ from a traditional education, while for those for whom they were intended thcy represent a kind of cut-price education which is always referring back to the traditional. Thus in a situation where formal education had become only a limited part of a much wider educational system, access to it would often be the privilege of those who would have entered a traditional system in any case. Reducing the size of any group (in this case the probable reduction of the number of students enrolled in a formal framework, thanks to the diversification of the educational system) does not, in fact, necessarily involve a lessening of the social prestige of this group. In this particular case, on the contrary, the differentiations emerge strengthened instead of having been, if not eliminated, at least weakened. Although it was therefore relatively easy and very satisfying to have granted everyone the right to education, it should be realized that the ability to exercise this right-which in principle is inherent in it-is most of the time non-existent or scarcely noticeable among those who have the most to suffer from the differentiations created by society. This immobility, often the result of skilful handling, but the effects of which seem increasingly to lead to crisis, may then have two main but diametrically opposed consequences, especially at the level of the consumer: either (a) an acceptance of the situation and of its evolution, avoiding any reference to the characteristics, trends and problems which have just been mentioned, in which case the solutions proposed may appear complctely satisfactory, provided they are not scrutinized: or (b) a complete refusal to maintain the traditional

15


educational frameworks even after they have been transformed and reduced to the role of elements in a new and much wider system. The problem is then to know whether to choose the first position, which

may appear a little too calculated-or on the contrary, too shallow-or the second position which is perhaps a little too idealistic or utopian. The solution might be found in a middle course which would permit constructive criticism and the control of every innovation, while treating it in as open- minded a manner as possible. The problem of deciding whether this or that innovation can really change the fundamental characteristics of the situation then becomes a problem of choice for the individual and for society, which it is not necessary to discuss here. It may, however, be pointed out that the problems discussed in the preceding paragraphs ought to be among those which point the way to a final choice and hence to considered solutions which will either improve the existing situation or lead to the application of new concepts and methods within the framework of certain existing but refashioned systems, or preferably within entirely new frameworks. It has been emphasized in the foregoing pages that a great number of

existing educational systems are purely formal in nature and it is here, of course, that differentiations are the most marked. These may result from the system itself and from its structure. They then appear very early, even at the level of primary education. It is at this level that drop-outs and repetitions are the most frequent, often resulting from a more or less complete lack of structural differentiation in the school framework and in methods designed to suit the various kinds of potential personalities which may exist. Drop-outs and repetitions at this stage have the greatest &ect on the pupils’ subsequent development, at both the individual and the social levels. The task of reshaping the structures of secondary education has been

carried some way in a certain number of countries in which greater flexibility in the first years of study makes it possible to take existing individual and social differences into account. The students being all in one educational channel, these differences are not accentuated as they would be, from the outset, in a system with a very diversified structure dering no possibility of transfer from one type of channel to another. But the task of reshaping must also apply to teaching methods and to conditions of admission and of leaving school, which accentuate differentiations as well. Higher education, finally, in so far as it is often considered, in terms of

time and value, as the pinnacle of the educational process, often accentuates still more the differentiations among individuals who have already endured the consequences of the primary and secondary education systems. As higher education also has the reputation of being the gateway to professional and social life, the economic aspects of planning to attain certain objectives may quite well impose an orientation and methods which either make this education the privilege of a caste or the instrument of an economic planning of variable flexibility. The idea that higher education is an

16

Foreword

instrument which meets both individual demands and the specific needs of society-needs determined by all individuals-could certainly be considered as representing an ideal situation if it meant that the university was put on the same footing as a certain number of other institutions of a formal or non-formal kind, either independent or depending on other social institutions (the working environment, but especially the family environment and com- munities of all kinds). Such a situation, however, is far from having been achieved and will only be achieved by pressure from both within and without on the world of traditional higher education and also on political and economic circles. The latter, in fact, often refuse to consider the individuals they employ as anything other than productivc raw material which has to be maintained, if need be, by further training limited to very precise ends. It then becomes very difficult for the active academic minority to bring economic circles to accept part-time higher education, correspondence courses, courses offered by firms, or radio and television courses (of a professional, or still less, of a ‘cultural’ nature). These methods would in fact affect the regularity of the mechanisms of production which, so it is said, it is difficult to achieve and to maintain. The present idea of individual success and the success of a society, judged principally in terms of increased production of all kinds, is in fact irreconcilable with the idea of education in the widest sense of the term as it is beginning to be understood and which has as its foundation the transcending or even the rejection of education for production and the development of individual and community characteristics instead, which are ‘unprofitable’ in the present environment. Situations do exist, however, where it is possible to receive a higher edu-

cation according to the new methods which have been mentioned, thanks to suitable adjustments in the working conditions of a large part of the active popu1ation.l In the majority of cases, however (principally in the non- socialist countries), these new methods are thought of as a course to make up lost ground, frequently having the same aim as formal education, that is the obtaining of a degree. In addition, these methods are for the time being used primarily for those who have ‘failed’, for reasons of differentiation, in secondary or higher education and who are already in employment. The result is that these forms of teaching are not put on the same footing as the traditional forms of secondary and higher education and are used mainly for certain well-determined age groups. The situation would be very different if compulsory education did not confine young people in a more or less rigid framework up till the age of 16 or 18, since they could reach equivalent levels of education, but of very different kinds, precisely through using these methods combined with all kinds of practical activities. 1. This kind of situation is very widespread in many socialist countries, but it should be

noted that access to these forms of higher education and the award of the degress to which they lead implies that the individuals concerned have successfully terminated their secondary education, which is not the case in the rather less numerous experiments tried out in other industrialized countries.

17


Seen from this point of view, the role of vocational guidance and advice is of vital importance. These two functions may lie wide open to criticism on the score that they often tend to direct certain ,individuals away from a traditional Malthusian secondary or higher education and guide them, under the pretext that individual or social differentiations are handicaps, towards alternative solutions, the social status of which is very much less. In so far as they frequently help to justify the maintenance of traditional systems by persuading individuals that they and not the institution are responsible for the state of affairs, they may even be harmful because they are nothing more than a palliative for a situation which has no medium-term solution. Never- theless it seems that this situation cannot continue much longer, to judge by the number of schoolchildren and students leaving school or university because they are disappointed by, or opposed to, traditional education and to judge by the reactions of those who condemn the lack of participation by those concerned in the preparation of the ‘educational programmes’ broad- cast by radio or television. On the contrary, where an educational system is sufficiently diversified and where a society attributes identical social prestige to education of different kinds, either separately or in combination, the functions of vocational guidance and advice can be of benefit to the individual and to the development of society. It might then be thought that systems for giving aid to pupils and students

would, in the last resort, put this situation right (although differentiations are then seen only in their material aspects). Here too, however, the fact that scholarships, study grants and other forms of assistance are awarded primarily for higher education, frequently on a merit basis and for a fixed period (the length of a course of formal education), in the end strengthens the system and the differentiations which go with it. Most interesting are the attempts to extend such assistance to secondary education (where there are the greatest number of drop-outs, synonymous with social failure in the present situation) and to give it the form of study grants. This solution matches the idea which holds that periods of study are ‘profitable’ for the individual and for society and thus merit the investment of the capital they involve. Such a solution will still be open to criticism, however, so long as these grants are reserved for those enrolled in a formal system of education. Could not the award of grants also be considered for young people educated as a group, that is to say joined together in a community such as a small firm, farm or service industry, who could in this way acquire a different education but an education just as valid as that received at a secondary school or university? Similarly, could not periods of education for individual and social ends lying outside the ‘normal’ framework of employment be considered, as is already done in certain countries, as paid periods on the same footing as ‘productive’ periods proper? (This assumes that the intermediate solution is adopted which consists of trying to improve a civilization based on mass production.)

18

Foreword

These are the measures at present suggested to combat the differentiations found in individuals and educational systems, the latter, indeed, often accentuating the former in a kind of vicious circle. The dangers inherent in the means suggested have been mentioned in the preceding paragraphs. Perhaps the realization of these dangers by those concerned will make it possible to avoid certain foreseeable failures, because what has to be done, in fact, is to work out possible solutions to the problems of individual structural differentiations without taking account of the experience and desires of those concerned. It is then the motivating role of existing education circles and their ability to discover problems, find solutions and apply them which are called into question. This calling into question should lead to a realization of the limited capacities of these circles, who may well be excellent detectors of problcms while being at the same time, as w e have seen, generators of contradictions. The dilemma of the educational systems is that they create the intellectual conditions under which contestation takes place but, at the same time, are opposed by their nature and function to the logical conclusions of that contestation. This shows that all the resources of imagination and action must be mobilized, with no differentiation between ‘those responsible for education’ and ‘thosc not responsible’, in order to make apparent that good sense which is the best possible innovation. These are the general themes upon which the three studies contained in

this book are based. A. le Gall, in ‘Differentiation and Democratization in Secondary and

Higher Education’, makes a detailed study of the nature and implications of functional and structural differentiations in secondary and higher education as a whole. He is thus led to examine the internal and external aspects of the problem, to try to distinguish legitimate from unacceptable forms of selection and to evaluate the various possible solutions. In ‘Secondary Schools and the Democratization of Higher Education’,

J. A. Lauwerys, B. Holmes and A. B. Dryland deal parlicularly with the situation of secondary education in a number of countries where compulsory primary education was established before the Second World War: France, Japan, the Netherlands, the U.S.S.R., the United Kingdom and the United States. They examine the problems of secondary education, its structure, conditions of access and examination, recruitment and posting of teachers, so as to determine the consequence for higher education. They also give a description and an evaluation of remedies likely to improve the situation, laying particular stress on vocational guidance and advice, correspondence courses, and material and financial assistance to pupils and students. Concise recommendations are made by the authors on each of these points. Lastly, ‘State Study Assistance in Sweden and the Other Scandinavian

Countries’ takes the form of a series of case studies devoted to the very great effort made in the Scandinavian countries to tackle one of the aspects of differentiation, that of the material and financial problems.

19

Part One Differentiation and democratization

in secondary and higher education

by A. le Gall

I. Introduction

DEMOCRATIZATION A N D DIFFERENTIATION

It is nothing new to point out1 that the problems raised by the democratization of higher education consist of a group relevant to the higher level itself, such as methods of entry, organization, and assistance to students, but also include others, equally significant, having to do with the organization of secondary and even primary education. Both sets of problems are inextricably associated. The thinking to which this study may contribute will make it possible, in particular, to reject the oversimplified idea that the democratization of higher and secondary education is achieved once such education is made available to the greatest possible number of students. An extensive and efficient system of scholarships, with the Statc assuming responsibility for all incidental expenses such as transport, books, educational equipment, etc., makes or would make it possible for children from modest backgrounds to go to secondary school and university. This is still only the first step towards democratization, however. Various obvious or hidden factors, the most powerful of which are not always the most conspicuous, work to increase or restrict this theoretical possibility and these, both by their numbers and because of their interlocking nature, could seriously reduce, if care were not taken, the practical effectiveness of the democratization of education. In other words, the forms and, in particular, the true origins of differ-

entiation should be examined at the various levels where it appears among schoolchildren or students. Some differentiations will certainly seem legitimate. In a system which is, in theory, completely open at the base it is clearly inevitable that they should appear even in the primary school, subsequently in the first year of the first part of secondary education and all

1. cf. in particular: Development of Secondary Education, Trends and Implications, Paris, OECD, 1969. Also: Frank Bowles, Access to Higher Education, Paris, Unesco/ IAU. 1964, 2 vols, of which the first volume contains the general report by Bowles, published in English and French in 1964. It contains a short appendix (p. 171-5) on ‘The Admissions Process in the 1960’s’ by Mary Corcoran. The second volume, in English only, deals with national studies from the following countries: Brazil, Chile, France, India, Japan, N e w Zealand, Senegal, Republic of South Africa, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, United Arab Republic (Egypt), United Kingdom (England and Wales), United States of America.

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through this first part. A major differentiation then appears at the transition point from the first to the second part of secondary education and lastly, and to a still more marked degree, the transfer from the second part of secondary education to higher education eliminates a number of possible students. Several States have based their education development plans on the

numerical relationships which they think normal between the number of pupils starting and the number of pupils completing their education. Some- times even percentages for intermediate differentiations have been fixed in advance. Forecasts of this kind show that a certain differentiation is thought to be in conformity with the nature of both people and things. The problem is to make as clear a distinction as possible between normal differentiations resulting from the progressive diversification of aptitudes and preferences, and abnormal differentiations. The latter, which show up the faults and inequalities of an educational system, ought to be analysed and prevented just as one stops leaks from a storage tank. Taken further, however, analyses of this kind can reveal the remedies which should be applied. They make it possible to see which pupils and which groups of pupils, defined according to this or that set of psychological, psycho-sociological or socio-economic characteristics, are going astray or becoming exhausted without valid reason in the course of their education. At the same time, they can provide indi- cations and incentives for carrying out desirable reforms. This study’s prime aim will be to distinguish normal from unwarranted

differentiations and to diagnose the origins of the latter. If this aim is achieved, it will rapidly lead on to a second, which will be to define the objectives and the means which might make it possible progressively to reduce the losses caused by this second category of differentiations, a step which would be in the interests both of greater equity and of greater social and economic efficiency.

EDUCATION FOR ECONOMIC OR CULTURAL ENDS

Here is the problem which, as a kind of apparent or veiled theme emphasized by some and ignored by others, underlies discussions about the organization of educational systems and the problem of their ends. W e have intentionally used the plural of the last words. If indeed we feel that we should tackle the principle of the problem here, this is primarily because it constitutes the background to the discussion, and the danger exists that all possible studies will be rendered valueless from the outset if the principle is not clarified. W e are also doing this (and this is what our plural expresses) in the hope of taking the heat out of this question to a certain extent. There would be no point in trying to play down its importance, but it would be dangerous, in the present state of national options, to think that this was an irrevocable decision. The very demands made by the realities of teaching in fact considerably lessen

24

Differentiation and democratization in secondary and higher education

the contradictions which the theories emphasize. Without abandoning either their realism or their idealism, States can choose paths which, with variations it is true, safeguard two constantly opposed requirements. In reality, no State definitively rejects either the vocational end-purpose or

the cultural role of education. Even an education devoted exclusively to the needs of the national economy, and varying its aims according to the demands of economic planning, recognizes in one way or another that industrial or economic disciplines cross paths with human problems. These disciplines benefit from the progress of science. They follow the preoccupations of times and countries, such as speed, comfort, leisure, political organization and the liberation of man. They are part and parcel of a particular history, a particular geography and a particular future. They encounter man, the citizen and the State in all the convolutions of work itself, of thought and leisure, in each television picture and radio programme. There is thus no State which has not included culture in the education it offers, however socially and economically oriented this education might be. There is another specific and urgent requirement, which is that all pupils

should receive, even in the most occupationally angled form of instruction, a general education which consolidates and supplements the instruction received at primary school. The need to allow changes of vocational direction or promotion into another class, however, also prevent pupils and students from being immured within a pragmatic type of education. Lastly, the continual decrease in the demand for manpower from the primary and secondary sectors and the corresponding and considerable increase in the demand upon the third or higher sector render polyvalent formulae advisable, whether general or specialized, theoretical or vocational. A system which tries to adapt itself to the needs of the economy thus

finds itself constantly obliged to associate general education of a pedagogical type with vocational training, at the level of the trade school and at higher promotional levels. Similarly, a school and university system, however liberal and open it may be, ultimately finds it necessary to be included in the social and economic life of the country. In the course of this study, we shall be led to recognize that a choice

exists between an educational system determined by economic ends and an open system. W e shall see that States may solve this problem in accordance with a political choice, as an observer can freely discover, but that no State may turn its back on it. W e shall also see, however, that the most serious and basic problems are those of numbers and of the ease or difficulty of access to the different levels of education, from primary school to higher education. W e shall give close attention, as will be seen, to the way in which pupils

and students are admitted and taught, since this is a possible and maybe an important element in differentiation. For all that, those concerned must first be admitted-and then kept.

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SELECTION OR FREE ACCESS

The gulf between the two fundamental doctrines also recurs between the notion of free access to the various forms of education, in particular higher education, and the notion of selecting pupils and students so as to adapt the output of schools and universities to the needs of the economy. It may be useful to show, in this case as well, that the gulf is less in practice than in theory. At the same time, the problem of selection or free access can only really be examined ‘proof in hand’. W e shall therefore meet the problem again in a practical way in several of the following chapters.

PARALLEL EDUCATION

In the general discussion about selective education oriented towards economic efficiency and a form of education more attentive to the aims of culture, we shall show that parallel school or university organizations have sprung up alongside both systems, either officially or on a private basis. Their aim is to give a second chance to those who, in the first case, have not been selected or, in the second case, have not been trained for actual employment. Practically speaking, both systems demonstrate that differentiation through exacting selection in one case and through lack of adaptation to employment actually on offer in the other leads to losses which humanitarian, political and economic considerations demand to be eliminated. W e shall see, however, that these supplementary educational systems designed for adults and particularly for young adults assume a significance which varies very greatly according to the systems which they are supplementing. In a system which claims to be open to all young people and to provide them with complete education, it is obvious that courses for those who have failed at school or university show, if they involve large numbers, that there are gaps or shortcomings in young people’s education. On the other hand, other systems provide for spells in productive activity either prior to or during higher education. This is no longer a case of second chances but another conception of higher education. Lastly, to clarify notions and problems, it would be useful to separate

second chances or late education from lifelong education. Properly speaking, lifelong education provides for the constant adaptation of adults to rapid developments in knowledge, techniques and culture.

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11. Standards of living, the primary school and initial differentiations

The progress made by the educational sciences can be judged from the distance which separates the illusions of the educational legislators of the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries from the realities which these sciences demonstrate today. The free primary school, followed half a century later by the free secondary school, were the necessary steps towards democratization. W e now realize that they are far from being sufficient. Before dealing with the internal and external arrangements required for

a true democratization of secondary education, and consequently of higher education, it is appropriate to examine the special case of the democratization of primary education itself,' particularly in the developing countries. There are two advantages in doing this, since we shall thus see, considerably magnified, the very roots of those obstacles which are everywhere slowing down the democratization of secondary and higher education; but chiefly we shall see, whatever the level of industrial development, how the primary school already introduces social and personal differentiations to a high degree and thus sows the seed for school and university differentiations. The primary school is not entirely responsible for this, since it is secondary

education, in turn influenced by higher education, which imposes its selection- ist demands. As Frank Bowles remarks, 'the importance attached to entrance to the preparatory secondary schools tends to transform the primary school . . . into a first-level preparatory school for eventual higher education candidates'.' The criteria by which aptitude for secondary education (and higher edu-

cation) is judged weigh so heavily that they have shaped, and mis-shaped, primary education. This will be demonstrated particularly vividly in connexion with primary education in the developing countries. This demonstration will also have another use, since it will show the

extent of the differentiation which, in these countries, deprives secondary and higher education of a large number of possible candidates.

1. Frank Bowles has emphasized the apparently distant but in fact important role of primary education in the process of access to secondary and higher education. Cf. Bowles, op. cit., p. 35-6, 67-8, and passim.

2. op. cit., p. 35.

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RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN STANDARD OF LIVING A N D DIFFERENTIATION AT PRIMARY SCHOOL

W e shall here consider, in succession, the problems encountered by developing countries in providing pupils at primary school, when the need arises, with sufficient economic assistance in the form of food and school equipment, and possibly also in the form of direct aid to deprived families, with the aims of (a) increasing enrolments in the first year of the primary school, (b) reducing drop-outs and repetitions during schooling and (c) strengthening the pupils’ motivation. W e shall have occasion to point out, on the way, a certain relationship

between the problems existing in this respect.

Economic assistance to pupils

Substantial and widespread efforts are at present being made to ensure that pupils in developing countries are adequately fed. The success of these efforts, however, obviously depends on how far the country in question is developed and on the relative size of its natural resources. International co- operation has, where necessary, linked its efforts with those of national governments, and both the World Food Programme and the Food for Peace Programme have given considerable support to the efforts of a certain number of States to provide food, making it possible, for example, to provide all children in their primary schools with a free, daily hot meal either below, or strictly at, cost price. A further step forward is taken when the national government is able to

assume responsibility for school equipment (books and various teaching aids) and to pay the cost of school transport when it considers that families should not bear the consequences of schools located far away or grouped together. Various countries seem to have considered whether these free provisions should be made available to all families or only to those who were economically deprived. A little psychology as well as experience seem to suggest that discrimination runs the risk of arousing rivalries, jealousy and differentiation. In any case, it is doubtful whether, from the point of view of motivations and prospects of success, the assisted and the non-assisted (in other words the deprived and the non-deprived) can make the effort needed at school in conditions of equality. These theoretical reservations only serve to emphasize the value of the

extra effort being made by certain States, of very varying economic levels, in introducing ‘education grants’ to cover expenses on textbooks, equipment, transport, school meals, excursions, medical care, etc. (10 per cent benefit from them in Japan). As this grant is paid directly to the parents, it makes it possible for poor families to buy and to pay just like others. It has the added advantage of being discreet.

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Enrolments in the first year of primary school

It is obvious that a substantial improvement in the quantity of available aid would immediately solve the fundamental problem of enrolment ratios, which cause the broadest of the differentiations. It is not part of our task here to seek ways of increasing enrolments at

a more rapid pace. At the same time we must express anxiety at the restrictions apparently now imposed on the increase of primary enrolments. It was a pleasure to see large and regular increases in this sect0r.l In addition, we know that Unesco Member States have fixed regional objectives for educational development which should raise the enrolment figures for primary schools in Africa from 51 per cent in 1965 to 71 per cent in 1970, in Asia from 63 per cent to 74 per cent, and in Latin America from 91 per cent to 100 per cent. These plans show how deeply Member States are aware of the prime importance, from both the human and the social and economic points of view, of efforts to foster primary education. It is therefore all the more disquieting to note two formidable difficulties. O n the one hand, the economic growth of the countries in question, although very variable it is true, has turned out to be lower than the annual rate of 5 per cent which the United Nations fixed for the Development Decade 1960-70. On the other hand, the differentiation which arises through the drop-out of pupils during primary education appears enormous: it ranges from more than 60 per cent in Algeria, Brazil and Chad to 96.3 per cent in the rural districts of Colombia. Although, given such facts, it might seem inconsequential to mention the

impoverishment affecting higher education, at least the corrective effort to be made there ought to be mentioned. It is an effort which is as much psychological and sociological as educational. W e must acknowledge that it is an economic effort as well. One consequence of the slowness of economic progress is the stagnation of the financial means available for educational progress, whereas such means ought almost to triple' in the space of fifteen years. W e can only hope that international aid will make it possible to avoid

these dangers and will prevent any country from being temporarily obliged to restrict its efforts to advance primary education in order to sustain its strivings for secondary and higher education, which are the condition of its economic progress.3 One would like to be assured that decisions will be made

1. P. H. Coombs, The World Educutiorzul Crisis, p. 55-6, N e w York, N.Y., OUP, 1968. 2. The example of Uganda is significant: with a stable population and a constant rate of

enrolment, educational expenses ought to rise from 55 million to E7 million between 1966 and 1970 and reach 59 million in 1980. If the population increase is taken into consideration, however, this expenditure ought to reach 29 million in 1975 and 214 million in 1980 (ibid., p. 56).

3. cf. Coombs, op. cit., p. 33.

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taking account of the fact that reduced primary enrolments clearly constitute the most weighty of differentiations. One becomes even more aware of the problem if one considers three

remarks from very different sources but which lead to the same conclusion: the loss of economic efficiency which results from partial enrolments is all the greater because, contrary to a commonly held view, enrolment means- must mean-something quite different from literacy; non-enrolment is itself a social and economic phenomenon. It is not the most able children who go to school and the least able who stay away. Certainly, in a certain number of cases, ability stimulates the search for education, but ability is itself, to a large extent, a social and economic effect. One can thus see that the aid given by Unesco to its Member States so that they may give a functional orientation to their educational projects and determine the groups of children who are to benefit is granted in terms of the advantage to the community and the probable number of teachers.

DROPS-OUTS A N D REPEATS

Table 1 shows the extent of the problem, confirmed by the thirty-second session of the International Conference on Education.

TABLE 1. Drop-out rates in primary education (estimates expressed as percentages)

Country

Africa Central African Republic Dahomey Madagascar Niger Togo Upper Volta

After the After the After the After the After the Total loss first second third fourth fifth out of year year year year year 100 pupils

21 11 9 7 8 45 24 12 10 11 5 51 18 10 13 23 9 54 12 4 12 5 12 36 3 2 1 2 11 17 19 17 7 16 8 51

Latin America Argentina 13 5 7 10 10 37 Costa Rica 7 10 10 11 10 39

Asia Afghanistan Philippines Sri Lanka

4 1 2 7 4 16 9 7 7 10 8 34 15 9 11 12 9 44

Source. Table based on P. H. Coombs, The World Educational Crisis. p. 72, N e w York, N.Y., OUP, 1968 (the rates have been calculated according to official documents: for Africa, IEDES document (1967); for Argentina, document of the Consejo Nacional de Desarrollo (1966); for Costa Rica, unpublished data; for Afghanistan and Sri Lanka documents of Unesco’s Regional Office for Education in Asia (1967); for the Philippines, document prepared by the Ministry of Education, Japan, in co-operation with Unesco (1964) ). Detailed references, op. cit., p. 12.

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As it is likely that the problem of drop-outs has psychological and sociological causes as much as economic ones, an analysis of the problem has to be made, since corrective action appears to lie more in the psychological and sociological fields than in the financial field. Sociological surveys fully confirm the theory that the children most deprived from the social and family point of view are also those who either do not enter primary school or else abandon it as soon as possible. In Brazil, the report of the director of the National Campaign for the Elimination of Illiteracy describes the drop-out process in the control town of Leopoldina (45,000 inhabitants, province of Minas Gerais).l This is a form of discrimination which could be described as a social and educational cross-relationship: pupils from certain social strata receive excessive education and pupils from other strata do not rcceive enough. ‘In all the classes, the pupils who came from the most deprived categories were generally neglected after the first two or three months at school. They received very little help from the teachers because they did not look as if they would be successful at the end of the year. These pupils represented about 40 per cent of the enrolment . . . the more talented (roughly 60 per cent) received a much longer amount of daily schooling since their teachers gave them much more attention.’ Consequently, ‘the children most out of favour with the teachers, the least gifted children, the poorest or those who belonged to the humblest social classes were naturally those who missed school most because it had so little meaning for them’.‘ To sum up, the social-educational cross-relationship appeared in the following way: on the one hand, about 60 per cent of the children received a longer education (in number of hours spent every day in class, in number of class-days per year and in number of school years) and received more help from their teachers; on the other hand, 40 per cent had only a reduced number of hours in class every day, of class-days and school years, and received much less help from their teachers. Table 2 illustrates this socio-educational relationship.

TABLE 2. Brazil: percentage of children 7-14 years old not receiving education, according to the father’s educational level

Fat!,er’s educational Do not go or have F;itlier’s educational D o nut go or have never been to sc!ioul level never been to school level

% c’;

Illiterate Primary

Source. 1964 School Cenms.

42.7 16

Secondary Higher

4 7.8

1. ‘The educational situation in Leopoldina corresponds to the average situation in

2. Brcizilian Review of Edrtcariorial Studies, 1968, p. 73-75. Brazil.’ Cf. 0. Nogueira, in L‘Bducatioii Permarzente, No. 5, 1970, p. 117 ff.

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Repetitions

Repetitions are not peculiar to schools in developing countries, although they are more numerous there than elsewhere. ‘In Gabon, Ivory Coast and Mali, for example, of the students who completed the sixth grade, fewer than one-third made it in only six years; 40 per cent took seven years and the rest took eight or nine’l. If these rates are compared with the rates of an industrialized country such as France, it will be noted that in that country, 59 per cent of pupils who enrolled in the primary school in 1958/59 reached the second year of the secondary school in 1962/63, which means that 41 per cent repeated one or two classes.2 The problem of repetitions is thus both a general one, in essence, and a particularly serious one in developing countries where the number of pupils who reach the end of primary education in a normal way must still be divided by two. The causes seem to be the same as for drop-outs. They are social and economic in nature with their important psychological corollary, the lack of interest shown by the families and pupils, who do not feel themselves involved. But the general problem of repetitions remains in both types of country. It reveals a completely abnormal situation, because it is not tolerable that 40 per cent of the primary population should repeat a class. This is an unacceptable source of loss and differentiation. Thus the need for a general reform of primary education is beginning, in France for example, to be officially recognized.

THE GENERAL PROBLEM OF THE PRIMARY SCHOOL A N D DIFFERENTIATION

Since the facts of non-attendance, differentiation and drop-outs seem linked to a considerable degree with the economic and social conditions of a country, a fundamental question arises: are not the educational authorities practically powerless when faced with influences arising from situations beyond their control? National education has more than once tended to build its own empire

within the State. If it were to abandon its ‘splendid isolation’ among other national bodies and ministerial departments, before public opinion and the current of politics, it might win more widespread national support for its demands. Education and teaching are wrapped in a veil of mystery and prestige which may protect them but which also isolates them and makes of them a separate, even though respected, entity. Thus public or political opinion tends only too often to tell the education authorities to solve their own problems and to bring up, in silence, educated and efficient generations, just as tutors used to educate the children of aristocratic families. The integration of education in the very heart of national problems, its intimate 1. Coombs, op cit., p. 132. 2. Taken from Tableaux de 1’Education Nationale (France), p. 442, 1969, ed., Paris.

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participation in these problems and its refusal to be isolated would no doubt lend new force to its appeals. What is to be done, however? In truth, a great deal remains to be done if the primary school is really to live up to its definition as a school for everybody-a ‘common’ school. In a deprived environment, there are always some children and young

people who do not accept the sociological limitations which put a brake on their ambitions. They feel strong enough to overcome the normal absence of motivation, social barriers, their families’ apparent lack of interest and even that formidable verbal and conceptual handicap which they inherit from an environment in which the spoken word, often rarely used, is employed to express passing and practical concerns. They will overcome all these obstacles and join the company of the successful and the dominant. Such strong personalities, however-of which history provides good examples and who can easily be defined by character analysis-are rare. It is therefore the overwhelming majority that matters to us. They point the way to one of the roles which the primary and secondary schools of tomorrow will be playing, that of identifying the pupils who are sociologically and hence psychologically deprived. They will have to be led to discover and then to eliminate, as far as possible, these social and psychological handicaps through a type of psychoanalysis and through encouragement, through explanation and influence, through personal and group dynamism. First will come the awakening, and then the desire for equality of assertion. In the developed as in the developing countries, non-attendance at school,

drop-outs and lack of interest on the part of increasingly large numbers of pupils, the ease with which they turn their backs on school or work and a fairly general attitude of indifference or negligence, result very largely from the small amount of attention given to the problems of education by groups and individuals. The community makes considerable financial efforts on behalf of education, but education is not a cause completely espoused by the community. The two parties are no doubt equally responsible for this. A new kind of training would make it possible for primary and secondary

school teachers to seek out the social or personal obstacles in their pupils which lie in the way of their complete adaptation and which undermine their self-confidence and their faith in their future. A few Member States of Unesco have found some such solution through the introduction of special ‘post- primary curricula’ for pupils from culturally deprived backgrounds. These curricula are put into practice in day centres and boarding schools and include, in Israel for example, tutorial and auxiliary studies as well as ‘enrichment programmes’.’ Italy is following IBE-Unesco Recommendation No. 56 and is organizing medico-psycho-sociological investigati0ns.l One can only hope that these investigations will be pursued in depth and

that teachers will play a more active part when they have learnt, after suitable 1. Internatioiial Yeurbook of Education, Vol. XXX, 1965, p. 247, 260, Paris and

Geneva, Unesco and International Bureau of Education, 1969.

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training, about the influences on the pupil’s form of intelligence, on his verbal ability (and consequently his conceptual ability), on his confidence, his attitude towards school and his scholastic, university and working future, of such factors as social origin, the family environment and atmosphere, and the child’s personality, which is both a receptable and a result of those influences. If this were done, a start would have been made in filling a vast gap in our educational systems from which a great many of their difficulties stem. In subsequent chapters, we shall examine very succinctly how appropriate methodological innovations could be linked with efforts to achieve psychological and sociological liberation.

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111. Structural factors affecting differentiation in lower secondary education

It is now possible to take a direct look at the influence of secondary education structures on access to higher education. The alternatives are to note differentiations between children at the earliest opportunity, with a view to guiding them at the start of secondary education into one of its parallel streams, or to admit all children with adequate general education to prolonged education in common. The theory behind the second point of view is that, when kept together for as long as possible, children have the benefit of a long trial run which is the same for all. It is not until the elid of this general education, in other words at the end of lower secondary education, that they are advised to choose this or that course in the upper school.

THE VARIOUS TYPES OF LOWER SECONDARY EDUCATION A N D H O W THEY AFFECT DIFFERENTIATION

Certain types of organization which are at completely opposite ends of the spectrum (types A and D below) may be considered as basic types, the others being combinations. The following description goes from the most selective, traditional type to the new type which is the most open.

Type A. Selective lower secondary education

This represents a type of organization widespread in Europe until 1925-30. It is still to be found, partially intact, in certain regions. Although practically all children go to primary school until the age of 11, a weak minority, of the order of 15 to 30 per cent in the system’s present state, are admitted to secondary education. This selection for a long time operated-or still operates-chiefly along the lines of social divisions. With the exception of children with scholarships, the moneyed classes and, to a lesser extent, civil-service families, are those whose children enter secondary education. Quite often, the schools themselves have junior preparatory departments quite distinct from ordinary primary schools, acting as nurseries. Where this type of organization still exists, it has become more flexible,

for example by the fairly frequent closure of the secondary school’s junior departments and by the introduction of an entrance examination which has

35


made it possible to correct selection along class lines to some extent. Never- theless the existence of well-developed private education in fact makes it possible for well-off families to sidestep or to defeat the purpose of the examination. Alongside the secondary schools, another kind of school of the ‘upper

primary’ type is open to gifted pupils from families whose ambitions are limited and whose studies are restricted by their social or economic backgrounds. These schools do not provide access to higher education, whether university in the strict sense or equivalent establishments or again the ‘grandes kcoles’.l Organizations and measures of this kind are found in certain southern

European, Latin American and developing countries.

Type B. General but difJerentiated lower secondary education

Secondary education of this type admits all children of normal ability when they leave primary school. They are divided according to their ability and the wishes of their parents either immediately on entry, or after a few months, or after a year’s observation and are allocated among several types of schools which may or may not be under the same roof. There are usually three kinds of secondary schools: classical secondary (mother tongue, classical languages, modern languages, science), secondary modern (mother tongue, modern languages, science), or technical (commercial-technical or industrial-technical education).

The English pattern (England and Wales). W e may refer to the English and German patterns. Subject-and this condition is an important one-to studies at present being made with a view to over-all reform and subject also to a considerable amount of regional or local activity which is aiming in the same direction, the so-called ‘tripartite’ system is in force in England and Wales. Under this system, there are three types of secondary schools available to pupils of 11 : the grammar schools, for pupils wishing for a complete secondary education leading to higher education; the secondary modern schools, offering general basic education to the majority of children-pupils leave these schools either to take up employment in the tertiary sector or to take complementary specialized courses (connected with administration, banking, commerce, tourism, etc.), which lead to better but similar employment; lastly, the technical schools, open to children with special ability for practical work. It should be noted in passing that most Western countries, having abandoned the type A system between 1930 and 1940, introduced free secondary education and encouraged its progressive growth, organized along these lines,

The German pattern (Federal Republic of Germany). Subject to current 1. See p. 98 for a definition of grandes kcoles.

36


developments, the German system aims a1 great interpenetration between the divisions of lower secondary education. There is thus a kind of polyvalent education in which it is relatively easy to change the early choice of direction resulting from the differentiation of curricula between the parallel classes. This is the aim of the secondary and post-secondary trade and commercial schools (hbhere Fachschulen). Technical education thus follows on a general middle-level education; it leads to qualification at a pre-university level and to university entrance in the case of some pupi1s.l The Kolleg and the Abendgyrnnasiurn also aim at promoting their pupils'

further education but solely in the theoretical field. The former offers two- year full-time courses and the latter four-year evening courses to young people who have completed their cducation in an upper primary or middle school as well as to those who have completed their technical education, preparing them in this way €or a certificate of secondary schooling (Abitur). It should be noted that the A bitur does not give access to higher education, for which there is a separate university entrance examination. There is a third kind of institution known as the Promotional School,

which also aims, but by diflerent methods, at opening the way to higher education by giving an accelerated general secondary education to late developers who have been handicapped, in particular, by a deprived cultural and social environment. As can be seen, the wish in the Federal Republic of Germany is to elim-

inate blind alleys by offering numerous opportunities to change direction and by providing 'second chances'. The effective value of these measures can be appreciated, but one may also wonder whether they do not emphasize the repeated difficulties of a choice of direction made at the age of 10 or 11.

It is significant that more and more of the regions are trying to postpone the age at which pupils leave the primary school to enter one of the parallel streams (Gymriasiuni, Realschrtle, Hauptschule) of the selective secondary education system. The city-states of Bremen and Hamburg have changed the time of transfer from the fourth year of primary school, at the

1. This is a rather complicated scheme which works in the following way: at the end of their upper primary education (in the Hauptschulen) or when they have reached the end of the first stage in a Gyninasium, pupils undergo preliminary vocational training for a year (usually in a Berufsschuk). They then enter a. trzde school (hb'lzere Faclzschrde) which offers them a special preparatory eighteen-month full- time or three-year evening course (Ben~fsarrfbnuscku[). This leads to a certificate of secondary school, but not higher education, level, which permits admission to post- secondary schools. These prepare students for colleges of engineering, colleges of economics and colleges of social work. These same post-secondary schools are also open to students holding leaving certificates from the middle schools (Realschulen) and to drop-outs from upper stage of the Gymnasium, provided they have done two years of supervised practical work. Those who successfully complete this post- secondary education are then able to enter higher education as fully fledged students. It can be seen from this that higher education in the Federal Republic of Germany is open to pupils who have constated the second part of a vocational education, but only after several stages.

37


TABLE 3. Federal Republic of Germany: type of school attended by certificated leavers from upper secondary education. Statistics and forecasts1

Origin ~~~~~

1960 1965 1970 1975

Total certificated leavers 72,000 69,000 86,000 11 1,000 Gymnasium 56,000 48,000 59,000 77,000 Abendgymnasium 800 1,100 1,200 1,500 Kolleg 100 700 1,100 2,000 Hohere Fachschule 3,000 3,300 6,300 10,000 Ingenieurschule 12,000 16,000 18,500 21,000

Average in age-group (19-23) 990,000 750,000 765,000 777,000

Percentage (1 : 2) 7.2 9.3 11.2 14.4 1. Round figures.

Source. Development of Secondary Education, Trends and Implications, p. 118, OECD, 1969.

age of 10, to the sixth year, at the age of 12. Three Lander are organizing a trial or streaming period of two years. Seven other Lander are making the first two years of secondary education an ‘entrance period’ which both makes it possible for the children to get used to secondary education and for the authorities to widen their guidance criteria by personality observation, tests, etc. As is stated in the 1969 OECD Report,l ‘by postponing selection . . . and

making the curriculum more uniform to facilitate transfer’ the German educational authorities hope ‘to preserve the parallel structure while ensuring . . . the type of education best suited to the child’s abilities: i.e. to give young people “comprehensive” education without a comprehensive structure’. According to the same report, however, the problems involved in observing

and guiding the pupils in every way (age, criteria, tests, etc.) ‘are most pressing in (the regions) where selection is at an early age’. From the point of view of entrance to higher education, the number of

retrievals achieved by way of one of the alternative paths available under the parallel system (we should repeat that students must take a university entrance examination) represent a number of certificated school leavers comparable to the number of those who have obtained their certificate by the normal channel (Gymnasium) (Table 3). Leaving the Zngenieurschulen on one side, it can be seen that the schools

which oppose differentiation by facilitating transfer, during a student’s education, to the upper part of secondary education leading to the Abitur and possibly to higher education should in 1970 account for 8,600 pupils (or about 15 per cent) as opposed to 58,800 who will have followed the direct path from the Gymnasium. 1. Development

Paris, 1969. of Secondary Education, Trends and Implications, p. 120, OECD,

38


Type C. Lower secondary education with parallel streams inside a c o m m o n structure

Several countries have considered that unacceptable differentiations would be effectively combated, and consequently access to higher education made more democratically available, if all children undergoing lower secondary education were gathered into a common structure in a single type of establishment. Some of these countries, however, believe that although there should be

only one kind of establishment, the curricula perhaps, and the methods certainly, should take account of the diversity of levels and forms of intelligence and offer the pupils a certain number of paths or ‘streams’ which could cater for them more equitably than one single kind of uniform education.

The French example. This system, which is also at present found in other countries, has been clearly defined in France: ‘The aim has been to put an end to the virtual segregation which results from the existence side by side of two different kinds of schools, on the one hand the one offering a long general secondary education,l and on the other, the school of the upper primary kind offering a short general education.‘ The practical effect of this used to be that the child’s ultimate future was predetermined on his entry into the first form. The decision taken was to establish a single type of school, the collPge d’enseignernertt secondaire (CES), for the first part of secondary education, which will take the place of the lyche (to which the most able children used to go) and of the collPge d’enseignement ghne‘ral (CEG) or the coll2ge d’enseignement technique (CET).3 The aims of the reform are made still clearer by the following text: ‘Seven

years ago, in 1963, all pupils were educated within structures which led to segregation. Today, the CES (restricted to the first part of secondary education) admit 47 per cent of the secondary school population. The lyckes (lengthy secondary education leading to higher education) now admit no more than 24.8 per cent and the collPges d’enseignement ge‘ne‘ral (short-term upper primary education) 28.3 per cent. The effort will be continued at the same pace to turn the lower schools of all lycr‘es and CEG into CES3 When the structure has been unified in this way, what is going to be taught

in the new lower schools and how is it going to be taught? France is opting for a three-stream education (defined below). This choice

is e~plained:~ ‘A discussion has begun between the supporters of a single stream and those in favour of varied educational streams. If the objet is to 1. In France, the lyce‘e. 2. In France, the cows comple‘mentaire (d’enseignement primaire), known since the 1959

3. ‘Informations de l’education Nationale’, p. 1, I‘Bducution, 30 April 1970. 4. Ibid.

reform as the collage d’enseignement ge‘ne‘ral.

39


offer equal chances to all, it seems that to offer a single kind of education to pupils from different family backgrounds can only lead to maintaining or even to accentuating inequalities. Teaching them in three different ways adapted to their own levels means that they are all given their chance and allowed to choose a direction which is the opposite of segregation. This is why it has been decided to have three streams side by side in a single establishment and to make greater efforts to allow pupils to transfer to the stream best suited to their abilities. The fact that there is one single establishment guarantees the objectivity of this operation. The results to date can be considered as showing very definite progress since the spread of pupils between the three streams of the first part of secondary education is close to the spread aimed at in the 1969-70 Plan: 39 per cent in stream 1 (ex-lyce'e, traditional secondary education); 36.5 per cent in stream 2 (ex-CEG, upper primary type of education); 15.5 per cent in stream 3 (transitional and practical classes); 9 per cent in terminal classes (being abolished).' The question has been asked about what is taught. The French organ-

ization offers a basic group of subjects (French, mathematics, modern language 1, technology), together with options (Latin, Greek, more classes in modern language 1, modern language 2). The pupil has to choose one of these options at the start of his third year.

Type D. Lower secondary education with completely undifferentiated establishments curricula and methods

All children of normal ability are included in a common education system until the end of the third year of secondary school (in a system which com- bines primary and secondary education, this is the seventh class if schooling starts at the age of 7 and the eighth class in a system where schooling begins at 6). This system provides an education which is standardized in all respects and is now very widely applied in countries of Eastern Europe. Variations obviously exist, according to whether the system is applied

strictly or with more flexibility, in which latter case the internal organization is adjusted in various ways so as to suit the interests and abilities of the children.

The Yugoslav project. The Yugoslav system appears to be the most strictly applied. It comprises eight years of compulsory schooling with a single curriculum, plus two further years (i.e. of secondary education), still with a single curriculum, for all pupils. The execution of this project deserves to be followed with the closest attention.

The system in Lebanon. A decree issued in January 1968 defined the first part of secondary education as an intermediate level of four years to which

40


pupils over the age of 10 are admitted. This new intermediate level, linked with five years of primary education and a three-year secondary education which children begin at the age of 14, is thus considered as the pivot of the whole school system. Upon completion of the primary level, pupils enter a single intermediate level which aims not only at democratizing education but also at recognizing intellectual aptitudes. The intermediate level leads to a variety of possibilities in the secondary school with its four terminal classes, as well as to teacher-training colleges and technical schools.

T h e Swedish system. Comprehensive schools offering standardized education, known as general schools, were first established in 1962 as ‘expcrirnental schools’. They were placed alongside the traditional schools that offered their pupils the choice either of staying until they had completed their compulsory education at the age of 15, receiving there an upper primary education, or of transferring to a secondary school which most frequently offered a modern education chiefly revolving around science and languages. It was thus possible to make a very significant comparison between the performance of these two types of secondary schools over a number of years and the experimental school was finally chosen as the best. Its installation over the whole of the country is now almost complete. From 1972, all children of school age, that is from 7 to 16, will go to general schools. This means that all children will have access to the same academic secondary education in the district where they are living and frcqucntly in the same school where they received their primary cducation. In the sixth class (13-14 years of age), children and their parents will have to decide whether they are to go into the academic or practical streams in classes 7, 8 and 9. In fact, the comprehensive school, which covers the whole of the first

part of secondary education, can be interpreted in a number of different ways. The distance separating the Swedish and Yugoslav comprehensive systems

can serve as an example. In Sweden, only the first year of the gymnasium is based on a curriculum common to most streams. (Technological studies are already excluded and are covered by a separate curriculum.) In its plans for extending the cornprehensivc system, Swcdcn, alongside the common curriculum which still takes pride of place, is to offer pupils a choice between various combinations of academic and practical subjects in order to suit the children’s ambitions and abilities. The Yugoslav project, for its part, after eight years of compulsory education with a single curriculum, provides for two further years with a standardized curriculum for all pupils. Thus, according to national policy, the comprehensive secondary school, so far as the first part of secondary education is concerned, chooses between the two opposite ideas of diversification and flexibility of curricula, offering an education adapted to abilities and tastes-and, to some extent, personalized- and of complete uniformity of curricula to avoid any difierentiation.

41


TABLE 4. Transfer from primary education to the first stage of secondary education

Nature of secondary education, first part

School population, 1967168

Introduction Secondary education, first part

Primary level

Country

Albania 260,000 Argentina 3,220,000’ Byelorussian S.S.R. - Czechoslovakia

Egypt, Arab

Finland

France Hungary

Republic of

India

Iran Iraq 1 Italy Japan Lebanon

Liberia Norway

Poland

Romania

Saudi Arabia Sweden

U.S.S.R.

United States of America

Venezuela

Yugoslavia

2,110,000

3,500,000

508,000

5,000,000 1,330,000

52,000,000

2,500,000 1,000,000 4,000,000 9,500,000 Single middle school. 110,000 480,0008

5,700,000

2,930,000

235,000 906,000

48,900,000

3 1,640,000

1,550,000

2,930,000

150,000 - 3

‘7

750,000

190,000

4,000,000 - 11,800,000

500,000

1,900,000~ 5,300,000

+

- z 7,000 - - - 30,000 - -

-

-

-

Independent. Effective . Independent. Projected. Independent. Effective. Integrated with Effective. the comprehensive school.

Independent. Projected.

Single.

Three-stream. Integrated with the comprehensive school.

the comprehensive school.

Integrated with

Single. Single. Single. Independent.

Independent. Integrated with the comprehensive school.



Independent. Integrated with

Integrated with

Integrated with

the polyvalent school.





Integrated with

Integrated with

Integrated with

Integrated with

Experimental stage.

Effective. Effective.

Effective.

Decided upon. Decided upon. Taking place. Taking place. Taking place.

Taking place. Effective.

Taking place.

Taking place.

Taking place. Effective.

Effective.

Effective.

Projected.

1. Iraq has decided ‘to admit to the intermediate schools all pupils who have completed their primary school education, and to the secondary schools all pupils who have completed their intermediate school education’.

Source. Adapted from the International Yearbook of Education, Vol. XXX, 1968; the figures have been rounded off to the nearest 10,000.

D’ifferentiation and democratization in secondary and higher education

W e should observe that although the second type of organization meets the requirements of the comprehensive school, so does the first kind. In fact, both the Yugoslav and the Swedish systems are completely and

directly comprehensive in the sense that they offer only one kind of education, the options being on an equal footing and not placed in any hierarchy of values.

The Italian system. The various comprehensive systems take their position between the two extremes above, giving greater or lesser place and importance to option, Italy, for example, has established the scuola media, which admits all children aged 11-14 of normal ability to a lower secondary education having a completely unified structure and an almost completely common curriculum, since options are available only from the second year and occupy only 10 per cent of the time-table. It is interesting to compare the numbers of children receiving primary

education in 1967/68 with those in the first part of compulsory general or technical secondary education, either independent or integrated with the comprehensive school, but still taken together (Table 4). One can then perceive the extent and the difficulty of the programme these countries have decided to introduce.

COMPARISON OF THE VARIOUS TYPES OF L O W E R SECONDARY EDUCATION FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF THEIR DIFFERENTIATING EFFECT

Leaving aside the situations or options which, for a while, oblige States to adopt an organization of type A or B, and also leaving aside the time necessary for transition, we have seen that the two other types of organization (C and D) which have been planned to lead subsequently to much wider access to higher education are in fact making appreciable progress in that direction. However, even if it has been decided to open secondary education to as

many children as possible and to delay for as long as possible the making of final choices and the introduction of specialized teaching, the respective advantages offered by a type C reform like the French, and a type D reform like the Swedish, would still have to be compared. The French reform is based on a compulsory common group of subjects

with a standard curriculum which will be taught (when the reform is complete, i.e. in 1971) in a single type of school-the college d’enseignernent secondaire-but with three parallel streams which we have described. To sum up, there is a single establishment and a single form of education, but they follow a variety of methods and aims. Nobody, of course, would question the usefulness of stream 3. It is good

to of€er children who are temporarily retarded for scholastic, family, social

43


or personal reasons a special education which may make it possible for some of them to rejoin the ‘normal’ stream of the first part of secondary education. One might, on the other hand, question the separation of the two main

streams. One of them, secondary in nature, has five or six teachers who o$er an education oriented towards upper secondary and higher technical education. The other stream, of the ‘upper primary’ type, offers an education closer to the pupils’ capacities thanks to a smaller number of teachers (two or three), to more patient progress and to a more concrete approach. This stream guides them mainly towards subsequent technical education or gives them a general education making it possible for them to take a job provided they undergo short extra training periods, often organized by firms themselves, e.g. for medium-level employment in the tertiary sector. Only a minority (15 per cent) of pupils educated in the second stream are thought suitable for admission to the long upper part of secondary education, while another section, by far the most numerous (60 per cent), passes on to the short technical upper part of secondary education, which is primarily commercial and which leads, after two years, to the trade certificate (brevet professionnel). The basic question is raised by the official text which we have quoted, since

the division into two streams, the one ‘grammar school type’ and the other ‘upper primary type’ expressly admits differences in family status. The statistics in Table 5 give confirmation of this text. The problem in trying to take account of inequalities in social and family

origin which affect the present use of abilities, more than the abilities themselves, is to know whether separating two groups of pupils with very marked social and cultural characteristics and making a distinction between the teachers, methods, atmosphere-and, indeed, the objectives aimed at-is the best way of teaching a common curriculum in a common establishment. Although the realism and the wish for social and economic efficiency which underlies this point of view are representative of one of the trends to be seen in teachers’ organizations, the supporters of the opposite point of view, which would prefer complete unity in lower secondary education and a complete mixture of pupils, have not failed to voice their criticism which also merits examination. The first point of criticism deals with the principle itself: statistics similar

to those which we have just given are quoted to show that guiding pupils at the start of the secondary cycle either towards a full secondary education or towards an upper primary type of education can only be based on current ‘ability’, which reflects to a large extent the children’s social and economic background much more than it reflects their potential ability. But the aim of the first part of secondary education should be to reveal

this hidden potential, obscured up to that point by the pupils’ background. It is impossible to bring it to light unless we abandon the notion of adapting teachers, methods and school atmosphere simply to those abilities which are

44


TABLE 5. France: pupils’ social and economic background and their choice of ‘streams’

Social and economic background

Percentage for Percentage. Percentage, the whole of CEG, Paris Lycke de Sbvres

France (stream 2) (stream 1)

Middle-level and higher 29.7 28.5

Foremen, workmen and execiit ives

craftsmen 34.5 50

49.7

15.3

Housing conditions Percentage, CEG, Paris suburbs

Percentage. LycCe de SBvres

Favourable Average Unfavourable

10.8 35.8 52.1

65.2 18 9.7

Source. Courier de 1u Recherche P4dunoniyue (Institut Pidagogique National, Paris), No. 20, p. 14-21.

apparent. To decide at the age of 10 or 11 the stream which seems to match the pupil’s present situation is surely to immure this pupil, at least temporarily and certainly prematurely, in his present personal and intellectual make-up. It is true that possible transfers are allowed for. In principle, if a pupil in stream 2 seems to have acquired the verbal and conceptual ability required in stream 1, continuous observation will lead finally to his being advised to transfer. Transfer in the other direction may also be suggested, but such transfers do not seem to be very numerous. The three- stream system seems, in effect, in most cases, to determine from the outset which of the three educational paths a child is assigned to in his lower secondary education. At the end of the first part of secondary education, have streams 1 and 2 prepared their pupils in an equal fashion for access to the upper part? This is hardly the case, since whereas most pupils from stream 1 continue general studies in the upper part and generally aim for higher education, most pupils from stream 2 leave school at the end of the first part, or start technical training. This might have been a satisfactory solution if it had not, to a certain extent, been predetermined by the social structure and perpetuated by the educational system. Where access to higher education is concerned, and as those who pass on

to the upper part of secondary education are few in number (of the order of 15 per cent), we may say that pupils in stream 2 have only about one chance in six of being admitted to the upper part of academic education. Using the Swedish statistics1 as an example, one might then wonder

whether the complete mixing of curricula, methods, pupils and teachers, which

1. From 75 to 80 per cent of school leavers leaving Swedish comprehensive schools after nine years of standardized education opted for the gymnasia offering general education, as against 54 per cent in 1960 before the introduction of comprehensive schools.

45


is still completely in keeping with a system of internal options, does not offer from our point of view more chances of revealing to young people, by example and exercise and by a mixture of backgrounds, minds and personalities, the kind of intelligence and work which is best adapted to secondary and higher education.

ACTION WHICH MIGHT POSSIBLY BE TAKEN AT THE LOWER LEVEL OF SECONDARY EDUCATION

It is of the utmost importance to observe that the possibility of removing unacceptable differentiations seems to exist, since the more elaborate educational systems completely avoid them; here one of the major aspects of the problem and one of its possible solutions are involved. If one looks at Table 7,l one will be struck by the considerable difference between the national rates for differentiation both in lower and upper secondary education. W e should point out that at the lower stage, these rates do not rise above 0.5 per cent in the United States, 0.9 per cent in Romania, 0.25 per cent in Poland and 0.4 per cent in the Soviet Union. These are mainly countries which because of their relative newness or profound social trans- formations do not suffer from the restraints perpetuated in several other countries by long-standing traditional structures and concepts. In this latter group of countries2 primary and secondary education is

organized according to the principle of continuous selection, which allows only a certain number of pupils each year to move up into the next grade. Teaching here is organized like an athletic contest, where the minimum performance rises each year as a result of the development of curricula both in quantity and in difficulty. The result is that differentiation does not take place once and for all, for

example at the beginning of an educational stage. It continues throughout a pupil’s studies at rates which are similar from one year to the next and from one stage of education to the next. This ought to have two consequences for higher education. The severe selection process which goes on during secondary education should permit everybody who survives to go to university. In fact, however, university access in numerous countries depends on general and external, or individual and internal, entrance examinations. Having been subject to these repeated preliminary selection processes,

these future students ought also to succeed in an exemplary fashion. W e shall see that this is by no means the case and that a new differentiation appears at this stage, either as a result of the entrance examination or during higher education itself and, quite frequently, through both causes together.

1. See below, page 63. 2. Where the developing countries are concerned, Table 1 has shown that drop-out

rates are in general particularly high because of the economic and financial situation.

46


In our evaluation of the organization of secondary education, we have observed that a notable evolution is now leading many countries towards the partial or complete retention of a type C organization for upper secondary education. By reducing or doing away with entrance examinations, by pro- longing the length of general education offered to all pupils and by delaying specialization in this way until the end of the first part of secondary education, by widening the type of school-leaving examination (like the bucca- laurc!ut, bachillerato, Abitur, etc) so as to admit pupils from technical education and, lastly, by facilitating the transfer from one kind of education to another, efforts are being made to delay differentiation as much as possible and to make higher education accessible to the maximum proportion of students. Unfortunately, we have seen that under this system, abnormal differentiations along the way are so numerous that in any given class only 20 to 40 per cent of those pupils who start secondary education reach the end, only 14 to 25 per cent obtain the school-leaving certificate and only 13 to 20 per cent enter higher education. The problem thus remains practically unsoived as between the system just

described and those which are now going to be examined. In the systems of which the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the United States of America provide leading examples, in spite of some internal differences, methods of access are similar, there is no external or internal selective examination from the end of primary education until the start of higher education and almost all pupils who start the first part of secondary education reach the end of this stage. Higher education is developed and diversified enough to admit, either after examinations or by other paths, not only all those who complete their secondary education but those, too, who have begun a trade course or who have taken a job and who subsequently wish to take up their studies again or to complete their education. This is the reason for which very important parallel higher education institutions have been set up in the U.S.S.R. and the United States of America, such as evening courses, correspondence courses and teaching by radio. W e shall, of course, return to the problem when we examine the processes

of differentiation in higher education. Here we shall confine ourselves to remarking that the structure, role and social significance of education are already, to a large extent, expressed by the size or the absence of differentiation (through repetition or expulsion) during the first part of secondary education.

47

IV. Functional factors affecting differentiation in lower secondary education

We have evidence that a considerable differentiation becomes apparent at the start of lower secondary education as a result of the children’s social and economic backgrounds. W e know that this differentiation reveals itself through mental blockages and repressive conditions. The blockages merely conceal and keep in an undeveloped state abilities which, according to statistics, are equally present in all social groups. Depression leads to feelings of inferiority among pupils whose vigour and self-confidence are sapped by social differences but who are certainly capable of recovery. Leaving aside drop-outs for the moment, social dependency which

intimately involves the situation of the parents drives young people in the direction of short studies. It thus definitely prevents them from moving on to higher education. It is the task of education and teachers, of headmasters and, primarily, of government authorities to enter the lists against these differentiations, which are now no longer structural but functional. Not only are they an obstacle to the intellectual and scientific prosperity of a country and not only do they add a further burden to young minds awakening in a socially deprived environment but, since we are dealing with the democratization of education, they also clearly tend to keep young people coming from modest backgrounds at an inferior level and in so doing perpetuate the present state of society. In other words, they obstruct the democratization of the social group as a whole.

S 0 CIA L A N D PSYCH 0 L 0 GI C A L MECHANISMS

Economic diflerentiation

W e shall give close attention, in the following pages, to the social and psychological variations which are linked with the family’s economic level. W e shall therefore speak only very briefly about the material situation of the children and the well-known measures which some of these situations require for the avoidance, as far as possible, of the most unacceptable of these differentiations. The principle underlying this basic action is obviously to do everything

possible to prevent the precariousness of certain standards of living from

48


being a hindrance or even an embarrassment to the child. The introduction of the ‘whole day’, with the provision of a midday meal for most of the children, at which all social categories mix together, represents a first and important step in the right direction. A reasonably broad system of grants is still needed, however, to pay when necessary €or the cost of partial board and to assist in the procuremcnt of articles needed at school-even clothing, travel and organized recreation. No child should be prevented for financial reasons from doing what other children do. This is the straightforward and rigorous criterion to be applied in taking the first steps towards equality at school. If taken fully into account, it must commit States, which are mainly making great efforts to provide midday meals, to becoming as generous as possible in the provision of study grants. The widespread efforts made in this field deserve to be recognized. The

volume of awards is often very similar (e.g. the proportion of grant-aided pupils in Poland is 1 : 6 of the total, in France, 1 : 5, in Japan, 1 : 10, in Morocco, 1 : 10; Norway makes a grant of 1,800 kroner per year to all pupils unable to live at home). Direct contact with the families, however, shows that the scales on which grants are awarded (or refused) ought to be considerably broadened. Between those situations which call for the award of a grant and the well-off families there is a whole border-line area not covered by the scales, to the great detriment of democratization and of access to secondary and higher education. The families in this border-line area simply remove their children from school once they have completed the lower secondary stage.

If these brief and general remarks are all that we will say in the subject, this is because the problems are obvious and generally recognized. The disparity which has been found to exist between national systems of assistance to pupils in secondary education calls for emphasis on the importance of the problem, and shows how much need there is for progressive equalization.

It seems to us, however, that we must direct our research in the direction of factors of differentiation which are much less obvious. These are the functional, and no longer structural, influences exercised on the pupils by the social and psychological factors dominating each one’s attitude towards education. We shall examine in succession the psychological and social mechanisms of

differentiation and the counter-measures they might call into action.

Social arid economic differentiation

W e saw in Chapter I the formidable social differentiation which occurs at the primary level in certain countries, particularly the developing countries. The phenomenon obviously continues on entry into secondary school and throughout secondary education. Its magnitude can be measured exactly by

49

Present pro’blems in the democratization of secondary and higher education

comparing the volume of the primary school population with that of the lower secondary stage. It is obvious that to raise the school-leaving age to 15, or even to 16 or 17, automatically swells the numbers in the lower stages, whether they are independent or integrated. Raising the school-leaving age, however, can only be achieved when national economic conditions become favourable. The first step is for families no longer to be obliged to rely on the wages or work of children between 11 and 16. The next stage is for parents with low incomes to receive State aid (or aid from some other body) in the form of a general grant, clothing or book grant. These conditions must be fulfilled before there can be democratization and broadening of access to secondary and higher education.

Social and intellectual differentiation

On the plane of intelligence, the direct and unbreakable relationship between thought and speech clearly presages the difficulties of ‘understanding’ experienced by children from social environments where speech does not have the same value as it does in other, so-called ‘privileged’ environments. This obviously is not the mark of a definitive intellectual deficiency, as some would have us believe. Weaknesses in speech, which is one means of expression among many, cause only temporary, although stubborn, difficulties in the mobilization of latent ability. Children from a social environment characterized by its ease of speech are not more intelligent than those who have linguistic handicaps. Psychologists have known for a long time that it is useless to try to construct tests independent of any culture, but if it were possible to develop non-verbal tests to measure the potentialities of abstract intelligence it would be shown, statistically, that these potentialities are equivalent in both cases. All that deprived children need is a chance to realize their potential. It should be noted that this handicap does not only affect literary studies. ‘In fact, ability to handle language and the possession of a literary culture which, as we all know, depends so greatly on social background, are continually taken into account throughout secondary education and again in higher education, even when this is scientific. Logical ability, on which success in scientific tests depends and, to be more precise, the ability to transform complex structures, is related to the syntactical complexity of the language learnt in the family environment.’l ‘It follows logically that educational failure can only increase as one reaches

those classes which are furthest away from educated language.’2 Having long shown indifference to the subject, educational psychology

has now discovered the importance of the links between society and edu-

1. P. Bourdieu and J. C. Paseron, ‘L‘Examen d’une illusion’, Revue Frangaise de

2. P. Bourdieu and I. C. Passeron, L a Reproduction, p. 92, Paris, editions de Minuit, Sociologie, Spec. NO., 1967-68, p. 243.

1970.

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cation. These links have one important psychological effect for a start, on intelligence and on a person’s capacity to mobilize his own abilities. Logically, social influences on language and by way of language should be placed back in the general context of the forms of intelligence to which we have already referred. Teachers are continually discovering how varied intelligence can be, not only in level but also in form. Obviously, it is this same dual variation which justifies guidance procedures, and when one suggests to a pupil that he should follow a course primarily based on literature, mathematics, physics or technology, etc., one is implicitly making reference to his form of intelligence. What one does not always perceive, however, is the chiefly psychological and social origin of these mysterious variations in ability.

It is not part of our plan to analyse them here. W e shall merely state that the forms of intelligence are usually so firmly rooted in their profound social ties-whose influence is felt from earliest childhood-that they introduce differentiations which can be both usefully and rightly considered. While verbal deficiency must be corrected by education and by psychology because it represents a partial blockage of general intellectual mobilization, on the other hand, another form of verbal and conceptual intelligence, e.g. literary or philosophical, or a symbol-conceptual form, e.g. mathematical, or a technical and conceptual form, can only be identified and respected. Of course, in so far as they are usually imposed on an individual by his social and family environment, they may appear as restraints on his freedom. It is impossible to see, however, how one kind of intelligence can take upon itself to relegate this or that other kind to a lower level. Then again, it is by using his present intelligence and by enlarging it throughout his life that each person can also enlarge his freedom. It will be as necessary to fight against verbal deficiencies, which paralyse

or obscure potential intelligence, as it is desirable for secondary and higher education to recognize the different forms of intelligence not to fix and embalm them, but rather to use them as a starting point.

Social and emotional diflerentiation

There is a second eEect to be observed which is just as important and powerful. Teachers and educators have now learnt to recognize the emotional tonic or depressive influence of social and family environments. This discovery would be of little practical interest if these environments had an unchangeable influence. It is sometimes thought that social determinisms, which are much stronger than personal reactions, condemn the latter to ineffectiveness. With- out entering here into a controversy, it would be an excellent thing for teachers and educators to concern themselves with recognizing these influences in their pupils, at school and at the university, and to try to counter them when they are depressive. W e shall examine these effects mainly where access to, and success

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in, higher education are concerned, because the studies revealing these effects have been chiefly carried on at this level. Their effect is felt just as much, however, if not more, at the secondary level. They are particularly apparent in young children at the lower secondary stage, so that we shall describe the working of them here, very briefly. The aim of reforms is always to give children from different social classes

equal opportunity of access to the different levels of education. A given country will feel itself encouraged to continue its efforts at democratization when it sees, for example, that the rate of admission of workers’ and peasants’ children to university has doubled, tripled or even quadrupled over a stated period. But beyond this unequal representation of the various social classes in one sector of the educational system, there is another principle to be considered, which is one of the most powerful elements of inequality. This is the subjective estimate of one’s chances of success: in other words, the psychological and social survey has two associated aspects which, at any given level of education, are inequality of access and inequality of success. To pre-selection and pre-orientation, which are social in origin, should

be added the extra differentiation which the complex of defeat towards education felt by the socially deprived classes establishes in their children throughout their schooling. This trend shows itself in several ways. There is, first of all, a difference in attitudes towards education: ‘dilettantism, confidence and the unconcerned, irreverent attitude of the upper-class students’ contrast with ‘the feverish eagerness and realism of the lower-class students’. Next, the attitude of children towards education depends very much on the attitude of the family group. At a high social level, the family situation and its status and influence are examples and assurances of support for the pupil. In modest families, to start unknown studies, to undergo distant tests and to meet trials which are known to be decisive, whilst others treat them without worry, are situations which easily arouse anxiety. Lastly, when difficulties arise, experience proves that the higher-class families or, rather surprisingly, the families of civil servants who intend that their children shall continue their own social ascent, will support, encourage and assist their children or enlist assistance for them. Parents lower down the scale, when confronted with education which seems to lie above their level, often experience a sense of impossibility and inacessibility. They quickly resign themselves to telling the child that these studies and examinations are ‘not for him’ and that it would be better if he ‘did not aim so high‘, but ‘learnt a trade’ like his father. In this way, they have a depressing influence which encourages the child to give up.l

1. It goes without saying that these remarks are only general and allow of certain exceptions. Some pupils, through the effect of their level of intelligence, can overcome all social or family obstacles. Furthermore, a ‘high ambition level’ leads some working-class families to seek to overcome the obstacles and encourages the parents to ‘support’ their children and to aim far and high on their behalf. W e have just noted the relative frequency of this trend in the families of middle-level civil servants

52


It should be added that these feelings of surrender are also based on the objective and realistic recognition that resources are insufficient. The scales according to which study grants are made to secondary school pupils are, generally speaking, so strict as to be discouraging. W e shall meet this general problem of grants later on.

Personal differentiation

As the bodies responsible for preparing educational reform in various countries have remarked repeatedly, once account has been taken of social differentiations, more personal sources of success or failure still remain. They are met with often enough for teachers to pay attention to them. The elimination of the social sources of differentiation which has been achieved or is being sought, makes them, or would make them, appear in all their sharpness. They stem from the personality, in other words from the over-all structure which gathers together and organizes over a period of time the subject’s fundamental dispositions, childhood influences and socio-cultural activities. The school and vocational guidance authorities can render great service by pointing out to teachers the blockages resulting in certain children from a basic fear of the school crowd, for example, or of community life, teachers’ reactions or current failures. These subjects have only too quickly transformed such temporary difficulties into grounds for hopeless surrender and failure complexes. They rapidly slow down their efforts in a school world which they judge to be too hard, impersonal and anonymous in relation to their personality. Educational psychology has also shown how the numerous cases of

idleness, which are undoubtedly the cause of one failure out of every two,l could be spotted and defined. It has shown that a relatively large number of intelligent pupils are basically uninterested in school work. They reject school because school is part of a context which is distressing and depressing for them, added to family discord, separation of parents, faulty education, or poverty. This shows how vital it is to give constant attention to the child’s psychological and social background, which implies either an ‘educational psychology’ department or educational psychology training for teachers, or both together, which would represent a complete system. Attention should also be given to the individualization of education, at least in different cases. Action has already been begun or developed in many

and particularly among teachers. In addition, social influences obviously come into play through personal characteristics. Certain of these, which character analysis can clearly distinguish, resist external depressive influences. Some even find in them the occasion for fight and victory. For the majority, however, they represent defeat.

1. A French survey (1960) involving 8,000 adult students following ‘social advancement’ courses showed that nearly 50 per cent of them said that they were coming to the course to make up for their failures at school which, looking back, they said were due to frivolous behaviour, laziness, etc.

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countries1 to provide training for teachers and assistance from psychologists. To sum up, one can distinguish on the one hand objective difficulties in

school work, met with by all pupils but more particularly by those without any family tradition of education and who have not been warned or prepared by any parental advice. Secondly, there are the personal but equally objective embarassments which children from deprived social environments feel in work of a conceptual kind as a result of their verbal deficiency and the partial paralysis which this deficiency inflicts on their intelligence. Again, there are the depressive attitudes and the weakness of motivation which result from the objective difference between the aims which are possible and the realities of the family situation, and from the objective inequality of the chances of success. Finally, there is personal lack of adjustment to the neces- sities, or sometimes the faults of school life. Such is the fourfold source of the drift to paralysis. It highlights the

importance of a psychological and social factor (which could be called the social-depressive factor and be linked with the social-intellectual factor), namely the action of the social background on the mobilization of the intellectual powers.

COMPENSATORY ACTION

Educational means to counter social and verbal digerentiations

The fact that abilities (at least scholastic abilities) are to a very large extent social in origin suggests that efforts to counter unacceptable differentiations ought to aim, first and foremost, in that direction. A variety of educational activities have been undertaken but at the local or personal level. Effective action seems linked with an examination of structures, curricula and methods. One may wonder whether any die is finally cast by the age of 6. It is

more likely that only very slender possibilities of improvement are left by the end of primary education. Attention should therefore be given to pre- school and primary education.2

Pre-school or kindergarten education and the prevention of verbal diflerentiation. The pre-primary school has a definite social role to play. It tries to 1. Algeria, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Costa Rica, France, Hungary, India, Iran,

Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kuwait, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Morocco, Poland, Venezuela. Only those countries are listed which mention the activity of educational pschychologists as such. The volume of this activity is obviously very variable (see: International Yearbook of Education, Vol. XXX, 1968, Geneva, Unesco/Internatio- nal Bureau of Education, 1969).

2. cf. F. Bowles '. . . the problems of higher education originate in the earlier stages of elementary . . . education' (Access to Higher Education, p. 17). W e shall demonstrate that these problems are apparent even at the pre-school level as a result of social influences.

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prevent social and economic inequalities and their effects on children from going any further by giving parents advice and encouragement and by taking action which is often difficult and only sometimes effective. It has ‘a fundamental interest in the building of the personality and in countering social and economic handicaps’. Its aim is ‘to develop psychomotor co-ordination, to develop language and other means of expression such as music, drawing, mode!ling, handicraft, writing, written expression and mathematics, and to give some first ideas about the distant world’.l As the aim is to compensate for social handicaps, a constant and syste-

matic practice of language, at present the social means of communication which is most employed, ought surely to be given an important place alongside other forms of expression such as modelling or handicrafts which are much more intimately geared to the development of the individual. Further research, followed by a fresh definition of the subject, could lead to novel and much more effective training exercises. These would be elementary, thought-provoking exercises and trials in the practical construction of simple logical patterns and their effects would be felt at an age when the level and form of intelligence are not yet to be regarded as constants. There is a close link between the early formation of structures and intellectual progress.2

It is through the consequent lack of logical construction that the verbal shortcomings of one environment compared with another have a damaging effect. According to H. PiCron, social activity of a modifying character takes place essentially during the period of brain growth, when there is still considerable organic plasticity. This ontogenetic fact is borne out by observation and experiments in schools which justify the following statement: ‘If it is wished to take effective action from the educational point of view, it therefore seems that it is at the pre-primary stage in particular that the school can act most effectively to assist children from the most deprived families and to remedy the deficiencies of their en~ironment.’~ Lastly, and this remark is valid well beyond the pre-primary school, some

authors have wondered whether the teacher, in spite of his conscious intentions, might not at times be ‘the victim of his social prejudices and might not sometimes tend to see a child from a good environment in a better light than a child from a working-class environment, the differences of attitude

1. Extracts from the report on the conclusions of the Commissions FranGaises de RCforme (1968-69). The work and aims of the Association Internationale des Gcoles Maternelles (International Association of Pre-primary Schools) show that these aims are shared in various other countries.

2. If three groups of children from very different environments are compared, it is seen ‘that the development quotients are identical at six months but that the difference between the extreme groups at the age of 3 is 32 points in favour of the children of intellectuals’ (Brunet, in Enfarice, No. 1, 1956).

3. M. Gilly (dean of studies at the Institut de Psychologie de l’Universit6 de Paris, in Bulletiri de Psycholopie, No. 257, 1967, p. 797, ff.

55

Fresent problems in the democratization of secondary and higher education

which appear as a result in the teacher being rapidly strengthened by the differences in ability shown by the pupils’.l Even though this natural subconscious attitude is generally overridden by

a wish for equity on the part of masters and mistresses, teacher training could deal effectively with this possible tendency through a study of the means- undoubtedly new-to be employed for countering social and scholastic differentiation at pre-primary and school age.

The primary school and action against verbal digerentiation. The role of the primary school is to continue this activity. W e may note with interest the variety of local or personal activities which have been undertaken. Wide- spread action would call for considerable rethinking. Where the school is concerned, it is recognized that ‘the primary school must teach to develop rather than to educate’.2 Development, however, is both measured and assured by linguistic progress. Children who leave school early are, as a general rule, the ones with the least ability in verbal expression and they find themselves without language in a world which frequently is nothing but language. Speaking at school means belonging to the school. W e are not concerned here with the educational problems which the formid-

able school failure rates pose to primary education. Therefore we do not have to estimate the absolute values of education in terms of ‘ability groups’. Although such estimates offer great profit, it is possible that their constant use has disadvantages which are precisely of a social nature in so far as ‘ability groups’ reproduce social groups. Nevertheless, whether in primary education or, more particularly at this

point, in lower secondary education, the decisive argument that there is a need for it reinforces the advantages of a partial use of teaching according to ability levels. It seems to offer the possibility of gradually achieving real equality of opportunity where speech is concerned and consequently a gradual equality of opportunity for expressing intelligence. Mobile subgroups for language training could be organized within each class, each one working at its own pace. If a child who is ‘weaker’ in language work finds himself with children who speak easily and well, he is in danger of having his defeatist attitude accentuated. When he is with children in a situation similar to his own, he feels on an equal footing and benefits from the feeling of encouragement which goes with this. When he has made a certain amount of progress, it is possible to transfer an improving pupil to a ‘more verbally advanced’ subgroup. Experiments along these lines have shown that a powerful effect can be obtained in freeing both language and personality. Because of their

1. cf. W . L. Warner ‘Rkussite Scolaire et Classes Sociales aux 8tats-Unis’ (Success at School and Social Classes in the United States), Enfance, No. 3, 1950.

2. France, ‘Ministerial Educational Activity’, official reports published in L’Enseigne- ment Public, journal of the Fkdkration de 1’8ducation Nationale, No. 8 bis, June 1969, p. 9.

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uniform composition, subgroups or ‘ability level groups’ are adaptable for group work. Verbal exchanges are made easier through the ease of pupil- teacher relationship and relationship among pupils themselves. As a result, the pupils become familiar with a certain language introduced progressively and directly by the teacher, and natural exchanges take the place of artificial and imposed exercises. Verbal expression does not go hand in hand with written expression. The spoken language has direct connexions with ideas. One should start with the handling of language applied to the most familiar practical situations in order to work towards the concrete-abstract relation. The situation would be less that of getting the children to speak a lot than that of getting them to speak in an organized way and of learning to think through linguistic structures. Language and thought go hand in hand but only on condition that they are not separated from each other. One should not talk for talking’s sake but, already, as a means to thinking. This language teaching, while long confined to the ‘concrete-abstract’ (a

notion often to be found in modern mathematics), in no way rules out appeals to the imagination. In a world dominated by pictures, and by televised pictures in particular, it is true, as McLuhan says, that ‘the TV child is culturally short-sighted’ since a succession of pictures are to him pictures rather than a sequence. In this way, he perhaps becomes as ‘incapable of looking up’ as of looking back. Nevertheless, although it is true that pictures have their place and their virtues, they are a language which is the opposite of language and this is one more reason for learning the real language. It is also true that television, as it is offered to our schools today, will not be long in making itself dominant there. This will be a good opportunity for educating the ability to look so that television becomes educative. At the moment, the child receives televised pictures as disjointed impressions, the first pictures being continually cancelled out by those which follow. They are nothing but pictures which delight or terrify him but which, in any case, transport him. Through language, we are able to talk about them. Without losing their value as pictures, they cease to be opponents of the logical process and by taking their place in this process, they support it and give it life. Children, most particularly those coming from environments where speech

is limited, find in the televised picture amusement, refuge, revenge and a kind of justification for ignorance and failure to learn. It is very likely that this is a source of the present lack of interest in school-which is sufficient reason for integrating pictures in education and in the first place in verbal manipulation.

Educational means of countering social and emotional differentiation

As well as bringing to the school, gyninasiurn, lycke or college the whole of his personality, with his verbal and intellectual deficiencies, the child also

57


brings his emotional impressions, which are very personal and call for certain precautions. Here we shall examine more especially general emotional differentiations which concern whole categories of children. W e shall look first of all at their connexion with school work itself. This

work, and ‘literary’ studies in particular, are often thought of as unauthentic and unreal by children coming from deprived social classes. Worse still, they are felt, at least unconsciously, as being imposed by a dominant class and handed down by a caste of intellectuals. The result of this fairly widespread but very frequently unconscious (although in some cases overt) attitude among pupils of this category1 could be the rejection of ‘literary’ studies. Compared with their own environment, its habits and standards, this sort of work seems to them like a kind of desertion or denial. A large volume of social research has enabled us to detect the defeatist attitudes adopted by pupils and students, under the pressure of social differences, when the school or university offers them a social promotion which, in the eyes of their parents and relations, looks like defection and repudiation. If the role of primary education or lower secondary education is ‘to struggle against social differentiation’, it is important to find the means to do so. Social and educational determinations are, like all determinations, capable of being modified, provided that the modifications are concrete and well-adapted. The corpus of primary and secondary school-teachers virtually has it in its power to bring about balance in society and personal rehabilitation. They should be fully informed of the principles and methods governing the action they should take. It is not our intention to cover such research in this study, since it ought

to be dealt with by systematic inquiries and analysed by working groups. But the matter cannot be left in abeyance and action should be taken as soon as possible if the intention really exists to combat unacceptable differentiations and drop-outs, which are differentiations of a definitive kind. W e shall at least suggest a few principles which could, with others, form the basis of corrective action: 1. Primary and lower secondary education especially, but also subsequent

education, could reject once and for all the ideology of the gifted child in so far as it disregards the social conditions which account for the presence of his abilities.2

2. Primary and lower secondary education especially, but also subsequent education, could adjust their ‘teaching level’ so that they no longer pre- suppose in their pupils a cultural code which children and young people of certain social categories do not possess.

1. This might explain (better than straightforward parental relationship) why children whose fathers learnt Latin choose this option six times as often as other children, and succeed better.

2. We are not denying nature’s share in ability, which can scarcely be questioned, but it should never be invoked except as a last resort.

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3. The ‘teaching level’l best suited to the various social and cultural strata is obviously the practical level, followed by that of the concrete-abstract. It should therefore be given a special place throughout primary and lower secondary education. In fact, the practical approach is the only one suitable for children who are socially unaccustomed to verbal and conceptual manipulation. From another point of view, this approach is also necessary for pupils from all environments who have difficulty throughout their lower secondary education with teaching which tends to be academic and abstract. Lastly, it is useful as confirmation and counter-proof for pupils who are gifted in the manipulation of theoretical ideas.

4. Teaching methods could develop in a similar way. Energetic efforts would be made at the practical and concrete-abstract levels so that methods progressed as required to ensure the gradual acquisition of language and thought by concepts. By partial but regular recourse to imaginative creativity, these methods would also ensure that pupils from all environments, particularly those whose social backgrounds gave them feelings of inferiority, were present, took part and were enthusiastic. A ‘doing’ education would take its place alongside a ‘hearing’ education just as a ‘speaking’ education would accompany a ‘reading’ education.

5. The methods based on these principles can only be active methods which mobilize each and every pupil, but pupils take to suggested activity in a variety of ways. Collective motivation would therefore always be accompanied by research into, and stimulation of, personal motivations. These latter differ frequently from the over-all motivation. Speaking more generally, teaching activity and the activity of adaptation would reject any standardization. They would be adjusted to suit the personalities of the pupils. They would take account of personal levels and forms of intelligence and of emotional levels and forms, in other words, of the main aspects of a personality. Psychological and educational activity would pay particular attention to those children whom duly trained teachers, with the co-operation of psychologists, would have picked out as anxious, weak or stubborn when faced with collective living and its demands. Such chiIdren would have been identified so as to encourage their continual personal ‘relaunching’ and their participation in class, and to encourage them to feel more at home in school.

6. Lastly, the improvement of emotional adaptation indirectly brings up the problem of repetitions. The participation of all pupils in the community effort and the building up of a certain confidence in school will not be possible if some children are in fear of poor performance, sometimes almost from the beginning of the school year. Repeating a class seems in most cases to be the worst of punishments and is sometimes brandished before a child in a regrettable way. The effects of this system are disastrous

1. The expression is Bourdieu’s.

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and cause great discouragement and differentiation for many of those who repeat classes, both during the first year and during the repeat year. Repetitition used, not long ago, to be tied to a rigid educational system which had no regard for personality. The displacements which appear in the primary and secondary schools, class by class, stage by stage, the difference between the number who start and the number who finish are beginning to be generally condemned. The International Conference on Education, at its twenty-second session,l emphasized the significance of the problem raised by drop-outs and repetitions, which are highly prevalent in developing countries.? The conference also showed that the difficulty is a truly international one and concerns industrialized countries as well, although to a lesser extent. France provides a typical example in this respect. The solution to this problem does not involve resources, otherwise it would have been solved long ago. It is rather a matter of giving a new definition to education. The methods once used for educating small numbers cannot be used for educating the masses.

The six points listed above concerning the reform which is needed apply in certain respects to what is usually called pupil ‘guidance’. In an organized liberal system, giving continuous information to young

people would forestall these definitive restraints and would exert a balancing effect. It would give priority attention to the subject’s tastes and abilities and would soon inform him of the ways in which his inclinations and knowledge could be mobilized and employed. Thus, step by step, and without violence being done to them, personal inclinations could be directed or redirected in freedom and in effective directions. Those involved only reject a comparison of their aptitudes with facts

about employment or development prospects if this comparison is presented as a necessity. Here we can see the value of the principles of non-direction and the excessively rigid and authoritarian concept of guidance should, for reasons of effectiveness, be replaced by explanations and information. This more liberal system would not fail to put forward the statistics, documents and prospects in an order and with an emphasis which would best reveal the truth which they contain. One of the factors in unacceptable differentiation is an erroneous choice

made at school or university. Once the pupil or student sees, in a confused way, that he cannot readily follow the course which he has begun, or that there is a danger that this course will lead him into a blind alley, he has started down the path of personal failure. Following the extra process which we analysed earlier, certain family and social environments publicize, empha-

1. IBE-Unesco, Geneva, 5-9 July 1970. 2. To choose only comparable examples: Algeria (lower secondary stage), drop-outs,

24 per cent; repetitions, 1 year, 29 per cent, 2 years, 11 per cent. Argentina (upper secondary education), drop-outs: 41 per cent; repetitions, 1 year, 30 per cent, 2 years, 10 per cent, 3 years, 5 per cent.

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TABLE 6. France: Repetition rates in lower secondary education (State education) for 1968/69

Year Rates Total number Repetitions out of pupils of this total

First Second Third Fourth

587,414 73,897 12.6 517,623 57,904 11.2 441,414 42,394 9.6 348,897 33,608 9.6

Source. Central Statistics Department of the Ministry of Education

size and dramatize the significance of failure. In this way, personal discouragement, allied with defeat on the social and family front, gives the student no choice but to repeat a course or to choose another ‘second best’ course unless, through a stroke of luck which is only too infrequent, a teacher or service is there to help him to recognize his mistake and its origins and to see that, fortunately, the following year there will be another course of equivalent value which will better assure his progress. These remarks about pupil or student guidance are equally applicable in the framework of either fundamental doctrine.

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V. Structural factors affecting differentiation in upper secondary education

One might expect far fewer sources of differentiation in the organization of upper secondary education. There should be a far smaller drop-out rate and far fewer changes to a lower level of education. One tends to believe that after three or four years of schooling, during which they have been closely observed and even frequently ‘examined’, the pupils are at last well settled on the path which suits them best, and that they will now continue to the end of their secondary education without setback. In fact, we shall see that although the faults at this level are less obvious, they are still to be reckoned with. As we proceed, we shall point out possible reforms whose eEectiveness could be considerable. Table 7 reveals the true state of the problem. The problems of upper secondary education, the magnitude of which has

just been illustrated, will be examined here from two angles. This chapter will be devoted to the effects of differentiations attributable to the structures of the upper stage. Where functional faults are concerned, these being linked to the aims of the stage, will be studied in the following chapter (Chapter VI). There are three levels of structure-linked influences which might cause

us some anxiety. W e shall see first how satisfactory are the examinations for transfer from

the lower to the upper stage and the dual nature of the stages which these examinations sanction in the practice of several countries. Here we shall meet again, on a new issue, the frequently heard argument concerning

’ selection as opposed to free admission and progressive elimination as opposed to the ascent of as many pupils as possible on the educational ladder. W e shall then ask what conditions make it legitimate to differentiate be-

tween a long upper stage, generally lasting three years and devoted to academic or technical and academic work, and a short second stage, lasting two years, oriented towards vocational studies which are much more practical and have very different aims in view. Instead of studying for the buccuZuur~ut, the Abitur or the secondary level certificate and then for entry to university, pupils taking the short course are awarded a ‘professional certificate’. Whatever name this examination goes by in various countries, to pass it means only that one has a good or very good skilled worker’s qualification

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TABLE 7. Differentiations in upper secondary education1

Country by region One year TWO years mlree years

and over

Africa

Algeria Botswana Burundi Central African Republic

People’s Republic of the Congo

Dahomey Egypt, Arab

Gabon Madagascar Mali

Republic of

Anierica

Argentina Brazil Costa Rica Panama

Asia

Bahrain Iran Kuwait Syrian Arab

Rep u b!ic Turkey

Europe

Czechoslovakia France Greece Italy Poland *

100 100 100

100

100 100

100 100 100 100

100 100 100 100

100 100 100

100 100

IO0 100 100 100 100

29.7 84.8 48.7

14.0

16.0 28.7

53.2 14.5 22.7 33.9

79.5 66.0 76.4 55.0

49.0 56.1 43.2

53.3 13.9

53.7 65 76.5 48.5 60.4

43.7 5 47.9

62.0

60 45.4

5.2 69.1 46.0 41.0

13.9 22.7 8.5 28.3

31.8 14.2 22.1

5 45.5

8.2 6.1 11.4 21.8 21.4

17.0 10.2 3.4

13.1

14 16.9

27.7 9.6 16.7 17.5

6.2 11.3 15.1 13.8

19.2 22.4 19.4

24.2 18.6

26.2 24.9 12.1 23.0 15.8

6.8 2.8

10.9

10 6.5 2.5

13.9 4.3 2.5 8.6 5.0 7.6

0.4

2.9

7.3 15.3

17.5 10.7 11.3

-

9.6 2.3 3.0

6.7 2.2 0.2

1. Unesco survey, 1969 (doc. ED/RIE/Confinted/32/Ref. 1). 2. Drop-out, change of course. 3. School year 1968 to 1969. Ministt-re de 1’Gducation Nationale, Paris 4. Unesco survey, 1969 (doc. ED/BIE/Confinted/32/4/37).

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which offers the likelihood of rapid promotion to employment as technical adviser, foreman or technologist.

THE DUAL NATURE OF THE EDUCATIONAL STAGES A N D DIFFERENTIATION

The transfer examination

The event of transfer from one stage to another, which is sometimes made more significant by the holding of an examination at the end of the lower stage, is thought of by pupils and parents from the beginning of secondary school as important. In Form 3, the schoolboy still thinks of himself as a schoolboy, but in Form 4 he will tend to behave like a pre-student. For authorities and teachers alike, the upper stage is the truly ‘secondary’ stage. The trend towards emphasizing the break still further sometimes even goes so far as introducing an ‘entrance examination’ which, for pupils from outside the school, is additional to the certificates awarded at the end of the lower stage.l In Europe, where Greece and Luxembourg have retained the transfer

examination, the tendency is to admit the pupil to the upper stage on the advice of the class or guidance council which, in France, has the even more dubious power to decide in addition in what type of education and in what section of it the pupil will have to study. In countries where the period of compulsory education is completely catered for by the comprehensive school, the pupils who have done best are chosen at the end of this compulsory period for admission to the gymnasium (e.g. in Sweden and Norway). To pass into the upper stage of secondary education in Africa, pupils must

either have obtained satisfactory results during their last year in the lower stage (seven countries), with the possibility of an examination to give a second chance to those who have not reached the required standard, or must hold the lower school-leaving certificate (five countries) or have to take an entrance examination (five countries).? In Dahomey, pupils are simply promoted into the next stage within the same school. In countries which follow the British system, the stage is longer, usually lasting five years. At the end of it comes the school-certificate examination, either British or national. After this, those who have passed this examination and are aiming at is

1.

2.

higher education stay on at school. The situation in Asia and Oceania the same in those countries which have been influenced by the British

In France, pupils with the brevet d’enseignement du premier cycle (BEPC) are not automatically admitted to the upper stage. Their entry has to be authorized in addition by the teachers’ council or they have to take an examination. In Italy, on the other hand, the lower school-leaving certificate gives free access to higher secondary schools. In this latter case, it should be noted that restrictions on entry to the upper stage are imposed temporarily either for budgetary reasons or through lack of teachers.

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system, such as Australia, Bahrain, Malaysia, New Zealand, and Pakistan. It is similar in several Indian states and in Korea and Japan, but the examinations there are organized by the schools themselves. On the other hand, there is no process of selection between the two stages

in Canada and the United States, where promotion is automatic. In South America, almost all countries have adopted the system of straightforward promotion following a review of the year’s marks.

It might seem worth while to study a first reform which would reduce the importance of the examination procedure. There would be no point here in going over again the more and more numerous and widely publicized grievances which enlightened opinion, as well as psychologists and socio- logists, hold against the idea of examinations. Young people of 14 to 15 should be able to benefit a fortiori from the ‘continuous assessment’ system adopted by certain universities. This is more easily organized in the gymnasium or grammar school than at university and the system would solve the problem without difficulty. To go to the heart of the matter, what may then be questioned in planning

a general reform is the fact that a large number of educational institutions still want to pass judgement, to classify and select. The reduplication of tests and examinations, the demands for an average pass-mark, the pre- valence of repetitions or of authoritarian and demoralizing changes of course are now raising doubts or protests. There is a movement, which is certain to expand, greatly in favour of the more comprehensive and more dynamic notion of continuous assessment. Such a notion seems in keeping with a form of education which has now

become mass education and which must, at one and the same time, allow the Clite to stand out and the majority to take part. This majority will later on show, to a satisfactory extent, those qualities which the tlite displayed earlier. The qualities of the majority will undoubtedly remain less brilliant and less rapid, but will often be sure and solid. They might justify the giving of a new direction to education so as to avoid differentiation through repetitions, drop-outs or mistaken changes of course which, to some extent, are based on external data more than on the personal merit of those concerned. What is obviously needed here, however, is action and attention on the

part of the teachers, geared to the pupils or to this or that group of pupils. In the most modern educational systems of North America, thcre is a trend towards methods of ‘continuous progression’. The teaching is also individualized in the sense that each pupil goes gradually through the entire stage without having to study at the same pace as his fellow pupils. With this method, the ideas of ‘marks’, ‘promotion’, ‘failure’ and ‘repetition’ are done away with. It is still possible to compare the standards attained by one pupil with what used to be considered as normal for a certain class, but the child does not have to be placed in a group of the same standard as himself. H e

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is assigned new tasks as he acquires the necessary knowledge. H e may have to repeat part of the curriculum but he will not have to begin a whole year’s work again in a class of children who are younger and quicker than he is.

I

; The division into stages

The disappearance of the transfer examination between stages would make possible a second reform which might be of some importance. To divide the secondary school into two stages confers a particular prestige on the second stage, while giving the impression that the first is self-contained. For some pupils, who can be psychologically identified, and for some families of a particular social group, this is very likely to constitute an encouragement to leave school. It would be good if the lower secondary stage and its leaving certificate did not appear as ends in themselves.

1 DIFFERENTIATION BETWEEN A LONG ACADEMIC j, A N D A SHORT VOCATIONAL UPPER STAGE

A certain differentiation towards vocational education at the start of the upper stage is both legitimate, because it corresponds to the inclination and abilities of many pupils, and necessary because it meets society’s need for manpower. This is the notion, either implicitly or explicitly stated, underlying the

frequent divergence at the start of the upper stage between the long academic, or academic and technical, course and the short vocationall type of course. This doctrine is certainly sound, provided that choices of course are made

in a judicious way. This is the condition which we now have to define. The only unsound advice as to which course to follow would be that

directing a pupil to studies beneath his abilities, since this would wrongly affect his chances of subsequent entry to higher education. For changes of course to a lower level to be acceptable, it is not enough for them to have been counselled or imposed by the teachers or the headmaster. These persons act fully conscientiously, but it may happen that the educational establishment, its aims or structure, force them, consciously or unconsciously, to take decisions which are justified by the system itself more than by the interests of the pupil and those of society. If this were the case, certain changes of course brought about by the needs of the system (e.g. the need to train a number of technicians for a certain branch of the economy at a given level) would, in fact, be differentiations which it would be difficult to justify. This last point requires that a difficult question of principle should be

1. The name ‘vocational’ is usually given to training which leads to employment not demanding a very high level of skill. Training for middle or higher level industrial or economic employment is called ‘technical’, and direct contact with technical activity always remains necessary under this definition.

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explained: by what criterion can it be determined that a decision guiding a pupil towards technical education at the end of the lower secondary stage represents an unjustified differentiation? To answer this question it is appropriate, first of all, to compare the

numbers of uppcr secondary-school pupils in various typical countries taking either the long academic or the short vocational course. Statistics for France, prepared from official documents, give the following

figures: Pupils in 1966/67 completing the last class of lower secondary education (State and private education combined): 377,000.

Pupils in 1967/68 in the first class of the long upper stage (classical, modern, technical): 235,000, or 62 per cent. This figure should be reduced by 10 to 11 per cent to take account of children repeating the first class. The final ratio is then about 50 per cent.

Thus the number of children going up into the long second stage (literary, scientific or technical) in France is about 50 per cent. A total of 58,000 pupils, or 15.3 per cent, started the short second stage of technical, industrial and commercial education, and 5,800 pupils, or 1.5 per cent, began the second stage of agricultural or other vocational education. About 15,000 pupils, or 4 per cent, began apprenticeships. Lastly, about 22 per cent of pupils took the lower-level civil-service examinations, for which they studied themselves, or entered employment. In the U.S.S.R. 80 out of 100 pupils completing the eighth class at the age of 15 go into the ninth class at 16 and this move corresponds to transfer from one stage to another; 20 per cent go at this point to technical or specialized schools. In the Georgian S.S.R., the respective percentages are 82 per cent and 18 per cent.l These figures and the variety of options lead one to think that under the

various systems these courses match the abilities and wishes of young people and are therefore sufficiently unrestricted. Nevertheless, two less encouraging comments may be added: 1. Differentiations leading to short middle-level vocational training would

be more acceptable if the young people choosing this option did not come in such large numbers (about 75 to 85 per cent in Western industrialized countries) from lower income and social groups.

2. Diversification leading to short training is based on abilities and inclinations as seen at the age of 15 and 16, when social and cultural influences are still at work and may sometimes be obscuring higher abilities.

It will be seen that wc are not questioning the dual structure of the upper stages of education. It is recognized everywhere as being obviously legitimate and necessary. What must be questioned are the functional methods and here we recall the psychological measures which could be taken so that the lower stage of secondary education did not take false account of social divisions.

1. Le Syst2me Scolaire en URSS, document published by the Syndicat National de l'En- seignement Secondaire (France), No. 19, 1970.

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W e have recognized the existence of this problem and there are no radical solutions. Whether they are social or personal, inclinations towards technical employment must be respected. But one should at least make sure that this choice of direction has not been imposed on the pupil by the educational system itself or by a social cleavage which he has to endure rather than to accept. Looking ahead, we should note that the very rapid development of indus-

trialization leads us to foresee far fewer jobs for skilled workers and far more for technicians and engineers around 1985. Finally, and in particular, it is likely that a large number of these jobs will

be of a kind which it is impossible to identify at the present time. It is possible to perceive straight away that there will be consequences on the educational process, particularly where its social use is concerned. However advanced technical education may be today, it will not meet the needs of the economy in a few years’ time and will have to be brought up to date again completely. This confirms the nature of the procedure intended to ‘teach people to learn’ in the first stage of any system of education-a process which is shared by every type of education, whatever its aims.

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VI. Functional factors affecting differentiation in upper secondary education

After the structural sources of differentiation which we have just reviewed, national and educational authorities might turn their attention to a problem of a functional nature which is of prime importance, namely the aims and methods of teaching at the upper stage. This represents a considerable factor in the problem of differentiations. The averagc number of drop-outs or changes of course (30 per cent) and

the average rate of repetitions (28.3 per cent when coefficients of 2 or 3 are applied to repetitions of two or three years)’ show the difficulty of work at this level. Although a certain number of pupils realize this difficulty in the first class of the upper stage and have the wisdom to change, late but still successfully, to technical education,2 others leave school in order to take a job for makeshift purposes. What is interesting here is to know whether these drop-outs, changes of

course or repetitions deprive higher education of possible recruits. If one thinks of higher education as selective and designed for an Clite, the reply will be that failures such as these would not have made very promising recruits. The modern idea, however, of higher education being widely and democratically open, existing to inform and educate as many people as possible without direct and constant reference to ‘preparation’ for eminent careers, allows one to ask what could be done so that a fraction, perhaps quite large, of possible higher-education candidates is no longer eliminated first of all by the structures of upper secondary education (see Chapter V) and then by the functioning of the stage, which we are now about to examine.

THE AJMS OF UPPER SECONDARY EDUCATION A N D DIFFERENTIATIONS

P rinoiple

W e should now examine the educational organization proper of upper

1. Rates obtained by taking the average of those given in Unesco document ED/BIE/

2. Some countries offer a one-year course in preparation for a professional certificate. 32/Co&nted/Ref. 1./1969.

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TABLE 8. France: rates of repetition in the long upper secondary course (State education, 1968/69)

Long upper course Number of pupils Number repeating Percentage

Fifth form 219,534 24,549 11.2 Sixth form 180,684 14,195 7.9 Second year sixth 160,841 14,104 8.8 Rate of failure at the baccalaurkat 1 38.0

1. France: ‘Rapport de la Commission de I’education pour le VIe Plan’, Education. NO. 84, 1970,

Source. France, Central Statistical Department of the Ministry of Education p. 15.

secondary education in order to seek an explanation for the alarming numbers of differentiations shown in Table 8. The problem here is even more acute than at the lower stage. The pupil

has now three or four years of secondary education behind him. In systems based on successive selection by repetitions, drop-outs or changes of course, the pupil in upper secondary education who has survived three or four successive aptitude examinations ought to be ready for upper secondary work. Table 8 shows that this is not the case. The explanation for this state of affairs is that pupils in the upper stage

of any system have to face a new kind of work which is even more conceptual and abstract and whose links with concrete experience can now only be perceived in a few subjects like geography, life sciences, environmental studies, etc. Even these lose some of their first attraction1 as they become less descriptive and more explanatory, for the sake of generalization and abstraction.

The example of mathematics teaching

It is particularly the basic subjects, such as language studies, mathematics and science, which launch into abstractions. In mathematics, for example, the study of basic processes, derivatives, integrals, the rudiments of the theory of statistics and the theory of probabilities and in geometry, the study of vectors, the scalar products of vectors and the axiomatic method2 are of interest only at the level of conceptual analysis. The abruptness of the transition is felt everywhere to be an obstacle which must be overcome. In Mexico, experiments with the innovations which became necessary

showed that pupils in experimental groups were able to solve mechanical

1. Studying the way of life of a distant people is more interesting than studying their

2. Syllabus of the eighth and ninth classes in the USSR (International Yearbook of economic, financial or political problems.

Education, Unesco, 1968).

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problems even though this aspect of the work was not stressed in the teaching. The pupils’ continuous acquaintance with practical issues enabled them to solve 90 per cent of the conceptual-type problems. For the first time in the history of mathematics teaching in Mexico, pupils in the second class were able to understand elementary algebra, sets of numbers, and their respective operations and properties1 ’The developing countries are also very eagcr for reforms aiming at linking

studies with practical models in order to keep contact with the greatest possible number of pupils and at the same time at giving education an effectiveness which would put an end to the numerous failures about which complaints are heard at present. Liberia has adopted the principle of ability groups, giving mathematics teachers freedom to widen the curriculum and to add optional parts. The teachers have understood the need for as many practical experiments as possible before going on to abstract concepts. In Malawi, while 5 per cent of the schools still use traditional methods, ‘approximately 85 per ccnt of the schools employ methods which encourage a more practical approach, proceeding from the concrete to the abstract. . . to show the links between mathematics and everyday life’. At the same time, ‘5 per cent of the schools add to this method the methods of analytical geometry and elementary calculus for specially gifted pupils. The remaining 5 per cent of the schools at present cmploy . . . the mcthods considcred . . . to be the most advanced’.? The same remarks could be made about the efforts undertaken in several

other developing countries to modernize education. The Nordic Committee for the Modernization of Mathematics Teaching

seems to have opened new ground in its efforts to promote the advancemcnt of the vast bulk of pupils at the same time as that of the Clite. The committee is determined to put an end to the isolation of mathematics teaching and is seeking to foster a concrete approach in thc following ways: ‘Choice and use of concrete structural material; teaching aids suitable for individual learning; co-ordination between mathematics and other subjects; approach to logical concepts and problems; understanding the concepts of sets . . . and use of sets . . . testing pupils’ understanding and knowledge of mathematics.’ All thesc ideas and the associated equipment are being tricd out over a two-year period in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden, while at the same time, numerous trials are going on in the individualization of teaching and ‘in flexible sizes of classes and groups’.” A recent study carried out in Sweden ‘showed that it seemed possible to

give rather highly individualized instruction in mathematics without increasing the teacher‘s burden of work. The pupils’ workload can be reduced without

1. 2. 3.

Intcrnatiorial Yearbook of Education, Vol. XXX, 1968, op. cit., p. lvii-lviii. ibid., p. lv. ibid., p. Ixiii-lxiv.

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restricting their knowledge of mathematics in relation to traditional class instruction’.l When given this individual attention and provided the whole of the group

was promoted, ‘pupils’ achievements seemed to be at least as good when they worked alone as when they worked in class’.o One can perceive here the way in which modern education should move, for we are dealing with a subject which has the reputation of being the most difficult. The teaching would have the following characteristics: individualization, flexibility within the class by organizing groups according to ability, self-guided and self- corrected personal work (answer book); corresponding adaptation to the social and personal traits of each pupil; abolition of differentiation through repetition, expulsion or imposed change of course; and an arousing of the pupil’s interest.

The language of instruction

Teaching in developing countries is generally given in a language other than the national or regional languages, with the exception of most Arabic- speaking countries for certain scientific instruction. More than a quarter of the countries concerned are dissatisfied with the general lack of familiarity with the language of instruction and regret the absence of teachers specially trained to work among different ethnic groups. It is clear that this is a particularly grave obstacle for secondary-school pupils coming from deprived backgrounds and this difficulty is felt with particular acuteness in the ex- colonial countries.

Differentiated curricula

Entrance to higher education is very largely determined from the very first years of secondary education, by the way in which the curriculum is planned. When there are early differentiations, for example through the offer of

an early choice between parallel streams or between courses specializing 2n literature, mathematics, physics and biology, industrial technology or commerce, the pupil finds himself, according to the stream which he has chosen,

1. W e shall mention here the system of individualization by way of an example: ‘For grades 7, 8 and 9, courses are covered by nine modules, each occuping about one-third of a school year and composed of ten parts. All the pupils will study the A component. On the basis of the diagnostic test and experience of a pupil‘s previous achievements, the teacher furnishes the pupil with the B component suited to his ability. All the B components use roughly the same material. It is the form of instruction and the number of supplementary problems that vary. The same is true of the C component, etc.. . . The answer book contains complete solutions and comments on all the problems in the A, B and C components. The teacher must decide fairly frequently (nine or ten times per school year) what material is suited to his pupils’ ability’ (ibid., p. Ixii).

2. ibid., Ixvi.

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committed to follow a particular kind of secondary education which will take him almost automatically to a particular kind of higher education. To give pupils back some of their freedom of choice, ‘bridges’ are established during lower secondary education; unfortunately in practice they do not always live up to the ideals of justice which inspired their conception. Where specialization in the curricula emerges as late as possible, that is at the end of the lower stagc, it is obvious that, in principle, pupils have complete freedom of choice up to the age of 15. Some States, like Yugoslavia and Japan, have tried to defer specialization still longer, but Japan in particular seems to be uncertain at the moment about the wisdom of this step. The age of 15 seems to be the time when ability becomes apparent, subject, of course, to the social and psychological impediments which wc have already discussed. Generally speaking, the functional improvement of upper secondary edu-

cation appears both necessary and feasible. The answer seems to lie in the preference gradually being shown to education for the majority, with the beneficial results for everybody which this brings in style, methods, curricula and in the aims of upper secondary education in general. Neverthelcss, it should certainly not be thought that all measures have now been taken which make it possible to substitute a dynamic form of education concentrating on ability for a static form of education concentrating on knowledge. W e are still far from that goal. This in no way represcnts a ‘lowering of standards’ (the bogy always

referred to) but it does involve bringing more pupils to thc same level through very different curricula and methods. Faith must be placed in the future vis-A-vis the newcomers, for it is unlikely that, originally, adolescents of up to 15 or 16 with overcome their social family and personal handicaps. It seems disirable for education to set itself the task of eliminating these handicaps before passing judgement on them and setting them in a particular direction. It seems, then, that there will be a more general determination to make

the most difficult subjects more casy to study by all groups. Evidence from the Scandinavian countries shows that this does not lead to a lowering of standards but that it makes it possible, at the very least, to maintain standards and to count on much more Widespread success. This more widespread success does not depcnd on the spirit of the teaching

alone. It also raises the problem of curricula. It is only to be expected that, in general, more care should have been taken with their flexibility and differentiation in the new countries than in States with a long educational tradition. Although this is a fundamental point, we shall confine ourselves to adapting

to the upper stage what we said about curricula in the lower stage. It should no longer be considered enough to ask for the curricula to be lightened and to protest about their academic naturc. Any curriculum, by a kind of

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inescapable logic, tends to claim that everything must be included, on the grounds that all its sections are parts of what ‘it is vital to know’. Even if parts could be cut out, the curriculum still remains and, as a major source of unacceptable and impoverishing differentiations, drags the examination in its train. There are few examinations without a curriculum and few curricula without an examination. From this, as we have seen, springs the paradoxical institution of the ‘transfer examination’ from one class to the next or from the lower to the upper stage, as if the teachers thought that the judgements they had formed over a whole year needed to be confirmed by the work of a single day. Curricula, examinations and pass marks are the major causes of differentiation through the failures, drop-outs and repetitions they cause. What are the possible remedies? Rather than attempt the difficult task of lightening the curriculum,

which in any case would leave the problem intact, it might be possible, if the principle of a curriculum still has to be maintained for a while, no longer to think of it as unique and compulsory, but as differentiated and optional. A first, modest step would have been taken if at least a maximum and a minimum curriculum were prepared. Flexible organization could allow all pupils to work at the minimum curriculum, while the further parts could be left to the supervised research and personal work of the faster pupils. A second stage might be for the authorities to indicate to teachers merely

the desired end-targets at which they should aim in their classes. As the classes are arranged in one or two stages, the council of teachers of a particular stage could agree on the objectives of successive classes and on the way in which they could be reached. The teachers’ council would thus be in a position to assist young staff members, and auxiliary staff in particular, to gear their teaching to the common standard and to move forward according to its requirements. While moving forward in a common direction but letting each pupil work

at his own pace, teaching, very largely individualized or adapted to ‘ability groups’ could then be organized so that at the end of the school year all pupils had covered an adequate syllabus without having their horizon clouded by the compulsory curriculum from the very beginning of the year. The official curriculum restricts the freedom of both teachers and pupils

and often prevents staff from bringing into their teaching that topicality and concreteness which, as we have seen, may be for many young minds an almost indispensable support or point of reference. A simple ‘work directive’ suggested by the educational authorities for each subject and organized and distributed by the teachers’ council would afford the opportunity of making teaching more realistic, with two results: the first would be to facilitate the whole educational process and the second to add authenticity and interest from a psychological point of view. The idea of a curriculum certainly seems to belong to an out-of-date

conception of education. It implies that a certain large number of notions

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have to be acquired compulsorily and while this is true for some notions, it is far less true for the majority. It is true, for example, for those notions which are the starting-points for all mathematical or logical construction or which constitute the basic data on which the mind works. But a great number of ideas of all kinds in all fields turn each section of the curriculum into an occasion for loading the memory, whereas it ought to provide an opportunity for moulding the understanding. Since it has been long accepted and repeated that the benefits of education

are to be seen not so much in knowledge as in the slow blossoming of the mind, for which the acquisition of knowledge is more an exercise than an end in itself, it would seem that this aim could be achieved if education taught only the essentials-but taught them well-and if it exercised the pupil’s judgement and trained his mind on each subject. This aim, however, implies that the teacher is not continually harassed by a curriculum which has to be ‘run through’, to use a significant term. Finally, one should not underestimate the traumatic effect which the

initial encounter with a long curriculum, bristling with obviously unknown words and expressions, has on certain young minds. When thc ‘curriculum’ is frequently invoked as another test and the source of all demands, it often takes on a discouragingly unachievable character for individuals who are as fragile as they are conscientious. On the contrary, young people will find a clear motivation in work per-

formed with confidence and encouragement, with close and definitely attainable objectives. The psychological disadvantages of curricula are heightened when these

seek to be complete and are set out in detail, in precise paragraphs and items. These disadvantages are considerably lessencd when the curricula give only essential directives for school work, in the form of general themes. As it is unlikely that universities and parents are yet prepared for the

radical change which the disappearance of curricula would represent, it might, perhaps, be advisable to reduce the wording of the curriculum to a strict minimum, that is, to over-all themes. The freedom of teachers and pupils and the teachers’ efforts to adapt education to individual abilities would thereby gain a great deal. It may even appear that this bold reduction in curricula, both in letter and in spirit, is the pre-condition of the personalized attention which teachers must show to each of their pupils.

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VII. Differentiation in higher education Section 1

At the outset of a study of differentiations in higher education, it might be interesting to look at some figures. The ratio of students to the total population of a given country provides some rough and ready information, calling no doubt for some prior comment, but providing important information with which to begin.

GENERAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE RATIO OF STUDENTS TO THE TOTAL POPULATION

It would be absurd to base judgements on the statistics which follow (Table 9). They are simply evidence showing the extent of the ease or difficulty experienced by States in their educational activity. The enormous disparity in the percentages shows first of all that great efforts must be made by developing countries, and highlights the need for international assistance. There are also significant differences between countries with comparable economies. The statistics in Table 9 are of an over-all nature and can therefore be

taken only as indicating broad trends. They give approximate ratios obtained in the following way: Population. In most cases, the figures are taken from the national reports

(Statistical Yearbook, Unesco, 1968); in a few cases, where such figures are lacking, they have been extrapolated from figures in World Survey of Education (Vol. IV, Higher Education, Unesco, 1967).

Students. The numbers of students are taken from the tables in the 1968 Yearbook of Education which covers the years 1967-68. The probable numbers for 1969-70 were obtained by adding to the 1967-68 figure a number equal to twice the increase noted for that year. Students from technical institutes outside the university but on a level

with higher education are usually counted by States as part of the main student body.

The varying sizes of the population of different States introduce another element of approximation. Very few developing countries appear in the statistics, either because

higher education has only recently been established or because it is

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TABLE 9. Ratio of students to total population by country

States

Students

Per thousand inhabitants

(round figures)

Popiilation (in millions) Total. 1969170

(estimated)

Afghanis tan Albania Algeria Argentina Australia Austria Belgium Brazil Bulgaria Cameroon China, People’s Republic of

Colombia Costa Rica Cuba Czechoslovakia Denmark Egypt, Arab

Ethiopia France Federal Republic of

Ghana Greece Guatemala Guyana Hungary India Iran Iraq Israel Italy Ivory Coast Japan Jordan Khmer Republic Kuwait Laos Liberia Madagascar Malaysia Malta

Republik of

Germany

15.5 1 .8

I’ 23 11.6 7.5 9.5

8.5 5.5

82

750 17 I .6 8 I5 4.8

30.5 23 50

58 6.8 8.5 4.3 0.7 10.2 520 24 8 2.6 54 4.6

101 1.8 5.8 0.5 2.3 I .02 6.3

0.32 10

6,500 9,000 12,000 275,000 1 00,UGO 72,030 70,000 280,OGO 85,000 3,000

- 72,000 10,000 38,000 105,000 42,000

170,000 6,000

640,000

280,000 6,000 94,000 14,000 1,000 80,000

2,400,000 66,000 45,000 35,000 570,000 3,000

1,800,000 4,000

1 2,000 1,000 700

2,000 5,000 8,000 1,600

0.4 2 1 1.2 8 10 7.5 0.35

0.55 10

- 4.2 6.3 4.7 7 9

5.7 0.25 13

4.5 0.9

3.3 I .4 8 4.7 2.8 5.5 13 10.6 0.7 18 2.2 2 2 0.3 I 2 0.7 0.8 5

1 1

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Students

Per thousand inhabitants

(round figures)

Population (in millions) Total, 1969170 States

(estimated)

Mexico 43 235,000 5.3 Morocco 13 13,000 1

Net herlands 12.8 127,000 10 New Zealand 2.8 31,000 11 Norway 3.6 26,000 7

Poland 32 320,000 10 Romania 19.4 155,000 7.5 Sierra Leone 2.2 1,000 0.5

Nepal 10 16,000 1.6

Pakistan 100 29,000 2.9 Panama 4.4 14,000 3.2

Spain 33 200,000 6 Sudan 12.6 6,200 0.5 Sweden 7.9 140,000 17 Switzerland 5.8 40,000 6.5 Syrian Arab Republic 5.8 35,000 3.8 Thailand 31.5 40,000 1.3 Tunisia 4.7 10,Ooo 2.1 Turkey 32 100,000 3 U.S.S.R. 237 4,300,000 23 United States of America 195 7,500,000 4.1

Venezuela 7.6 75,000 10 Viet-Nam, Republic of 16.2 34,000 2.2 Yugoslavia 20.4 275,000 13.4 1. This figure includes university students, those in specialized university institutes and university

institutes of technology. In this way, a round figure of 620,000 is arrived at. Taking the students in public and private grandes icoles into account, the true figure can be said to be about 640,000 (quite a large number of these students are also enrolled as university students and should not be counted twice).

2. This figure (cf. International Yearbook of Education, Unesco, 1968, p. 492) includes both university students and extra-mural students attending evening classes, taking correspondence courses, etc.

3. This figure includes the students at universities proper and at university colleges, junior colleges and teacher-training colleges.

organized jointly among several States (e.g. Fondation de 1'Enseignement Supkrieur en Afrique Centrale (FESAC): France, People's Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Central African Republic, Chad). The appreciable differences brought out by this table call for several

explanations of a socio-economic or structural nature. Generally speaking, structures cannot easily be separated from social and economic considerations. There is a link between them in that the structure of the university system, historically speaking, matches the social and economic structure of any given country. Two remarks need, nevertheless, to be made in this connexion. On the one hand, the university sometimes does not follow social and

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economic progress or follows it only at a distance. Here can be seen the influence of what we shall call the effect of habit, which often ends up by masking from the authorities and academic staff how out of date the system is in which they are working. The reforms which finally become imperative are then planned within the framework of the existing system and amount to no more than internal changes. This effect of habit ought to be suspected and combated more often. It is obviously a conservative element, since it precludes any recourse to imaginative innovation which, in these days, is most necessary. To this, a second ‘effect’ can be added. The effect of inertia paralyses any

attempt at innovation by emphasizing the close links between the university and the social structure. The influence of the latter provides text and pretext for denouncing any change in the university itself as impossible or dangerous. Nevertheless, and this is perhaps the crux of these comments, the university

structure, both for itself and for the society which it serves, possesses a certain freedom and a degree of dynamism. Greater or lesser use can be made of these attributes, according to the intentions of the authorities. If little use is made of them, the tendency is to keep higher education in its original state and to close it in upon itself in order to resist the influence or appeals from outside which come to it precisely because it is the point where the student body and the adult world, the future and the present, meet. If on the other hand considerable use is made of this freedom and dynamism, the student body is responsive to the greatest possible degree and provides well-adapted and abundant strength and resources for the progress of society. Leaving deliberately out of account the financial and economic impedi-

ments peculiar to this or that national situation, a comparison of the percentage ratios of students to total population can suggest what efforts should be made. This is the foundation for planning, the need for which has become apparent to all countries, whatever their political systems. The very concept of a ‘development plan’ implies that, following the chain reaction of progress, the development proposed at any given moment will cause or call for new developments, not only in the university structure but in the social structure as well.

EXTERNAL A N D INTERNAL DIFFERENTIATIONS

The exceptional importance which States and public opinion attach to higher education is not due to the prestige of distinguished scholarship alone. Their interest also stems from the pre-eminent role which higher education plays in the dual and inseparable development of people and countries. Although functional and structural variations are already very marked, in highly industrialized countries, at the primary and secondary levels, higher education is more diversified still. It is shaped by three general doctrines and has very different structures according to which doctrine is followed. This

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gives each type of higher education a particular style and ‘atmosphere’. Our task here is simply to see what place the processes of internal or external differentiation hold in each case. An external differentiation is any differentiation imposed from outside

on higher education candidates or students, e.g. the high level of university fees, the shortcomings or the lack of a system of financial and material aid, and, in particular, entrance examinations or competitions. Discrimination (which may or may not be normal) between general higher

scientific education and technical higher education, each with its own aims, rewards and ways of study, is also of an external kind. Lastly, there are external and very fundamental differentiations of a financial or psychological nature which represent an obstacle to true equality of opportunity where either access or the chances of success are concerned. Internal differentiations, on the other hand, are those which stem from

the way the work is organized (amount of lectures, practical work, group work, etc.) the style of teaching, internal examination arrangements (traditional examinations or continuous assessment), sending down of students (after a certain number of failures, for example), as well as all the ways in which higher education deals with studies and accepts its students. These two kinds of differentiations either join forces, in which case the

university situation is aggravated and the door to democratization and social and economic effectiveness is shut, or else they act as checks upon each other. Just as an organism suffering from a certain anatomical or physiological deficiency calls on neighbouring or associated organs to carry out the necessary functions vicariously, we shall see that university systems with selective access have annexed compensatory extra-mural institutions to themselves which aim at reorienting a certain number of students rejected by the main system. Inversely, several systems with broad or complete access and with consequently little or no external differentiation are forced to apply internal differentiations, sometimes acceptable but sometimes not, no longer on entrance to the university but during the course itself. Such differentiations are unnecessary changes of course, massive examination failures, insufficient attention to student motivation and, lastly, excessive specialization, which is a major obstacle to flexibility in the choice of a career. Before describing the two broad categories of external and internal differ-

entiations, it would be wise to outline the background against which they may operate and with which they are intimately linked. After a brief summary of the three general concepts underlying university systems, we think that the reader will be ready to discern the fundamental choice implicit in the processes of differentiation which we shall be describing.

THE THREE CONCEPTS UNDERLYING HIGHER EDUCATION

We do not propose to examine whether this or that university system corre-

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sponds in fact, at the present time, to one or other of the concepts outlined below. The first one, however, at least has foundations in history. The other two, in spite of more and more far-reaching internal developments and reciprocal borrowings, share between them existing education systems.

Conservative and restrictive systems

Until the end of the Second World War, higher education was close to being regarded as a conveyor belt between the dominant social class and a body of young people comprised essentially of the offspring of representatives of this class. There were a few young people with other backgrounds who earned their place by their outstanding abilities or characters. There is little point in attacking this kind of system.

It is true that secondary and higher education in the nineteenth and at the beginning of the twentieth century admitted many worthy students, but these were sometimes in a minority compared with those whose family situation automatically destined them for higher education and who, by repeating courses time and again and by inducing an attitude of resignation in their examiners, quite frequently ended by obtaining the degrees necessary for the exercise for better or worse, of a liberal profession. This restrictive system has been undermined by a growing population and

by psychological and political evolution. It is far from having completely disappeared, however. Indeed, its development in certain cases has taken the form of functional variations rather than that of structural modifications. The historical momentum of the institution and certain more general factors of a political, social and economic nature have, in a certain number of countries, led to the perpetuation of the restrictive system. It is notable that in the case of several nations, the figures put forward by Bowles in 1964 still apply: ‘The annual entry to higher education represents not more than one-third-and in some countries as few as one-tenth-of the students of superior ability who start the admissions process with the intention of preparing for higher education. The other two-thirds of the group are eliminated by present methods of examination and selection.’l

Systems of planned selection

Total planning as a factor of the economy. In this case, access to higher education does not depend upon the student’s origin but on his final destina- tion, in other words on the needs of the economy. The number of students to be admitted to the various branches if fixed according to these needs. An Clite emerges, as under the previous system, but this time by way of competition. Social criteria assist in determining this Clite but the criteria are inverted: whereas under the first system they were based on a privileged

1. Bowles, op. cit., p. 30.

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Present problems in the demomcratization of secondary and higher education

social situation, in the second they are based on the student’s previous work in a factory or on a farm. This work gives the student a certain priority of access and also earns him a 15 per cent increase in his grant. An example of this is provided by the system to be found in the German

Democratic Republic: ‘Admission to institutions of higher education is con- trolled. The number of vacancies per branch of study is fixed in accordance with the economic development plan and distributed among the various institutions. Candidates are selected through aptitude tests but, in cases of equal merit, preference is given to applicants who have completed a vocational training course or served in the National People’s Army. The Abitur is a prerequisite for admission to institutions of higher education’l Another example is provided by the Soviet Union. Their ideas on the

subject are expressed in a chain of reasoning whose links, once the first is admitted, follow logically one from the other, and which may be summed up as follows: 1. There must be a close link between university planning and over-all

economic and social planning. 2. University planning is then part of over-all educational planning. It is

completely linked with extra-mural planning, which serves complementary and adaptation purposes.

3. The range of this planning reaches from higher education to secondary and primary education, which is shaped according to the successes of higher education.

4. A special body within the Ministry of Higher Education ensures that there is constant liaison between educational planners and the authorities responsible for the economy.

5. Lastly, just as economic plans (usually cast for five years) continue and develop, similarly, and a fortiori, educational plans should be drawn up for a long period, generally speaking for twenty years. As twenty-year planning does not fit into the normal forecasting framework, the U.S.S.R., taking into account the needs of university planning, has been led to formulate its chief economic options for a long time ahead. The corresponding broad guidelines for the universities have thus laid down the numbers of students and the respective sizes of the various institutions within the universities and extra-murally.

The students’ freedom of choice is thus doubly limited, first by restrictions on access to the university and next by limitations on the number of places in this or that branch. Supporters of educational systems geared to economic requirements reply,

on the first point, that the selection which takes place may be compensated for by considerable development of extra-mural facilities such as evening classes and correspondence courses. Their answer on the second point is that branch-

1. Unesco, World Survey of Education, Vol. IV, Higher Education, p. 530, Paris, 1967.

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by-branch adaptation to the needs of the economy guarantees full employment and thus gives students realistic freedom. It is also emphasized that students participate in this way in the effort of the nation, which is the guardian of effective liberty. In other words, selection is justified by the requirements of social life and by the guarantees offered by the social and economic rCgime.

It is interesting to note two corollaries to this kind of system. On the one hand, there is complete democratization of higher education, characterized, in particular, by the grant system for higher education (in the U.S.S.R., 85 per cent of students receive grants from the State). On the other hand, there is a widely developed prize system for undergraduates and post-graduates (Lenin Scholarships in the U.S.S.R.) which follows the same planned lines. This energetic type of planning obviously belongs to countries with an

authoritarian democratic government. Certain countries with liberal policies have a limited form of planning which may be seen as a half-way stage between all-embracing university planning according to general economic and political aims and the situation in those countries which refuse to have any university planning at all. It is certainly not an easy matter to reconcile even limited university planning with freedom of career choice and of study. It should be made quite clear that the idea of an ‘educational plan’ takes

on very different meanings according to national circumstances. Either it represents a plan drawn up according to aims external to education or it is merely internal planning relevant to the means of education. If the planning is geared to external aims, the first task is to take into account the objectives fixed by the government for the next five, ten, fifteen or twenty years concerning higher executives with this or that skill, engineers matching given definitions, middle-level personnel, higher or middle-grade technicians, mechanics, professional and specialized workers. The next task is to organize the number of entrants, the school and university structure, examinations and the numbers of those who leave, in such a way as to serve these objectives and attain them. It is obvious that planning of this sort implies, in the first place, a planned economy as a whole and we have seen that this was indeed the imperative of Soviet university planning for the years 1960 to 1980.

Partial planning according to the economy: selection and free access. By its very principles, a liberal political rCgime is far removed from either extreme. Planning may cover State activity and the actions of those who receive certain instructions as well as various forms of assistance from the State (degrees, grants, etc.). It makes an exception of ‘free enterprise’. But where the university is concerned, it comes up against the major obstacle of the students’ free choice of orientation. Certain staunch advocates of selection nevertheless put forward strong

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arguments here. They plead for selection principally on the grounds that student numbers must be adapted to the opportunities available and that the economic dangers of having too few students, and the social and political dangers of having too many must both be avoided. W e should like to quote in this connexion an authoritative opinion of a

selective character put forward by the French university rector and Member of Parliament, Jean Capelle. Education has two ‘basically interdependent aspects which, however, have to be taken separately in spite of tradition. The first concerns the student’s profession and his training for the highest positions in society. The second is disinterested and aims at the spread of culture. Education is arranged primarily for all those who ask it to help them to acquire the skill needed for the exercise of a high-level profession. . . . If education is to lead to the professional success hoped for, there must be suitable conditions, and the aptitude of students for this education must first of all be ensured. Although there should be some check on the admission of students to those departments which will confer a professional qualification on them, it is right to open the doors of the university wide to all those who wish to improve their culture. . . as soon as the promise of employment is not implicitly linked with their approach. . . . Selection is in no way contrary to democratization since [the socialist countries] are precisely those which operate rigorous selection for university admission. [Besides] selection has its place in a system of graduate allocation which makes it possible for everyone to find what will suit him. . . . If there is no correlation between the number of graduates and the number of jobs available, this leads to waste of money and anxiety on the part of young people’.l The author quotes in support of his point of view a passage from Professor

Prokofiev, Federal Minister of Higher Education in the U.S.S.R., who stated at Unesco in 1962: ‘Some colleagues in the capitalist countries wonder whether this system (of the numerus clausus) is not prejudicial to a man’s right to education. Let me ask another question by way of reply. Do you think it right that the university should train several thousand unwanted lawyers? Is it more democratic to say to a young man: “Choose another job”, rather than turn him into a useless member of society?’ Similarly, Capelle is afraid that should selection be abandoned, ‘the Uni-

versity might become’ for young people, particularly those from working- class backgrounds, ‘a gigantic dead-end and a fatal powder keg for society’.l Free choice of types of study would lead to enormous losses in three

respects: considerable waste of financial and scientific resources leading to a shortage of such resources for teaching the more capable students; failure of a large number of students before they reach the end of their course; lastly, considerable difficulties for graduates in finding employment to match their degrees, obliging them to take secondary employment or jobs which

1. Le Monde, 30 November 1969.

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have no connexion with their qualifications. Regulation of student numbers must, therefore, be introduced ‘at the end of compulsory education’,l in other words at the age when pupils complete the lower secondary stage. To this argument concerning the wastage of means and the loss of human

resources, the defenders of a free choice of study usually make a threefold reply: any premature selection (and it could be argued that any educational selection is premature) is indefensible from the personal, sociological and planning points of view. It is indefensible on the personal level because it is not possible to fix an

age at which it can be said that all abilities are definitively established, nor is it possible to find any incontrovertible means of identifying them. It is not possible to say what the relationship is between this presumed ability and a given type of study. Nor, finally, is it possible to identify those personality elements which, depending upon the individuals, will lead them to mobilize or neglect the ability which they have. In short, it would not be right to make a positive forecast about the future of children or young people using the still incomplete and evolving psychological information available at the age when selection takes place. From the sociological point of view, selection is not acceptable because

at the age or ages when it is made (on entrance into the first or second stages of secondary education or into higher education), the abilities and motivations of children and young people are still too closely bound up with their social background for a full appreciation to be made of all their future possibilities. Tn particular, children from working-class backgrounds bear, and frequently will bear even beyond secondary education, the weight of a considerable verbal deficiency. Now, when modern psychology is demonstrating that ‘thinking is speaking’, the verbal insufficiency of children from working-class or peasant backgrounds is a handicap to them which, in general, is not only verbal but verbo-conceptual also. When their intellectual activity is of a theoretical nature (as in secondary education) it can only be performed by way of language and is thus restricted. To make up a deficiency like this, six, seven or eight years of secondary education are not too much and, most frequently, are not sufficient. Consequently, selection at the end of compulsory education, or in other words around thc age of 15 or 16, would still encounter this masking of abilities. It would have great difficulty in discerning potential ability side by side with ability which was already manifest. O n the other hand, an extended education, the use of audio-visual methods and some acquaintance with culture will, in most cases, end up by setting this ability free, at least in its essence. Finally, on the subsidiary level of forecasting, it is maintained that in spite

of progress in forecasting methods, there is some degree of uncertainty which it would be dangerous to underestimate when the future of young people is

1. ibid.

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at stake, in determining needs for employment five years (in the primary and tertiary sectors) and in some cases at least ten years ahead (employment in the tertiary sector requiring a lengthy training, such as the professions of doctor, chemist, engineer or highly qualified teacher). In so far as selection would operate through compulsory measures, the

individual and social disquiet which it would provoke would be no less formidable than the present revolts occasioned by the lack of connexion between study and subsequent opportunity. These revolts have been the bitter fruit of an attitude of laissez-faire and indifference much more than of a policy of informed freedom. One is forced to attribute the revolts of the student world in large measure to this general lack of foresight. They would lose one of their driving forces if there were a freedom of choice matched in breadth by adequate information. On the contrary, these revolts would find other driving forces if some individuals, on reaching manhood, were to think that they had been turned aside from the main paths by a juvenile, premature, unfair and frustrating process of selection. In their eyes, such selection would have done nothing but consolidate, at an age when their defences were weakest, the personal handicaps resulting from their family background and social and economic level. W e must observe here that university organization in the socialist countries

cannot be put forward as a valid argument for selection. One can only compare similar situations. Political and economic systems as disparate as those of the liberal States and those of the socialist States can only lead public opinion and students to come to different conclusions. The future is not seen in the same way by both camps. Selection on one side does not have the same meaning as it does on the other and the praise of selection expressed by a Soviet minister in 1962 is chiefly valid in a Socialist context. As a remedy to the fading of ability at the various levels of education,

selection only matches what common sense would recommend. In an age of conjunctural and prospective studies and in the era of development plans, these commonplace ideas do not seem to provide sufficient opportunities. In particular, selection would certainly only cause the wastage it hopes to avoid to take place elsewhere. On the one hand, it would bring wastage forward to the end of lower secondary education where it would drive any amount of young ability, still rough-hewn and awkward, into random kinds of education for problematic rewards. On the other hand, it would make the wastage final. Although there is, in many countries, considerable differentiation at the higher education stage, particularly in certain of its branches, at least the students subject to it have received advanced education. Even if the specialized knowledge imparted by this education is not used, such training often makes it possible for individuals to turn the acquired general mental capacity in other directions and to apply elsewhere a working method and a way of tackling problems, even largely unknown ones. Here again we

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meet the notion that in general education at least, teaching is as important to the students in terms of training as it is in terms of learning facts. There remains the possibility of general planning without any intention

of selection but still deserving to be called selective, even if it is much less strict and rigid when adapted to liberal systems than in the university organization of the socialist countries. This is the trend which can be seen in the interesting attempts of certain Western European countries to reconcile planning with freedom. The French example seems significant. During their preparatory work on

the 1962-65 plan, the Planning Commission admitted that so short a period was unacceptable. Forecasts were sought for an optimum distribution of students in the year 1969-70. For the first time in France, educational and economic planning were linked together. The result indicated that the university population would rise from 215,000 students in 1961 to 500,000 in 1970, implying a growth rate of 23 per cent per annum instead of the usual 5 to 6 per cent. But we have seen that the number of French students in 1970 was of the order of 640,000, which is 30 per cent higher than the planned figure. In addition, the plan predicted that 40 per cent of students in 1970 would

opt for science subjects, whereas the actual rate was 19.1 per cent. Forty per cent of students were to study arts, law, administration and economics, whereas the actual rate was 55.1 per cent. O n the other hand, the 20 per cent figure forecast for medicine was reached exactly. The relative uncertainty of plans with fixed objectives seems to have led

certain prominent planners to concern themselves more with the planning of means. This is what Coombs, then director, International Institute for Educational Planning seems to be thinking when he limits himself to recom- mending a spirit of innovation and the means of encouraging innovation and to putting forward as priority aims the modernization of educational management, of teacher training and of the learning process, the strengthening of educational finance, an increased emphasis on out-of-school education, and lastly international co-0peration.l W e must repeat that this planning of means may be accompanied by a forecast of objectives, which may be confirmed by results. Although, for example, the French plan for the development of higher education between 1960 and 1970 was not entirely confirmed by the actual numbers recorded, the 1969-70 plan for the lower stage of secondary education was much more successful,2 no doubt because this was a shorter-term plan which had been able to take full account of the starting figures. A number of States, however, have abandoned the planning of objectives

and rates once and for all.

1. Coombs, The World Edzicatioiial Crisis, op. cit., p. 166-71. 2. See above, Chapter 111, p. 39-40.

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Completely open systems

In speaking of the complete accessibility of higher education, it should be noted at the outset that it is only after entry into higher education that such accessibility becomes complete. There is, in fact, a kind of quantitative balance between such divergent systems as the one found in the United States, for example, and those of the European socialist countries. In the first case, all pupils with a secondary school-leaving certificate may, at least in principle, be admitted to university education, but about 35 per cent of the possible candidates represented by pupils in secondary education drop out on the way, and 30 per cent who obtain their school-leaving certificate do not choose to continue into higher education. In the Soviet Union, selection works in the opposite sense. There is a small drop-out rate during secondary education (about 20 per cent) but selection rules out about 50 per cent of the remaining 80 per cent so that in the end, under both systems, the proportions in any given age group of those entering university are very similar (about 35 to 40 per cent).l If one looks for the corresponding percentages in Western Europe, one finds that in France 60 per cent of possible candidates (that is, the pupils entering the first form in any given year) do not reach the baccalaurLat seven years later, but that 96 per cent of the surviving 40 per cent, which is about 38 per cent of the original number, enter higher education in the broad sense of the term. In the Federal Republic of Germany, the percentage is higher (55 per cent acquire their Abitur, of which 95 per cent succeed in entering higher education in the broad sense of the term, which represents 52 per cent of the original number). In the United States, the general rule in the state (public) universities is

to accept any pupil who holds a certificate granted by an accredited secondary school within the state. One important feature is the liaison with secondary education: as soon as he enters university, the new student has a certain number of credits based on what he studied during secondary education and the standards applied by the school he attended. It should be noted that although the principle of direct admission is maintained, a number of colleges, here too, have had to introduce fairly strict selection procedures. These measures, which are always temporary and made necessary by the large numbers of students, do not in any way express an educational doctrine. The principle of total accessibility has obviously to be seen against the

practical aspects of student life which means, principally, the students'

1. One important fact should not be forgotten, namely the considerable develo'pment of evening universities and higher education by correspondence in the U.S.S.R.

2. The difference can be explained in particular by the existence in the Federal Republic of Germany of a large number of higher education establishments besides universities (e.g. technical institutes). In France, there are only 20,000 students at the university institutes of technology.

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financial and material situation. W e shall go into this question later, for it is most important from the point of view of differentiati0n.l W e shall confine ourselves here to noting that at another level, the existence of registration fees and academic fees is clearly an obstacle which, while a minor one, represents something more than a mere symbol or principle. Fortunately, the registration fee, which is around $300 in the public universities of the United States (from $1,000 to $1,500 or $1,800 in private universities) is offset by numerous public and private scholarships. These scholarships, however, which are granted to the most gifted students and principally to students of science and technology, exist more because of a desire for social efficiency than for the sakc of personal freedom. Lastly, scholarships which are a form of assistance whose beneficiaries render service in return by working as library or laboratory assistants or in the offices, cafeterias, student hostels, etc., are of practical benefit to many students. This system links up with the part-time (or, unfortunately, full-time) work which a large number of students, sometimes as many as 40 per cent, perform in all institutions. Leaving aside these interesting but subsidiary points, American higher

education is distinguished by two important features which are highly significant from the point of view of differentiation. The first is the considerable part played, as in the U.S.S.R., by extra-mural education. This will be described later.’ The second feature sets the American university at the opposite pole from the Soviet, and this is the basic doctrine of free admission. In their planning, the European socialist countries attribute a fundamental

value to the foreseeable needs of the economy, whereas American practice affirms the overriding interests of a general type of higher training. Higher education is then scen as a preparation for very varied kinds of employment, professional or other. Around 1966, the curricula of higher education were reshaped so as to prepare students for a wide variety of careers by giving them a basic education sufficiently broadly based to make it possible for them to adapt to change. The aim of higher education is to reveal ability, to shape it and inform it, and to seek for a link between technical education and human relationships. Following the same line of thought, employers are asking for a higher standard of general and specialized education, since they are persuaded that subsequent specialization gains much from a good general education. The supreme aim of American education is still to ‘provide the setting

and leadership for discovering new talent and increasing its development. . . help students enlarge their appreciation and skills in the arts and humanities . . . identify new social policies and new instruments of social policy. . . extend understanding of domestic and world problems’. With this intention, American universities recently (1 967) set about ‘redesigning their curriculum

1. See Chapter XI. 2. See Chapter X.

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patterns to provide interdisciplinary approaches . . . developing new imple- ments for evaluation of student progress’; in other words, they have started organizing institutions of higher education so that they can ‘provide improved programmes for more students’.l This outlook is dominated by two beliefs: the virtue of relatively undif-

ferentiated studies as a preparation to numerous professions and the total accessibility of higher education to all those holding a secondary school- leaving certificate, with a few local or temporary exceptions.

In the same spirit, a very simple scheme governs attendance at lectures and practical work, compulsory only during the first two years. A student can attend lectures during the four quarters of the year and thus get ahead with his work and gain up to a year. The system most widespread at the moment, however, because of the large numbers of students, is that of the ‘trimester’ which divides the year into three sixteen-week terms. This makes it possible for the establishment to work all the year round and to admit three intakes of students each year. The United States thus provides a good example of the way in which

certain liberal and technologically very advanced countries maintain free access to secondary and higher education while at the same time giving constant attention to the adaptation of education to needs and opportunities. The principle applied seems to be the following: to place technical and vocational education so close to the pupils or students receiving general education that they see in it either an invitation and a call from the start of their studies or else the possibility of a change of direction in midstream. In this field, ‘vocational educators maintain close working relationships with organized labour in determining the number of persons to be admitted for training in the various apprenticeships’.3 Nevertheless, there are in America three types of reactions to the gap still

existing between the education received and the careers offered by the economy or desired by individuals: 1. At the level of organizational theory, stress is laid on the importance of

technical and vocational education in secondary schools, so as to ensure ‘the preparation of a qualified labour force necessary for the country to grow economically and for individuals to gain the capacity to benefit from, participate in and adjust to ~hange’.~

2. At the level of practical organization, there are official institutions for ‘preparing persons for employment, upgrading employed persons and retraining workers in a wide variety of trade and industrial occupations.-‘

1. World Survey of Education, Vol. IV, Higher Education, p. 1353-4, Paris, Unesco,

2. International Yearbook of Education, Vol. XXX, 1968, op. cit., p. 537-8. 3. ibid., p. 537. 4. ibid., p. 540.

1967.

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In 1969, nearly 1.5 million youths and adults received training under these programmes.

3. In addition, however, ‘an astonishing network of “continuing education” programmes’ has been established. Thus there exist ‘in addition to the “formal” education system. . . at least three “informal” educational systems, largely hidden from view but extensively engaged in teaching many of the same things. One was run by private business, a second by the military establishment and the third embraced a motley assortment of educational activities sponsored by private voluntary organizations. Some giant industrial firms.. . were spending about as much on the high-level training of their employees and customers as the instructional budgets of some of the nation’s largest universities’.l

In educational systems based on adaptation to scientific and economic needs and hence based on selection, parallel educational bodies are more numerous and attended by many more students. W e have already mentioned the considerable development of correspondence courses and ‘evening universities’ in the U.S.S.R. W e shall say more about this in Chapter X which deals with lifelong and extra-mural education. However, the present extension of these organizations, both in the West

and in the East, seems to highlight the quantitative and qualitative shortcomings of school and university education, as well as the needs we have mentioned above. All in all, since many people will take up employment as adults which they were not able to train for or enter during their formative period, there appears to be considerable differentiation at school and university level.

1. Coornbs (who is here quoting Professor H. Clark of the University of Columbia), The World Educatiorial Crisis, op. cit., p. 139-40.

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VIII. Differentiation in higher education Section 2

STUDY OF EXTERNAL DIFFERENTIATIONS

External diflerentiations in the university: admission procedures

The restrictive approach, supposedly based on the notion of an Blite, was the only one to be found in Western countries up to the Second World War, because a balance existed between the number of candidates and the normal capacity of higher education institutions. Selection, which had taken place at the beginning, during and at the end of secondary education, matched the opportunities offered by the university through a kind of pre- established harmony. These opportunities also coincided with society’s needs for self-renewal. All that was occasionally needed was to make a few minor changes in order to maintain this balance from one decade to the next. An expanding population and the ‘education explosion’ led to a certain

degree of anxiety, added to shortage of staff, buildings and laboratories and a possible lowering of standards of ability and knowledge among those receiving their secondary school-leaving certificates. The consequence was the suggestion that entrance to higher education should be limited. Thus, in an indirect but unmistakable manner, the problem of admission

to secondary schools first arose. Habit as well as a certain fear that secondary and higher education would be submerged by weight of numbers kept admissions to secondary education at their traditional level at the outset, in spite of the pressure of a growing population. W e saw in Chapter 111 how slowly complete continuity was established between the primary and the secondary schools. At the present time, with the exception of the developing countries, the process, taken at world level, may be considered roughly at midpoint in its development. Although it is completely finished in countries which have merged lower secondary education into ‘eight years’ schooling’ (or nine years), it is still under way in several other countries. In France, for example, the process was not completely finished until 1971-72, when the last ‘terminal classes’ (where children used to stop at the end of lower secondary education) had been done away with and the lower secondary stage had become complete and independent. A certain number of countries, however, remain faithful to a break between primary and

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secondary education and retain a selective examination for entrance to secondary education. While acknowledging the various problems which might lead them to slow down democratization, certain of which, particularly the economic problems, it must be admitted, are formidable, we can only note that this first obstacle is a massive one. As we have seen, there is a second series of obstacles in the continuously selective structure which is then assigned to secondary education. W e must now briefly describe the third obstacle, which is that of admission to higher education. This is a threefold barrier which calls for knowledge and ability, family resources and, to some extent, a certain social level.

Selective admission systems. The scarcely questionable lowering of secondary school standards is provoking complaints in almost all countries. A large number of these countries have taken this as a justification establishing selective university entrance. However, the distance, which in any case is small, between the holder of the school certificate or baccaIaurCat of 1930 and his counterpart of 1950 or 1960 is not the only reason for the entrance examination or competition. Two other, more decisive factors have intervened, which are the pressure of a growing population and the general raising of the standard of ambition of families and young peop1e.l Several national reports2 show that ‘more rigorous selection’ or ‘a more careful examination of ability’ was introduced on this or that date. The motives for the selection examinations, their extent and their require-

ments vary according to university or gcncral policies. As an example of a country which adds a university entrance examination

to the secondary school-leaving examination one may quote Spain, where the bachillerato superior in arts or scicnce is insufficient without a pass in another examination (pruebas de nzadurez), which is taken at the close of a pre-university year. This extra year is also required for entrance to higher technical institutes. Those holding the technical school-leaving certificates (laboral) may be admitted to a faculty of sciences without having to do a preparatory year, but they have to take an examination similar to the pruebas de madurez. The additional examinations in Colombia are similar to those in Spain, to the extent that they vary from one faculty to another, but personality, aptitude and intelligence tests are also added. In Japan, access, which is limited in all universities, is dependent on a special examination and on a favourable report from the head of the secondary school. In

1. The raising of the level of ambition was the only factor involved until 1962. In Western Europe, it brought about annual increases in the number of students of the order of 5 per cent in Spain and 15 per cent in France, United Kingdom and Italy. The population factor made itself felt in addition from 1963-64 onwards, and the annual increase of pupils in secondary education since then has varied from 10 per cent to 20 per cent.

2. International Yearbook of Educatiori, Vol. XXX, 1968, op. cit.

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Mexico, the introduction of a university entrance test was designed to meet an increasingly urgent need and the National University instituted a rigorous examination in order to contain the flood of candidates. In Finland, where generally speaking the school-leaving certificate used to be enough, the swelling number of candidates has led to limitation by means of a complete examination. In France, pre-university examinations were held between 1956 and 1962. They failed for two reasons, the first being that they did not guarantee the quality of the students and the second that they stopped certain candidates before they reached the first year of higher education, particularly those suffering from the social and intellectual handicaps which we have described, and prevented them from developing long-masked ability. With this category of countries one may also associate Canada, which requires its candidates to have a general average mark of 60 in their secondary education. Other countries have introduced extra examinations restricted to certain

subjects. This is true of the Federal Republic of Germany for medicine and technological or agricultural studies, of Australia which now limits the number of students at five of its universities or requires passes at mini- m u m levels in the school-leaving certificate in subjects corresponding to the candidates’ proposed university studies, of Denmark for medicine and of Cuba which has introduced selection in certain subjects. Lastly, Sweden has had to limit admissions for medicine and science, not for protective reasons but because of a temporary shortage of professors and premises.

Admission systems dependent upon planning. European socialist countries. The selection systems in the European socialist countries need to be described separately since they serve a particular set of economic and political aims. They are defined in the Constitution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics which allows for the ‘extensive development of. . . education, based on close ties between the school, life and production activities’ and for the democratization of higher education with a view to the massive admission of workers and workers’ children. As early as 1918, decrees signed by Lenin stipulated that any citizen of 16 years or more might enter an institution of higher education. Two limitations were to be imposed on this complete accessibility, however. In the matter of admission, ‘the most deserving, capable and best-trained persons, not exceeding 35 years of age. . . who have proved their abilities in production, are selected from among candidates who have. . . passed the competitive examination’.l This competitive examination includes basic papers in the candidate’s native language and one foreign language and papers in one, two or three subjects

1. Report prepared by S. I. Zinoviev and communicated by the U.S.S.R. National Com- mission for Unesco, published in World Survey of Education, Vol. IV, Higher Educa- tion, p. 1133, 1136, 1138, Paris, Unesco, 1967.

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most closely related to the candidate’s intended field of study. Candidates are assessed under a four-mark system: excellent, good, satisfactory, inadequate. Where the choice of studies is concerned, the report states that ‘all

instruction at institutions of higher education is based on a close link between theory and practice. . . . Various kinds of instruction [have been] introduced based on a course of practical work before entering the institution and on the nature of the speciality being studied. . . . The experience of Soviet higher education, particularly between 1956 and 1960, has shown that the reinforcement of the ties between books and life, theory and practice, instruction and productive work, yields good results. The students’ efforts in production assist their training as they become acquainted with the life and work of the labouring community and study the production related to their speciality.’ The effectiveness of this link is shown ‘in a conscious and responsible

attitude towards the labour process, as a result of which many of [the students] achieve a high production index’.I The related and basic intention is to match the number of students in a

given subject with the needs of the corresponding employment. This is also the intention in the German Democratic Republic, where ‘the number of vacancies per branch of study is fixed in accordance with the economic development plan and distributed among the various institutions’.2 In this country, which applies the system completely, higher education students are chosen by means of aptitude tests. In cases of equal merit, vocational or military training is taken into consideration and preliminary practical experience is required for certain subjects such as agriculture, medicine and dentistry. One may ask whether these distinctions represent an acceptable or an

unacceptable differentiation. The European socialist countries affirm that the examination prevents wrong choices, that adaptation to available employment ensurcs that students are fully and correctly employed in the subjects which they have studied, that their motivations are strong and well-founded and that the economic needs of the nation are satisfied in an assured manner. It is obvious that an organization like that of the U.S.S.R., German Democratic Republic, Poland or Cuba (where selection has appeared necessary in certain cases and ‘is made on the basis of the country’s needs and the aptitudes of individual candidates’% presupposes that the students fully support the political system and are willing to serve it, taking its economic needs and their own requirements into account, because it represents equity and efficiency. If this condition is met by those in charge and accepted by

1. ibid., p. 1139. 2. ibid., p. 530. 3. ibid., p. 372.

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the students, it alone is capable of justifying the highly selective and directional nature of higher education and of justifying the differentiations found by basing them on merit and ability. To overcome the difficulty of entering higher education, the Soviet Union

has two other training systems of similar level. There are two very large parallel structures alongside the fifty universities whose task is, in a large measure, to lessen the &ects of the restricted admission to the universities pr0per.l They are made up of: first, about 900 other higher education institutes, generally comprehensive, but which may be designated according to their dominant subject (schools of engineering, agricultural colleges, teacher-training colleges, medical schools, colleges for economics, law, art and physical education); and second, of the ‘evening universities’ and the courses offered by correspondence. They have syllabuses which follow the same structure and style as those of day-education establishments. They also use the same textbooks, the important role of which should be noted in passing. The Minister of Higher Education sees to their content and plan and they are widely distributed to the public and to students by an ad hoc organization called Books by Post. Soviet higher education is undoubtedly based on selectivity, which means

differentiation. On the one hand, however, this differentiation is based on both the needs and the specific nature of socialist society and on the other hand, its effects are greatly lessened by extensive parallel organizations whose duty is to open the way to higher education and qualifications for all those who have not been able to enter university directly. It is clear, and all countries are moving or will soon move in this

direction, that progress here consists in reducing as far as possible this complementary or salvaging role of ‘lifelong education’. It is beneficial where school or university education has not been sufficient. It is complementary because such education has not been complete and this salvaging function of lifelong education will always be necessary. The other, more positive mission of lifelong education, however, is to assure the continuous accessibility to men and women of the contemporary knowledge, techniques and culture whose increasingly rapid progress should benefit the greatest possible number and to society as a whole.

The countries of Central Africa. In spite of their generally low level, the figures in Table 9 (pages 77 and 78) concerning the countries of Central Africa provide evidence of an already considerable effort. Higher education development programmes were drawn up as early as 1960 by Nigeria, in 1961 by thirty-nine African States taking part in the Addis Ababa Con- ference and at the end of 1962, in particular, by the Tananarive Conference

1. There were 3,000 places for 11,000 candidates at the Tbilisi State University in 1969 (reported in Universite‘ Syndicaliste (France), June 1970).

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TABLE 10. Rise in the number of students in higher education in Africa

Country 1967 1968 Country 1961 1968

5% % % G Cameroon 39 22 Liberia Zaire - 18 Mali Dahorncy 40 117 Niger Ethiopia 54 8 Sudan Ghana - 9 Togo Ivory Coast 17 __

16 51 39 48 - 14 8 17 16 28

attended by the delegations of thirty-two governments and by observers from thirteen countries concerned with African development. The extraordinary effort which Nigeria decided to make to implement its

twenty-year plan deserves to be mentioned here. The number of persons to receive post-secondary education bctween 1960 and 1970 was fixed at 80,000 and the annual number of graduates at 2,000 (as against 300 in 1960). The Nigerian Commission then recommended that the aim should be to admit 7,500 students to higher education in 1970 and 10,000 in 1980. This activity has been furthered in particular by the opening of three new universities. Whereas the Addis Ababa Conference devoted its attention mainly to

the development of secondary education, the Tananarive Conference proposed plans for higher education up to 1980. The aim as regards admissions (qualified to some extent by the intention to reduce foreign teaching staff to proportions similar to those found in industrialized countries) was to raise the number of students in Central Africa from 31,000 in 1961-62 to 274,000 in 1980. In other words, between 1961 and 1980, the student percentage of the age-group in question was to rise from 0.2 per cent to a little over 1.5 per cent. The material which we have to hand does not make it possible for us to say how far this aim has been achieved. However, the interest shown by African authorities in the vital role of higher education in the general development of their countries has not waned. National reports frequently mention that ‘university education remains the principle factor of economic and social development’.l The rise in the number of students has been remarkable, as Table 10 shows for the years 1967 and 1968.2

North Africa. Among the North African countries, whose level of development is closer to that of the industrialized countries, Algeria today has about 12,000 students, which represents an annual increase of the order

1. Zaire, formerly Congo (Democratic Republic of), 1968. 2. According to the Unesco Statistical Year Book, 1968.

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of 5 to 6 per cent, at least until 1968. This country has undertaken a complete reshaping of its higher education structures, which is obviously a long-term task. It demonstrates in this way that it intends to admit the greatest possible number of students with the least possible delay. Morocco was able to begin establishing national higher education at an earlier date. Since 1967-68, the government’s main &orb have been directed towards training the teaching staff and reshaping higher education to suit the country’s conditions and needs. This effort has made possible a considerable increase in the number of students in the national universities (36 per cent in 1968), which implies increased access both numerically and socially. Similar comments could be made about higher education in Tunisia, where the numerical increase was 15 per cent in 1968 and is continuing at a similar rate.

External differentiations in higher technical education

Higher technical education is either completely integrated with the university or, more generally, is completely distinct from it, or again is distinct but on an equal footing, being defined as of university standard. Italy gives the most complete example of integration, since Italian universities teach industrial chemistry, civil engineering, architecture or forestry in the same way as arts or the theoretical sciences. Degrees having the same academic standing are awarded in both the pure and applied sciences. The second solution, that of complete separation, is fairly rare. France

provides an example with its grandes e‘co1es.l These institutions which are entirely separate from the universities and, in certain respects, are their keen rivals, are organized in a completely different fashion (quite often they have boarding establishments or private students’ hostels) and provide a very large proportion of the high-level personnel of the country whether in technology or in the economic sphere. Since 1950, the &ole Nationale d’Administration, completely independent of the university, has even been providing high- level staff for ministries, embassies, the prefectoral administration, etc. The establishment of such an institution and the considerable influence which it has acquired in the conduct of political affairs reveals a persistent tendency on the part of French political authorities not to leave the training of higher State personnel to the university, with the sole exception of the training of teaching staff. Although one might make a few reservations, this variety of independent higher technical education can in no way be described as differentiation. The third arrangement makes a distinction between the universities and

higher technical institutions, but the latter form part of higher education

1. Nevertheless French universities have been developing higher national schools of engineering for about fifteen years, however (twenty-five schools in 1970 admitting about 30 tot 100 students per year). These are integrated into the universities.

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and are on an equal footing. This system secms to be the one most frequently adopted. As a very general rule, taking Australia as an example, higher technical institutions are so closely involved with the applied sciences that the problem of their relationship with the university does not arise. Students are admitted if they have passed their secondary school-leaving examination and often also after a further examination. They have opted for the technical university just like others have chosen the academic university. With rare exceptions, neither group has the opportunity of changing, nor is there any advantage in doing so, since the two branches are exactly and permanently para1lel.l The countries faithful to this system are aware of the need for another

form of technical training, lower in level but more specialized. They accept students for this before the secondary school-leaving examination. This is so in Australia, where the technical institutions accept students at the end of the twelfth year of studies (that is, about the age of 18 or 19) whereas the schools for technicians accept students at the end of their tenth year (that is, about the age of 16 or 17). The recent French cxperiment with university institutes of technology

(UIT) deserves particular attention because of the novel definition of these institutions. The UITs accept students after the secondary school-leaving test (or after an examination of a similar standard but with a more restricted syllabus). In spite of the word ‘university’ in their title, these institutes have no organizational relationship with university education.2 Although on leaving, 30 per cent of their students continue with higher education, this course is not encouraged and the authorities even think that this proportion is too high. In fact, the task of the UIT is to ‘train staff directly for technical employment in industry, applied research and the service industries’. The ambigious nature of the UITs, which recruit students with secondary or equivalent qualifications but do not make any training course available within higher education, makes it difficult for them to

1. Many countries could be quoted where higher technical education is of this type: Argentina has a national technological university which trains engineers (ingeniero de fabricacidti) after the ba,clzillemto. Belgium admits students to its higher technical institutions on the basis of the secondary school-leaving certificate or by way of an internal examination. Denmark admits candidates who have passed the studeritexamen to its university colleges and academies of technology, e.g. the Technical University of Denmark. In the Federal Republic of Germany, the technical universities have the same standing as the traditional universities. In their technical syllabus, they include advanced teaching in the exact and natural sciences and in the human sciences. In Finland, students are admitted on the strength of the marks which they obtain in their secondary school-leaving examination, and competition is keen. In the Byelorussian S.S.R. the institutes teach a restricted number of subjects and include long practical training periods. The Soviet Union has specialized higher institutes and polytechnics alongside its universities.

2. A third of the teachers in the UITs must belong to higher education and a third to the teaching staff of the technical secondary schools. The remainder are recruited from among individuals in outside employment.

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recruit students although they have exceptional financial, material and educational faci1ities.l The question of the title to be given to graduates from the UIT is a

significant one. It reveals once again the strategy of industrial leaders which is to keep students from these institutions in a lower position than the ‘executives’ by giving them the name of ‘higher technicians’. Those concerned claim that as the UITs are in principle part of higher education, they should be called ‘technical engineer’ or, which would be more reasonable, ‘assistant technical engineer’. This dispute about names highlights the way in which the candidates reject differentiations based on the general structures of employment rather than on the actual professional activities involved. The French authorities may perhaps be induced to review the problem.

If it were shown that the differentiation imposed lies at the root of the hesitations of young men and their families, an option would no doubt have to be introduced into the UITs making it possible to enter higher education at the end of the first faculty year. What interests us is to note that the differentiation is so strongly felt by possible students that it is one reason why they do not enter the UIT.2 At the higher education level, there will be few students taking up technical subjects unless they feel that they are not made the object of unfavourable discrimination as against those who go to university. A completely parallel structure, as in the Federal Republic of Germany, seems to be the condition for success and psychological and social equilibrium in a genuine technical university.

STUDY OF INTERNAL DIFFERENTIATIONS: TRADITIONAL A N D NEW-STYLE TEACHING

Traditional education thought that the truths which were taught would, as truths, have an equal impact on all well-disposed minds. The fact that social environment or personal characteristics could affect this impact in one way or another was discovered only about fifty years ago and has only become widely acknowledged in the last twenty years. The intellectual and emotional workings of this influence were discovered at a still more recent date.

Form of teaching

For a long time, the well-disposed were satisfied with the professorial lecture -it fulfilled their desire for equality. Provided that it was substantial and

1. The fifth French Plan allotted to the UITs 40 per cent of all the money available for building and equipment for higher education.

2. The fifth French Plan allowed for 165,000 students in the UITs in 1972. This figure was based on what had already been achieved in the Federal Republic of Germany and the United Kingdom. (We have already seen, however, that the German institutions have a standing similar to that of the universities.) In France, it was difficult to reach a figure of 20,000 UIT students in 1970.

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clear, the lecture would be of equal profit to all students. The challenge is recent and it does not seem to be unanimous either among students or in every country. The universities of the European socialist countries continue to see the professors’ lectures as one of the primary methods of teaching. The German Democratic Republic links it with seminars and laboratory work and in the Soviet Union not only are lectures given but attendance is compulsory. In France, as a result of the events of 1968, the lecture has been fairly generally abandoned. There seems to be a budding movement for establishing an organized system which would include summaries by the professors, briefer and, above all, well integrated into the general activity of the working groups. The isolated lecture, separated from the remainder of the teaching process, is condemned on three grounds: students five or six times more numerous can no longer all hear it; students less endowed culturally and linguistically can no longer understand it; and these ‘new’ students, not used to the academic style and to unconditioned respect for the spoken word, can no longer accept it. The lecture therefore only survives in a more flexible, less solemn and

more integrated form. The students accept this primary information within the new framework, provided that the form of the teaching recognizes their right to dialogue, to explanation and criticism. The lecture used to suffer from the distance between teacher and students and from its frequently artificial themes. Teachers sometimes made use of parts of their forth- coming books in their lectures or described some very special aspect of their own personal research. The traditional and sometimes solemn ‘atmosphere’ (the professor in some faculties wore cap and gown), seemed to give an archaic and remote flavour to university education. It is a good thing for a free approach and for what has been called ‘straightforward higher education’ that the university style should tend to become simpler, more open and more integrated with ordinary life.

Language

The establishment of working groups and the massive increase in the number of assistants makes it possible to consider the description given by B. Bourdieu and J. C. Passeron of the differentiating role of the ‘professorial style’ as relatively old-fashioned. Experience of secondary-school classes and observation of work in higher education does not confirm the idea that the professor can never ‘shed his ultimate protection: the professorial use of professorial language’. Language comes second in relation to the circumstances and the atmosphere in which it is spoken. It is part of a structure and when this structure becomes more flexible and frees itself from stiff formalism, language also becomes more flexible.

It thus seems highly desirable that teachers in higher education should recognize, in the various countries, the social and intellectual barrier which

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language represents. If care were taken to simplify the tone and the style of professorial language and to demonstrate continually to students the code of scientific language, a certain number of differentiations through failure or abandonment of studies would be prevented. For students from the people’s ranks, an over-diff erentiated form of language may prove an obstacle which makes them conscious of a discouraging difference of level.

Content

As ‘the reception level’ (Bourdieu) is thus assumed to be maintained, there is no longer any need to query the subject or the content of higher education. They cannot be other than difficult in the higher realms of learning. If reforms have to be carried out, they cannot, given the progress of science, be in the direction of simplification. Something else is called for. With the language barrier assumed to be overcome, one may hope that

education will keep away from excessive specialization for as long as possible. The medical student, after a first preparatory year of science, is rightly satisfied when he begins his medical training proper. The same applies to students who have chosen pharmacy, dentistry or the applied art. The reason is that their special subject in fact directly and effectively prepares them for a career. One might almost describe the process as one of general specialization. One could, on the other hand, consider as narrow and stifling literary studies which demand a high degree of specialization in some restricted field of linguistics or comparative grammar, or mathematical studies limited to making an inventory of this or that set of axioms while neglecting the rest. As a general rule, these exclusive specializations do not bring out the best motivations in students, even less so among those whose background has not predisposed them to such limited ideas of knowledge. When a student is preparing for a professional specialization, a constant

link should be maintained between it and a broad general education. The U.S.S.R. defines the objectives of its higher, university or parallel education in this way: ‘to train highly cultured and educated specialists capable of making a creative contribution to the well-being of Soviet society’, or ‘to teach the students modern science and technology, and the latest methods of scientific investigation and practical activity . . . to help the student to develop initiative and awareness’.l

Specialization or generalization

Nowadays the general requirements of science, and more especially the requirements of higher education, are thus sweeping piecemeal and specialized teaching to one side. It is significant that the specialists themselves are

1. World Survey of Education; Vol. IV, Higher Education, p. 1139, Paris, Unesco, 1967.

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now refusing to restrict the results of their research. They wish to link them with other results obtained in other disciplines or in other sectors of their own discipline. It is not, of course, the intention of these scientists, teachers or research workers, who are often all three at the same time, to build up a new philosophy of science. The scientific mind does not accomodate itself either to the methods or to the aims of such speculation. Scientists and professors are engaged rather in gathering together, linking and even syn- thetizing, first at subject level and then at a multidisciplinary level, results which are strictly scientific. Physicists and chemists have been collaborating for a long time. Physicists and biologists have been working jointly in biophysics for a somewhat lesser period, mathematicians and biologists have been co-operating in biomathematics, and psychologists and physiologists in physiological psychology, which is now included in the psychology course. The ‘regional’ outlook of science seems destined to widen still further until it includes certain aspects of a general scientific perspective and, beyond that, of a cultural one. The highest level of education, far from isolating itself in exclusive specialization, reaches its fulfiIment as a culture. This is the meaning which can be given, among others, to a recent statement by James E. Allen, Junior, Commissioner of Education in the United States: ‘What the future has in store for us is a renewal of the whole educational system of the United States. It is a new awareness of the universality of the human and social need for competence.’* A quotation like this shows that the most advanced nations are not satisfied with perpetuating their existing educational system. They arc thinking of its constant enlargement and renewal. In addition, there is a general trend towards the extension of knowledge until it reaches its full human significance. This new trend, so important for its own sake, is of great interest in the

fight against differentiation. The associated multidisciplinary doctrine will show us this first of all. This new doctrine is based on the bencficial results obtained from the

contact or convergence of different branches of knowledge. Its strongest foundation is the parallelism which it establishes between science and science teaching. It is appropriate to repeat here, howevcr, that the multidisciplinary doctrine hopes to satisfy the need for multiEormity which is characteristic of the modern mind, by making it possible to break out of excessively restricted frameworks which are intellectually sterile, devoid of interest to the personality and which have no counterpart in real life. When this modern requirement is ignored, the student has the impression of being forced to acquire knowledge which is fragmented, lifeless, unreal and almost without justification. By not acknowledging the unity of science, such an education could also fail to acknowledge the unity of the being. On the other hand, knowledge which is organized, ordered and as distant from

1. Quoted in Retwe de I‘Education Permanerite (Paris), June 1910.

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excessive specialization as from superficial generality comes up to the expectation of these young minds. They are sometimes said to be longing for the absolute. Rather are they looking for organization and synthesis. W e should not fail to note that this need is particularly acute among those who have not been prepared in their social and family background through conversation and reading. The intellectual penury of their initial situation is compensated for by a demand for fulfilment at the end of their studies. This is one of the basic motivations by which higher education can prevent them from sliding down, through lack of interest, to the level of the ‘drop-outs’. While the multidisciplinary concept is still feeling its way to an organiza-

tional foundation, it already seems relatively old-fashioned and inadequate to scientists. Nothing is more significant than the confrontation (at a colloquium organized by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Devel- opment (OECD)) of the appeals of scientists and the disenchantment of a university rector. On the one hand, Davril, Rector of the Academy of Nice, stated that although ‘a few attempts to broaden horizons have taken place (in Nice), they have ended in miserable failure which has in fact, brought about a return to the traditional system. Some professors fear that they will lose a part of their prestige and power; there is the fear of finance being more restricted than previously. . . . Even here, where we have a brand new university campus, we have not managed to do anything new.. . . What ought to be changed is the university personnel’s state of min8.l At the same time, as a counterbalance to this discouraging statement,

scientists described science’s new look and stated the new demands which science is making on higher education. An eminent mathematician, Andr6 Lichnerowicz, professor at the Collbge de France (Paris), showed that science is now tending to move beyond the stage of specialization: ‘A subject today is no longer a slow and careful accumulation of facts and small laws which bind them together. . . . It is a platform affording a privileged view- point over a large portion of the world and because of this, it often appears very imperialistic in relation to other competing subjects. Thus it was with the physics of yesterday, and today with biology. . . . ‘This imperialistic aspect manifested in one discipline does not harm the

others. It obliges them to receive, to welcome and graduate their points of view and to use concepts, methods and techniques which come from outside. The danger is that the over-imperialistic discipline may end up by changing its master-words and master-concepts into intellectual idols and thus run the danger of loosing its powers of renewal. If one takes science and its unity seriously, it assumes the semblance of a cloth which cannot be torn, the warp consisting of the results of analyses and privileged experiments by which we make sure of reality, whereas the weft originates in the theoretical, and hence the mathematical.

1. OECD Colloquium on Interdisciplinarity, Nice, September 1970 (press report).

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‘University education throughout the world is at present training too great a number of specialists in predetermined and hence artificially limited subjects, whereas a large proportion of social activity, just like the very development of science, requires men with both a wider field of vision and a greater focal depth for viewing new problems or progress which transcend historic disciplinary boundaries. These are the men we need to educate.’l A scientific psychologist, Jean Piaget, professor at the Faculty of Science

in Geneva, took up this same theme of the multidisciplinary concept again and clarified it: ‘To the extent that positivism limits the field of experimental science simply to an analysis of observable facts and thus to describing, measuring and relating phenomena, all one finishes up with is the discovery of a set of functional laws, some more general, others more specific. And as research into the causes and even the modes of existence which characterize the various substrata, of which the phenomena would be the expression, is ruled out, it goes without saying that one is driven to divide reality into a certain number of more or less water-tight territories or superimposed stages, corresponding to the clearly defined fields of the various scientific disciplines. . . . ‘The result is that any interdisciplinary research is excluded in advance,

since its very principle contradicts the idea of the “boundaries”, considered to be natural, which separate the various observable categories from each other. O n the other hand, modern theories based on electronic models of ionic valences or co-valences, show well how subjective more these boundaries, between chemistry and physics for example, and how vital becomes research into causal explanations €or scientific activity and for providing a source of interdisciplinary links. Interdisciplinarity thus ceases to be a luxury or a by-product and becomes the very condition of progress in research. . . .’2 At the same time, Piaget, the epistemologist, suggested a clarification of

the terms for designating interdisciplinary exchanges. This elaboration of ideas itself throws light on the general movement of science and consequently on the path which higher education should follow as soon as possible in order to avoid a paralysis which would soon prevent it from keeping pace with the rapid advance of knowledge. In fact, it is not multidisciplinarity or even pluridisciplinarity which should be considered. These words suggest that there is a main branch of knowledge which could be complemented by neighbouring disciplines (e.g. law could call on criminology, sociology, psychology, economics and statistics). These one-way borrowings, dcvoid of true exchange, are now nothing more than a ‘lower stage’. What should now be visualized is knowledge and education based on

interdisciplinarity, ‘a second level at which collaboration between various

1. ibid. 2. ibid.

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disciplines leads to a certain reciprocity in exchange such that there is total mutual enrichment’. W e should point out, lastly, that this second level ought itself to lead to

a veritable transdisciplinarity (as defined by Lichnerowicz), which can only be spoken of conditionally but which certainly seems to lie at the end of scientific evolution like ‘a dream, indeed, but one which can come true. . . . This stage would no longer be content with achieving interaction or reciprocity between specialized research. It would place these links within a total system with no fixed boundaries between disciplines’.l Having quoted these remarks and noted the direction in which science

may be heading, we shall simply observe that unidisciplinary higher education now seems to be part of a concept which is doubly outdated: outdated in comparison with science, and outdated also in comparison with what men of our time expect from higher education, for the sake both of their culture and for that of their practical activity. W e shall see that the fight against unacceptable differentiations ought to

find a powerful ally in interdisciplinarity, provided, of course, that it is put into practice sincerely and unambiguously.

Broad outlook or adaptation to the economy

Here the qualitative future of higher education reaches a cross-road. Although the definition of higher education given by scholars and professors tends towards a broadening of horizons, political authorities are not always led to define it in the same way. Although Swedish policy is different, political authorities elsewhere tend to suggest that higher education should adapt itself realistically to the outside world. In quite another context, we have seen that this is the policy of the European socialist countries, compensated by the influences of extra-mural and lifelong education. It is also the central or peripheral policy followed by several Western governments. Nevertheless a profound change is taking place in the direction of the more general concept whose broad outlines we have sketched, and of which we shall give some examples. Many observers consider that it is an irreversible trend.

American higher education. Although in American universities academic and vocational education overlap, the direction followed by American higher education is indeed as has just been described. The traditional idea of vocational training being an integral part of the American university already meant that the literary and scientific departments of the university had the responsibility of imparting a general, non-technical culture. Only at the end of this first stage did education take a scientific and technical turn clearly

1. OECD Colloquium on Interdisciplinarity, op. cit.

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geared to the future profession. As far back as 1963, an official document stated that the aim of American higher education was to transmit knowledge and culture, to prepare a more and more highly skilled labour force, to provide literary and artistic education, to open the mind to the new forms and the new instruments of social policy, and to fundamental research. The 1968 amendments, which were to break down the barriers placed around higher vocational education and bring teachers in the traditional system closer to those in the vocational system, were inspired by the same idea.

Swedish higher education. Sweden perhaps carries this educational principle to its highest stage of development. That country was the first to introduce multidisciplinary higher education. The courses followed are defined only by their framework. Within each framework a student has great liberty in grouping his subjects. The course leading to the first significant university degree is the kandidatexarnerz (a four-year course) in the faculties of letters and natural science. 'This course is extremely flexible and is characterized by complete freedom as regards the choice of subjects; students may take any two or more subjects. . . ." This policy, which is already well established, has developed still further in recent years: an arts course may be followed by a scientific or technical course, or a course in a faculty can be combined with practical training outside. It is noteworthy that the National Union of Swedish Students was the

spearhead of this university renewal, while at the same time it secured the establishment of a permanent system of State aid to students, the extent and effectiveness of which we shall examine later. It is likely that the union has recognized this general trend and the freedom it gives to students through the choice of subjects as an appreciable contribution to democratization and the elimination of certain differentiations.

It can scarcely be disputed that the marked specialization of higher education is a source of unacceptable differentiation. It consists, on the whole, in imposing interests which a certain number of students, for various reasons, particularly for social reasons, reject. Higher education in France took a step on the path to democratization when, for examplc, a degree and a department of modern literature were established which opened up opportunities for students who had been barred by their social origins from studying, or even having an inclination for, dead languages. Many failures in secondary education are due to the more or less conscious rejection by working-class students of subjects like Latin, for example, which seem to have no connexion, unless a negative one, with their background and ways of thought. A number of differentiations in higher education are also linked

1. World Survey of Educatiori, Vol. IV, Higher Educatiori, p. 1045, Paris, Unesco, 1967.

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with a social or personal lack of motivation or with counter-motivations. This can be avoided to an appreciable extend by allowing a degree of freedom in choosing the composition of one’s course of study. When choice of subjects goes hand in hand with liberal ideas about the pace of study and the examination system, democratization and the struggle against social differentiation are in an even better position. It is important to recognize that notions of compulsion and sanction, whatever provisions they contain, are in themselves causes of anguish or anxiety in numerous types of personalities. Compulsory examinations are not viewed in the same light by young people from varying social backgrounds. To some they appear as tests set by authorities with which their social background is on an equal footing and the psychological consequences which may accompany them are clearly banished by this fact. To others examinations may represent a requirement imposed by the ruling social class on candidates who have to ‘prove themselves’ and, in the last resort, win their ‘entrance’ and merit an advancement which is shown and recognized to be difficult.

Conclusion

If one notes that science is moving in a similar direction, it seems indeed that the function of the university is in the process of being redefined. University education would, first of all, be general and polyvalent, thus revealing ability and permitting informed and free choice of direction. At a second stage, in other words in the second year, the university would offer semi-specialization, although this would still be receptive to fields of knowledge close to or even far from the principal subject chosen. University work would thus follow broad outlines, e.g. literary knowledge and social sciences, pure and applied sciences, psychological, physiological and social sciences, etc. Students would find other options open to them, very widely defined and sometimes quite distant from the principal subject. An education of this kind, both general and yet already covering specialized groups of subjects, would allow genuine choice of direction and would offer an open education making changes of direction possible, or rather a flexible and polyvalent freedom of direction. Apart from applied scientific studies, a rigid type of study leading to a fixed kind of activity has had its day. The rapid progress of knowledge puts a premium on adaptability rather than on the rigours imposed by inward-looking knowledge.

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IX. Higher education: continuity or innovation

A broad debate has thus opened in the United States, the United Kingdom, Sweden and more timidly in France about the aims of education and particularly the aims of higher education.

It will not be long before the debate spreads through the whole university and political world and in considering the struggle against difierentiation, this debate must be followed with the greatest attention. The heart of the matter is whether education, including higher education, should be linked with employment or broadened in impact. One of the two choices could be formulated by quoting one of the two

objectives’ of the sixth French Plan: ‘To foster at all levels prcparation for active life which is the basis of economic development.’ The other notion is set out in the report submitted by OECD to the conference of ministers of education of member countries meeting in Paris in June 1970: ‘The rapid economic growth, technical progress and social change of the last thirty years have modified the individual’s relationships with society. They have swept away a great part of the national, social, professional, ideological and religious structures which were the individual’s framework. Student protest may be considered as one of the reactions brought about by this new situation. . . . The ability of individuals to play a constructive role will, more than in the past, depend on thc awareness of their own responsibilities and the spirit of understanding which education makes it possible to acquire, on a deeper knowledge and recognition of the choices open to society, and finally, on a certain “critical” view of society (meaning liberation from blind social forces). In other words, the social role of education will depend upon individualization, since social cohesion and the autonomy of the individual are inseparable. This new idea and socialization may have far-reaching repercussions on curricula and teaching methods.’2 There is a choice to be made, therefore, between these concepts and the

notion of education geared to imperative professional aims. This latter notion is based on the very true fact that under Western systems, present

1. The other objective, which a study on differentiation ought to quote, is expressed in the following way: ‘To make a marked contribution to the equalization of opportunity which is the basis of social democracy.’

2. Le Monde, 18 June 1970, p. 7.

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education and its diplomas often place workers on the labour market who are insufficiently or badly trained. The conclusion drawn is that education should be adapted to the requirements of employment and this conclusion defines the aims of education by the simplest of logic. The opposite view is critical, claiming that such an approach cuts itself off from the universal progress of knowledge and minds towards an over-all view of the world and of man’s work and that, put briefly, it lacks the imaginative force which will see tomorrow’s society through the man of today rather than the man of tomorrow through the society of yesterday.

THE N E W CONCEPT OF HIGHER EDUCATION

It is said, furthermore, that yesterday’s education did not, at its various levels, establish any sincere contact with pupils or students and did not win their critical support. Promising to teach and demanding that they should learn, it did not perhaps free personalities sufficiently from their social matrix and did not liberate minds from social and family burdens. On the contrary, students’ attachment to their work could be better obtained through group tasks, by a direct and multiple relationship, by frequent and simple contacts between students and teachers, by constant practise in language and expression, by careful training in mutual and self criticism and by constant and sincere receptiveness to life outside the school (the life of business, trade unions, assemblies and groups).

THE N E W AIM OF HIGHER EDUCATION

The movement towards university renewal, which is particularly lively in the United States, England and Sweden (where it has long been accepted), after dealing with the manner of teaching, touches on the very aim of education. The idea that preparation for employment can be organized directly like a kind of preliminary model which, from the outset, marks out a certain path to be followed from beginning to end, is thus held to be outdated. Medical studies provide an illustration of this point. The question is

whether these studies, which are obviously geared to subsequent employment, should ‘fit the professional mould’ straight away or only after a preliminary course of two to three years, more general and more open, covering biology and psychology, for example. Should selection take place on entry into the university or, in so far as there must be selection, should it be delayed for two or three years so that a conclusion may be reached about the abilities of the individuals concerned, not on the basis of what they knew yesterday but according to their success or failure today as seen in the course they have chosen?l 1. In the United States, where selection for entrance to the medical schools takes place

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What is here called immcdiate ‘medicalization’ is called elsewhere, and more generally, specialization from the outset. Modern students appear reluctant to accept this incorporation and prefer a broad and critical approach, which is said by its supporters to be part of the needs of our age. W e venture to introduce into the discussion, even if they are controversial,

the views of a French minister who has undertaken the initial reform of education in the universities. His energy brings life to the problem. ‘The clash of ideas is between the reformers and those who consider that the responsibility of thc university is to provide manpower for a certain number of definite employments. This is the “university/employment bureau” theory. ‘We must reject this theory for several reasons. First of all, it is technically

unsound: it is impossible to know exactly how many jobs will be vacant within a given time. In the second place, the creation of employment depends in large measure on the ability of the persons to be employed, so that a progressive system which produces more individuals having undergone higher education creates an incentive for economic progress itself. . . . W e reason falsely if we think that education should lead to appointments as civil servants, teachers or executives, whereas the most practical activities in industry or commerce can benefit from higher education. ‘There is nevertheless a philosophical background to this debate. Some

think that the university serves a particular economic structure at a given moment. Others think that the purpose of the university is to allow each one to make the best use of his ability and to become as cultured as possible, whatever the organization of society and however many jobs thcrc are available; for some economists demonstrate, and I think the demonstration is right, that the number of jobs can vary according to the number of people capable of occupying them.”

CONSEQUENCES WITH RESPECT TO DIFFERENTIATION

Since we are concerned here with the fight against unacceptable differentiations, we shall point in our turn to other ‘backgrounds’, the first of which is technological. It leads us to place emphasis on the considerable innovations now emerging in the very notion of professional ability. The machines of the nineteenth century and of the first quarter of the twentieth century were directly adapted to the purposes which man imposed upon them. They could not transcend these purposes and for new purposes new machines

at the beginning of the third year, in other words, the first year of the second part of medical studies, 50 per cent of the students are admitted. In France in 1970, only about 7,000 students were to pass from the second year of the first cycle (where there are at present 15,250 students) to the first year of the second cycle, which represents a fall in numbers of 54 per cent. The debate in France is over, a bill having been passed by Parliament in 1971.

1. Edgar Faure, Philosophie d‘une Riforme (speech before the French Parliament), p. 117-18, 120, Paris, Plon, 1969.

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had to be built. Present-day machines, on the contrary, can be used as they stand to answer new problems. They even encourage us to put new problems to them. In short, from being merely mechanical, they have become docile to man’s intelligence. The consequence is that general knowledge becomes a more and more important element of professional ability. The new technique of organizing work demands constant adjustment and ceaseless renewal of the conceptual field and hence a continuing adaptation of general knowledge and technical ability. External or personal ‘refresher courses’ are unceasingly necessary, not only to ensure this adaptation but to rebuild the integrated unity of the intelligence and the personality. It is obvious that, at the level of higher education, this broad outlook

and this impetus are such as to eliminate the discouragement which could be caused by an over-specialized education, far removed from living reality. It becomes easier to bridge the gap that lies between the kind of personality and intelligence which are the products of a deprived environment and this broad and welcoming education, able to answer the questions which the student asks or asks himself in his own language. The university ceases to be a fortress bristling with rigidly defined demands and offers itself as a prospect of advancement able, by its flexibility, to adapt itself to different types of minds and to various personal situations. Lastly, it would be profitable to recognize that there is a third background,

which is a social one. In so far as unacceptable university differentiation has its roots in the debilitating feeling experienced by a number of students that there exists a certain social differentiation, an education which offers incidental or general studies side by side with its main objective is likely to give favourable results. The danger that pupils and students from deprived backgrounds should give way to a feeling of resignation as soon as they meet their first difficulties will be removed when individuals no longer feel that culture and all that goes with it also varies according to social class. In this way, higher education’s endeavour to become more general would make it possible to break down several barriers between the various social strata and to lessen cultural fences. In this way, dserentiation would be deprived of one of its roots. W e should add that higher education of this kind would bring about a

certain social convergence and would change the atmosphere of education and of relations between students, thus leading to better social cohesion. In other words, it could act effectively on the very source of differentiations.

INITIAL A N D FINAL DIFFERENTIATIONS

To sum up, the aim would be to remove two unacceptable forms of differentiation. The first, which we have analysed at length, is the initial differentiation. It stems from the social background and from intimately associated personal factors. W e have shown how it can be reduced to a minimum. But

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another differentiation, at the close of the training process, could be formidable were higher education to confine students in such narrow channels that their education would be of no use to them in neighbouring or even distant fields. To take an example, it is obvious that in Europe at least, and in France in particular, the lack of balance between the number of psychology or sociology students and the employment available to them represents a fearful and potentially explosive problem. Would not a more polyvalent education, including, for example, economics, law and data-processing, off er equally polyvalent opportunities to these students? The benefit of this broader outlook would be seen not only in the number of opportunities available but also in education itself and in ways of looking towards the future life of society.

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X. Differentiation and extramural education

The importance of extramural education in several countries has already been emphasized. Most universities in the United States offer extra-mural courses, correspondence courses and evening classes for non-resident or part-time students. These courses, which are generally organized in places easily reached from all parts of the state, are intended either for those wishing to perfect and broaden their professional knowledge or simply for cultural improvement. They do not offer such an extensive choice as the universities but are organized both for young people wishing to make up for earlier failure at school and for adults seeking further education. Correspondence courses are intended for students unable to reach a

campus. These students receive work plans and exercises which, duly corrected, earn them a certain number of credits. This is obviously a beneficial antidote to differentiation. In this way, many of those who did not obtain a certificate at the end of their secondary education can enter for special examinations and a considerable number of mature self- taught men and women take advantage of this way of achieving higher education. The organization of the Liberal Arts Colleges is also noteworthy. They

give a general education to young people who have left secondary education without any certificate and take them in four years to the first university degree, that of bachelor. Some of them include vocational education of a similar standard. About 30 per cent of America’s 7 million students are to be found in these colleges, demonstrating the importance of an institution which fully meets the American doctrine of an open door and gives higher education to the greatest possible numbers.

In short, whereas the parallel universities in the socialist countries, where large numbers are denied entrance to the university proper, have the task of correcting these differentiations, there is free access to the universities in the United States. Nevertheless, all social classes do not have equal access in fact, since registration fees exist and the scholarship system is incomplete. Opportunities for catching up have also been thought desirable for the many who give up during their university career. Semi-university institutions thus aim both at giving a second chance to students who have left the university and at making certain forms of higher education available

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to adults wishing for personal and social advancement. In both cases, they are very effective. The example of the U.S.S.R. and Poland, where ‘Workers’ Schools’ train

51 per cent of skilled workers, 40 per cent of middle-grade technical personnel and 35 per cent of top-level personnel’ shows that these organizations are an integral part of the school and university system. It is interesting to note that their task is not only to give a fresh chance to young people who have been denied access to higher education, but also to offer workers continuing opportunities for adapting themselves to new knowledge and techniques. In addition, this further education conforms closely with the doctrine of the Soviet Union which is that ‘all instruction at institutions of higher education is based on a close link between theory and practice’. University higher education, ‘which must be preceded by a course of practical work relevant to the subject to be studied’, and extra-musal education thus follow, each in its own way, this doctrine, which is continually stressed. Extramural education seems to be the direct expression of this outlook. This is what appears from a quotation to which we have already referred: ‘The experience of Soviet higher education . . . has shown that the reinforcement of the ties between books and life, theory and practice, instruction and production work, yields good results. The students . . . become acquainted with the life and work of the labouring community . . . [they] develop a conscious and responsible attitude towards the Iabour process, as a result of which many of them achieve a high production index. At the same time, students who have acquired practical experience of work approach their studies with great awareness and achieve a deeper understanding of the subject matter.’ The organization of the very numerous correspondence courses has the

same aims. The study plans of the extra-mural evening courses and correspondence courses have the same structure and the same educational trend as those of the universities proper. The textbooks, the official role of which in Soviet education we have already mentioned, obviously play a very important part here. We must mention again the large Books by Post organization which distributes textbooks throughout the country. It should be noted particularly that businesses know about and take an

interest in the correspondence work of their staff, which is considered ‘as being of social importance’. This is proved, moreover, by the financial assistance granted to these workers, since students in the first or second year of a correspondence course are given an extra thirty days’ paid annual leave for laboratory work, tests and examinations. Students taking evening classes are granted an extra twenty days of paid leave and students in their final year are given forty days if they are studying by correspondence or

1. L‘Bducation Permanente, Paris, June 1970. 2. World Survey of Education, Vol. IV, Higher Education, p. 1139, Paris, Unesco, 1967.

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thirty days if they are attending evening classes. A further thirty days’ leave is granted to all candidates at the time of the State final examinations. T o prepare and defend their diploma project or thesis, these students are granted four months’ paid leave, and other fringe benefits are also available to them. W e should also point out that students who wish to transfer from evening or correspondence extra-mural education to full-time courses automatically receive a State grant.l

In Poland, the widespread ‘worker-student’ experiment has similar aims. It is intended for workers who have finished their secondary education, for higher education in Poland cannot be entered without a secondary school-leaving certificate.

There are large numbers taking adult education courses by television, the total for 1968/69 being 190,000 workers. Adult education plays an interesting role. One of the causes of failure among many pupils was that they had an insufficient grasp of the secondary-school curriculum. The efforts of the ‘TV Polytechnic’ thus had to be directed towards providing preparatory courses for candidates for higher education. In 1968/69, eighty broadcasts on mathematics and eighty on physics of a secondary-school standard demonstrated their immense importance for students in the provinces, to whom they gave both facts and a basis of comparison. Although the results are not yet completely known, and while in such a field one must expect results which are very often fragmentary (the survey showed that 15 per cent of the students followed all the televised lessons, 30 per cent all the lessons in one subject, and 50 per cent followed at the most only half the lessons), the result of all these efforts has been that workers’ education has become an extremely important factor both for the economy, since it provides about 40 per cent of the skilled workers, and for society, since it makes it possible for every citizen to develop his abilities. Furthermore, comparison of the first two lines of each part of Table 11 show the important part played by post-school and extra-mural education in Poland in comparison with normal education.

It is important to know whether the development of parallel education, chiefly for adults, should be considered as normal or as a palliative to a situation which must be remedied. In the first case, such education might seem to be a satisfactory way of checking unacceptable differentiations originating in the first years of life. In the second, it ought certainly to maintain its role but this would be a gradually diminishing one in comparison with that of the normal type of education.

W e must make it clear in the first place that parallel education for adults will remain necessary and welcome. There will always be individuals who, for a variety of reasons, personal, family or social, have been prevented from deriving the fullest benefit from normal schooling. Even if better social

‘.

1. op. cit., p. 1141-2.

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TABLE 11. Poland: number of students 1967168 and number of students awarded certificates 1966167

Primary Secondary Apprentice Technical Higher schools schools schools colleges education

Students enrolled and awarded certificates

Number of students 1967168 Ordinary schools 5,706,270 306,135 1 285,034 502,680 178,145 Workers’ schools 44,924 136,876 290,981 310,267 100,362 Percentage ratio 2 : 1 0.8 102 61.5 56.3

Number of students awarded certificates 1966167 Ordinary schools 369,498 83,171 103,162 95,475 18,989 Workers’ schools 23,775 23,183 82,656 57,257 11,472 Percentage ratio 2 : 1 28.8 80.0 59.5 60.7

1. Provisional figure, as a reform is under way. In a normal year, there are about 400.000 pupils. 2. Provisional figure, as a reform is under way. In a normal year, about 650,000 students are awarded

certificates.

organization were to make it possible to mitigate the effects of general handicaps there would be personal situations calling for these complementary opportunities. Nevertheless, even though adult education frequently makes it possible

for subjects to reach their desired goal, these late successes call for an exceptional amount of work which is difficult to sustain in spite of the facilities offered. It is not easy to hold down a job, to lead a family life and to study in the evenings, all at the same time. Even those who manage to do so through will-power or family and social encouragement sometimes, it seems, run the risk of feeling that their pride is overshadowed by resent- ment towards the society which has forced them to make such efforts. Finally, whenever there is a question of salvaging or correcting, this also

means a costly fresh start for society and the nation, not only in terms of money but also, for both pupils and their teachers, in terms of years spent unprofitably. It remains to be seen, in fact, how ordinary secondary and higher educa-

tion could make the development of parallel educational institutes less necessary, in other words, how it should be possible for the majority to make their first start the real start.

Nevertheless it should be borne in mind during this investigation that a combination of university and extra-mural education may be the result of a doctrinal and, in the best sense of the word, political choice which it is not for us to discuss here, and which, in any case, is not devoid of justification.

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XI. Lifelong education and the struggle against differ enti ation

W e have mentioned lifelong education several times as an institution designed to wage war a posteriori and on a broad scale against differentiation. The need for it is obvious; but by and large, it remains a generality, a need claimed or admitted to be obvious a priori. It is important to throw some light on this point and we shall attempt to set out the functions of lifelong education starting with the simplest day-to-day aspects and moving on to more complex and forward-looking considerations.

FUNCTIONS OF LIFELONG EDUCATION

Remedying educational defects

Men and women who have not been able to receive schooling corresponding to their true ability should be given the means of making good the deficiencies in the education they received as boys and girls. These deficiencies may exist for a variety of reasons, whether personal

(lack of application, inattention, etc.), social (obstacles to attendance at school, lack of resources, distance) or socio-psychological (lack of interest and of motivation for sociological reasons which have been mentioned many times in this study). A precise and detailed analysis of these reasons, which would obviously be of great interest, cannot be undertaken here. W e shall confine ourselves to stating the basic problem posed by this function of remedying deficiencies, which we shall encounter at every step here: is the aim simply to fill the gaps in what should have been learnt at school (for example, to remedy ignorance of arithmetic, algebra, the mother tongue or a foreign language) or is the aim, at the same time, to train the mind? It would seem that lifelong education could not fulfil its primary function if, while giving further instruction, it did not try to provide training at the same time, or in other words, as its name implies, a real education. To educate is to offer or to open up an intellectual structure. Here and here alone is the real benefit. To lay ready-made knowledge over a structural void means either that this knowledge will be rapidly forgotten, or else be treated as an artificial acquisition, even if it may seem technically useful. The differentiation to be fought lies in lack of organization in the mind

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rather than in lack of knowledge. A genuine increase in knowledge comes by way of a progressive organization of the understanding. The two are linked together and here again, perhaps more than ever, the principle is to inform in order to form. Any arrangement of which the results approximated self-education would be damaging. O n the other hand, any arrangement which started by putting the empirical and approximate knowledge previously acquired in its logical place and then suggested other knowledge following the same procedure of logical organization, would deserve the name of lifelong education. True adult education must be lifelong, not only in what it has to offer but in its results. It must therefore aim at stimulating the understanding more than at stimulating the memory, must lay stress on judgement even more than knowledge and concentrate on ability to learn well even more than on what is learnt. Such ambitions are not excessive even at the elementary level when a semi-skilled worker is about to be promoted to the ranks of the skilled. Organizing the understanding has stages too. It can go hand in hand with education and accompany it step by step. It must simply be kept constantly in view. Quite simply, the way to achieve this organization is through the constant

demonstration of the processes of analysis and synthesis. At the adult stage perhaps even more than at an earlier age, the nature and function of the workings of the understanding should be quite clear. Just as a child has not understood subtraction and multiplication until he has grasped their connexion with addition, so an adult has not understood a practical problem until he is able to apply the techniques of analysis and synthesis which he has just been using to a different problem. This is how additional knowledge becomes additional training and how the differentiations of early years are put right. Obviously, the extramural forms of higher education, studied in Chapter X, should be considered separately.

Further training

There is no need to repeat how necessary and how wide-ranging further training is at the present time. What is stated in the section above on remedying defects suggests that esorts would be incomplete if further training simply meant getting up to date or learning new things. The term ‘further training’ does not mean putting new knowledge or techniques side by side with the old ones, but going over the whole field of acquired knowledge once again and giving it a new cast, a new unity and a new span. Whether further training is academic or technical, there emerges the

following alternative: either the new knowledge or technique is simply a complement and must then be linked with existing knowledge and techniques or else it represents an essentially new contribution which must then lead to a general redistribution of knowledge. It will not provide academic or technical knowledge with an authentically new structure unless it embraces

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the new and the old in an enlarged entity. If technicians are being taught about the linear or the rotary motor, this teaching both recapitulates and incorporates their previous general knowledge of motors. If teachers are to learn about the new mathematics, this both recapitulates and incorporates traditional mathematics. By definition, further training does not mean leaving separate pockets of academic or technical knowledge which would soon cancel each other out, but introducing a renewed and articulated entity. If it is hoped that the remedying of deficiencies, or further training, will

be accepted by workers with a genuine motivation, they must be shown that it is not simply learning which is being put before them, but self-renewal.

Readaptation

Readaptation takes account of technological mobility, the disappearance of certain jobs and the emergence of new activities. It assists workers in acquiring skills adapted to the present state of industrial, commercial, or more broadly, intellectual techniques (data-processing is neither industrial nor commercial; it is a new intellectual discipline). Here again, the aim is to provide the mind with the structures which will accept the contributions of culture.

Broadening horizons and ofJering choice

Leaving on one side for the moment the problem of leisure time and dis- tractions, it may be said that there is an abundance of culture available to modern men and women. The mass media offer cultural material at all levels and of all kinds, but this abundance does not become wealth unless individuals are able to draw from it and to choose. They are not able to do this unless, from the outset, they are guided by a certain training and unless the contributions of culture are simultaneously integrated with this training in order to broaden and consolidate the choice of direction. W e can thus see how important and how necessary, indeed, is the contribution which lifelong education, as we have defined it, makes to lifelong culture. If an uneducated person with a completely unorganized mind sees an

historic episode, a significant film or a play on television, he will perceive nothing more than a succession of pictures without coherence, which he accepts simply as pictures, attractive as such. Where the struggle against differentiation is concerned, it is only by an

effort at organizing the understanding that a part of the mass media (that part which can be organized in a considered fashion) can be of service to true culture, meaning the training of the mind. In this respect lifelong education, even at this late date, is an important factor in the struggle against unacceptable differentiations. It is right to ask at this point whether lifelong education should be given

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any priority. By dint of repeating, without qualification, that knowledge is continually progressing, there is a danger of lessening the primordial and irreplaceable value of training the understanding and the personality in childhood and throughout early and late adolescence. Such an idea seems dangerous and false-dangerous, in fact, because it is false.

In principle, the task of lifelong education is to bring up to date, not to be a substitute. The notion of a rapid outdating of knowledge confuses informing with training. Classical mathematics are not obsolete but integrated; Euclidean geometry becomes one of the possible axions. Knowledge is never obsolete; it is incorporated in new knowledge. A fortiori, the training acquired through knowledge is a definitive benefit.

However inaccurate the instruction given by the Jesuits may have been, it gave Descartes a training the results of which can be clearly seen in the strictness of his method and the abundance of his mathematical discoveries. The basic mechanics of the mind are built up with most sureness when

the subject is young. It would therefore be wrong to let unthinking youngsters imagine that lifelong education will see them through in the end. This would mean adding a new, personal factor to the other, institutional factors of differentiation. Tf necessary, lifelong education will put right the deficiencies of early years, but its great task is to rely on childhood education in order to further the adaptability of adults to change.

EXTRAMURAL A N D LIFELONG EDUCATION

The information which we gave at the end of the previous chapter concerning extramural education in Poland was taken from a journal entitled L’Bducation Pernzaneizte (Lifelong Education). It is therefore not easy to draw a distinction between the two concepts. It is true that to give them different names is less important and less productive than what they actually are, but as language is to some extent the master of ideas and institutions, it will be useful to clarify these two ideas. The Polish ‘worker-student’ organization which we have described seems

to be part of extramural rather than of lifelong education. The situation would be more readily understood if educational organizations for young people and adults, which help them to learn what they did not learn at school, either because of the school itself or for personal reasons, could be called out-of-school and extramural respectively. Lifelong education would then embrace efforts to help adults revise, renew and refresh their original education while adding, as an essential element, a cultural contribution of a literary, artistic, scientific or informative nature. Repeating the prefix re- in the three words we have just used emphasizes that it is no longer a question of acquiring basic knowledge, whatever the level, but of updating it again, supplementing it of course with modern facts about science, literature or art.

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Extramural education in any case raises the same problem that lifelong education will raise in its turn. Let us simply state here that extramural education ought not to appear as the equivalent of higher education. In countries where extramural education is strongly developed, there is no similarity between even prolonged training periods as a student in industry before going to university and five or ten years’ work in a factory or on a farm before enrolling for evening classes, correspondence courses or part-time education.

It seems clear that priority should still be given to higher education received while the subject is young. W e have, in any case, already noted that in the long-term plan of the Soviet Union, where extramural education is the most highly developed, there is no competition between the two systems, since the development plan involves all types of higher education establishments. In this respect, we shall quote again the conclusions of S. I. Zinoviev and of the U.S.S.R. National Commission for Unesco: ‘The student enrolment must be considerably increased every year. Tens of millions of people will receive specialized education over the next twenty-year period and by 1980 it is planned to increase the number of students in higher education establishments to 8 million.’l In the United States, where extramural education is considerably devel-

oped, its practical function (preparation for teaching, business and agriculture) is clearly stated as well as its final goal: ‘Students studying at extension centres are usually adults who desire professional or technical training, or who are interested in broadening their cultural horizons.’ Extramural education is thus mainly intended for adults, whilst ‘ . . . the

people of the United States (are committed) to the concept of providing educational opportunity for every youth as far as his ambition and ability will take him’.2

1. World Survey of Education, Vol. IV, Higher Education, p. 1143, Paris, Unesw, 1967. 2. ibid., p. 1350, 1354.

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X I . The living conditions of students: aid systems and differentiation

W e have mentioned several times the difficulties involved in aid to students. Our task is now to give an over-all view of the problem restricted to its essentials, which will, perhaps, help to highlight its great importance. This problem is quite legitimately bound up in the various countries with their history and present situation, which obscure the general and, as such, fundamental issues.

THE IMPORTANCE OF THE PROBLEM

The importance of the problem is frequently stated: ‘Even when admission procedures are made completely democratic, the value of these measures may be offset if good students are prevented from accepting admission for financial reasons.’l On the other hand, there seems to be great uncertainty about the effectiveness of present aid systems as regards both the extent and the nature of their action. The report drawn up by the Economist Intelligence Unit2 does not seem to escape from these ambiguities. To take an example, when dealing with the effects of aid on the student body, the report states first of all that ‘aid on the present scale can, in general, have little effect on the size of the student body’3 but immediately afterwards says that in the United Kingdom, ‘the number of students in the universities would fall were aid to end-perhaps by as much as a q~arter’.~ Furthermore, while the report states that ‘in general . . . aid . . . has had very little effect on the number of students in higher education’, it is admitted that it has a ‘social effect’ which is ‘most obvious in countries like France, the United Kingdom, and the United States where a major proportion of a large student body are assisted under equalization programmes’. It is obvious, therefore, that if aid has a ‘social effect’, this attracts possible candidates to higher education. The quantitative inequality in aid systems is very considerable and striking.

In the U.S.S.R. or the United Kingdom, 85 per cent to 90 per cent of

1. World Survey of Education, Vol. IV, Higher Education, p. 82, Paris, Unesco, 1967. 2. Published in 1964 as an appendix to Access to Higher Education, Vol. I (by Frank

3. ibid., p. 201. Bowles), p. 179-209.

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students receive aid, as against 21 per cent in France, 7.5 per cent in Burma and 5 per cent in developing countries as a who1e.l This disparity generally reveals the economic situation of the country, but fairly numerous exceptions should be noted. W e have, in fact, just seen the considerable distance separating the United Kingdom (90 per cent) from France (21 per cent), which are countries with comparable economies.2 In other cases, the economic explanation takes second place before a policy of political conservation. In the case of developing countries, it is obviously a lack of resources which most frequently explains the low level of public assistance. It is clear that the leaders in those countries feel the almost tragic weight of the problem. Both their political aims and their understanding of the major role of higher education make them willing to provide democratic assistance to their students, but the low level of national resources forces them to impose restrictions. Wavering then between democracy and effectiveness, aid systems vacillate between large amounts granted to a few or small amounts granted to a greater number, between ‘free’ grants, in other words allotted without reference to the kind of course to be followed, or ‘tied’ grants, that is, grants tied to a particular type of study (medicine, engineering, agriculture) of particular use to the economy of a developing country. In spite of the gaps resulting from variants in the information received,

Table 12 illustrates the difference between the amount of aid and the variety of conditions under which it is granted and, in passing, provides information about the associated problem of the fees which students have to pay. W e have been able to provide information only about those situations which are most significant in one way or another. The following remarks will be accompanied by those few classifications

or distinctions which are necessary in order to have a clear view of the problem.

COMPLEMENTARY INFORMATION

Direct and indirect aid

Direct aid consists of grants or scholarships usually paid every term to the students themselves, most frequently by the State but quite often also by public or private bodies. Indirect aid is the name given to arrangements made by outside bodies

which facilitate student life. These are student hostels with low or moderate

1. The low over-all total of 5 per cent of grant-aided students in developing countries as a whole should not blind us to the considerable efforts made by some countries which give aid to all their student population, although the numbers involved are small, it is true (see Table 12).

2. This is the result of different policies. France gives a considerable amount of aid to children in secondary schools and somewhat less to students in higher education; the system in the United Kingdom works in the opposite direction.

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charges, university refectories where the prices are very much lower than the cost price, thanks to State subsides, exemption from or reduction of university fees, provision of books, various student-aid associations, paid work on the campus, etc.

Nature of grants

Viewing the whole field, we find that national economic situations lead to very different systems:

The ‘seed-bed’ schetne, which consists in giving aid only to students preparing for the teaching profession. It aims at considerable development of the training process within fixed time limits (three or five years).

The manpower sclzetne, which is most frequently found alongside the previous one. It may aim at the priority training of engineers, doctors, veterinary surgeons, etc., in developing countries at the level of higher education.

The following two systems are quite different and each may be applied on its own or in conjunction with the other.

The equalization scheme trics to give all potential candidates equal chances of entering, remaining and succeeding in higher education. The most frequent ultimate aim is that no gifted pupil should be denied access to higher education. Nevertheless we have noted in the course of this study that the notion of selection introduced to meet this aim tends to give way to the principle of open higher education, access to which is no longer linked to the standard of success achieved in secondary education. There does not seem to be any danger involved if a developing country

should add this third system progressively to the first two, or to either of them. A country in this category can obviously not remain at the stage of ‘seed-bed’ or manpower schemes. It begins to introduce an equalization scheme as soon as it is able, but it will still not be able to abandon the first two systems for quite a long while. Thc equalization scheme, however, tends to eliminate the first two, since tradc union and political influences attempt to obtain its extension as soon as the principle has been accepted.

The total subsidy scheme (study grant or pre-salary). It is important to note that when the equalization scheme is in wide use, as it is in the Soviet Union (nearly 85 per cent of the students receive grants), in the German Democratic Republic (90 per cent), in the United Kingdom (nearly 90 per cent), in Albania (85 per cent) and in Romania (70 per cent), it comes very close to the pre-salary scheme. This latter is clearly the scheme which is applied, in fact, in the numerous

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countries where all students receive grants. The significance of their use of the pre-salary scheme is obviously reduced by the fact that some of these countries have very few university students. It is clearly very significant, however, that countries like the United Kingdom (where an Act of 1961 allowed for grants to be automatically paid to all qualified students in the country) and the European socialist countries should apply this scheme, either tacitly or under the law.

Complete grant system based on choice of subject and merit. There are several special features in these last-mentioned countries, which characterize the complete grant system. The criteria for the awarding of a grant in the Soviet Union can be taken as an example, since, with minor differences, most socialist countries, including Cuba, follow similar rules. State grants are awarded to about 85 per cent of students according to four criteria: financial need, success at school, complexity of the subject and nature of the employment which the candidate is going to take up. Since higher education has close links with the professions, a 15 per cent supplement is granted to students who have already been in industry. In line with this position, prolonged practical experience prior to study is encouraged by special State grants. During the period covered by the grant, the element of merit appears in the form of a 25 per cent bonus awarded to students who obtain distinctions in their examinations. The most outstanding post-graduate students (aspiranti), who are all holders of grants, are awarded Lenin Scholarships. ‘The best of the students with distinction marks in the earlier stages are awarded scholarships named after outstanding public figures’.l Developing countries quite often apply economic criteria, even in highly

marked form. Thus in the People’s Republic of the Congo, the important fact is that grants made under bilateral or multilateral aid are not given to individuals but to the State, which then allots them to the various faculties in accordance with its economic plans, In this way, the policy of granting aid is integrated with development. Finally, it should be pointed out that those countries which apply the

system of automatic grants to all students are not thereby deprived of a certain say in the choice of studies. Thus in the United Kingdom, where higher education is quite narrowly defined, many non-university institutions are not ofIicially part of higher education. About 75 per cent of university students receive grants as against only 30 per cent of students in other institutions, which nevertheless recruit at similar standards. (This disparity has been reduced in recent years.) There is an opposite trend in France. Departments and institutions which

train higher technicians are given twice as many grants (43.5 per cent of their students) as are available to university students. The same situation

1. World Survey of Education, Vol. IV, Higher Education, p. 1142, Paris, Unesco, 1967.

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prevails for students at schools of engineering (40 per cent) and for those studying for entrance to the grandes &coles.

Methods and criteria for selecting students for grants

What has just been said may be summed up by noting that except under the British system of grants for all students, systems offering equalization of opportunity depend upon one or more variables: the financial situation of the individual in all cases: in certain countries wherc higher education is subject to planning the choice of subject with reference to the national economic interest; finally, the candidate’s merit and success. Financial criteria, even where levels of economic development are com-

parable, vary considerably from country to country. It is obvious that the criteria are four times as strict in a State which gives grants to only 20 per cent of its students as in another country with a similar economic level which gives grants to 90 per cent. The extent of aid may here be restricted by political considerations concerning the quantitative relationship between the number of students in secondary cducation and those in higher education. The danger is then of having a type of concealed selection based on purely financial considerations, which would represent the most serious kind of discrimination. O n the other hand the small volume of aid granted to students may be the result of the late introduction of the system. If for example it was introduced in 1945 or 1950, it had, five or ten years later, to meet a rapid increase in the number of university students. Faced with this development, even a massive increase in available finance could not make it possible to increase the percentage of students receiving grants. France, for example, gave grants to 25 per cent of its 210,000 students in 1960, while in 1970 it financed 7.1 per cent of its 640,000 students, budgetary difficulties being put forward as an explanation. Such difficulties are even more in evidence in the case of developing countries. Here we must empnasize the over-all magnitude of their efforts. Whereas 8.5 per cent of students in these countries as a whole were receiving assistance in 19.55, the rate rose to 10.5 per cent in 1960 and to nearly 14 per cent in 1968. (It is true, however, that if India is excluded, these percentages fall to 4, 4.3 and 7.) It is also useful to point out that through a seeming paradox the amount of the grants accorded by these States is often higher than in developed countries, the reason being that there are so few students that they must all be mobilized. Financial criteria are difficult to apply, as is the case at all levels of educa-

tion. This is often to be seem in the massive hierarchy of bodies responsible for giving grants. In France, for example, a departmental committee first gives its opinion, followed by two appeal boards, one regional and the other national. It is often difficult to estimate a family’s resources and the income of a professional man, a shopkeeper or a farmer can only be checked through

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his tax returns, which are themselves not very reliable. Even if the declaration of income is taken to be exact, the scales for the award of grants take very unequal note of the family’s membership and of the kind of studies which the student has chosen (although a certain number of extra points are sometimes allowed in the case of science, technology or agriculture). One of the arguments put forward by those who favour automatic grants to all students, although it is certainly a secondary argument, is based on these complications and sources of error or injustice. Another argument is based on the fact that where reduced numbers of

grands are awarded, their distribution does not correspond precisely with the factual resources of the various social categories and does not succeed in making up for variations in these resources, in spite of persistent efforts. France provides an example of a system where grants are restricted. In 1968/69, the following percentage distribution per 100 higher education grants was recorded: farmers: 11.2; industrial and business leaders: 9.6; liberal professions and senior employees: 6.3 ; middle-grade personnel: 12; white-collar workers: 12.2; industrial workers: 22.2; farm workers: 2.1; employees in service industries: 2.2; retired individuals: 8.5; miscellaneous: 13.7. It is obvious that scales for awards which, per 100 grants, give only 12

to children of white-collar workers, 22 to children of industrial workers but almost 16 to children of the owners of businesses and higher executives are not completely democratic, do not equalize poverty itself and perpetuate a regrettable social discrimination. This additional difficulty, together with the fundamental insufficiency of

the grants, could be an argument for the adoption of another system, even if it were to be less extensively applied. Here we can perhaps see the effect of a certain absence of basic policy, to be found quite commonly in the establishment of aid systems. The best distribution of even restricted funds is certainly not achieved by administrative routine, by day-to-day running changes made to an initially small-scale aid scheme or by a rough-and-ready transposition of methods applied to secondary education. Finally, mention should be made of the variety of administrative methods.

These, too, are influenced by the history of the country’s grants system and of its national higher education, being strict in highly centralized countries and operated on a regional or local basis elsewhere, giving more flexibility but also less certainty. The simple notion of giving grants to some and not to others, whatever

the age of those concerned, is not perhaps one of the best from a psychological and sociological point of view. W e shall see why, and we shall see what could be put in its place.

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The loans system

The loans system is most frequently seen as a minor complement to the grants system. It can be seen from Table 12, however, that in Japan and Norway it replaces the grants system completely or almost completely. Most students in Norway apply to the Students’ National Loan Bank and it is estimated that 66 per cent apply for financial assistance from the State. Practically all requests are met. The loans are interest-free for the duration of studies and repayments may be spread over fifteen years. About 15 per cent of students obtaining loans also receive a grant of the order of 1,000 kroner, which equals U.S.$140. In Japan, 20 per cent to 40 per cent of the students receive grants in the form of loans. These loans are pledged well in advance to poor but gifted pupils at the second stage of secondary education. The novel system used in the Netherlands may also be mentioned. The

maximum loan is of the order of 3,000 florins, of which a partial repayment of 1,200 florins only is demanded when a student has completed his studies. This, in fact, is a kind of grant awarded only to particularly deserving students. Students are not in favour of ‘loans of honour’, except in countries where they have been long established and where they are the only remedy against discrimination of an economic origin. Students reject the very principle much more than the resulting burden at the beginning of their careers. Tt is obvious to them, explicitly or implicitly, that society has a duty to give them the means to complete their education, which will both make it possible for them to develop their abilities to the full and, in the last analysis, to be of benefit to the nation.

INFLUENCE OF AID ON THE SIZE A N D COMPOSITION OF THE STUDENT BODY IN HIGHER EDUCATION

Our starting-point can be the analysis made in the Unesco international study, which is as straightforward as it is reliable ‘Rising levels of income . . . have made it possible for many more young people than previously to take full advantage of the educational facilities available. . . . The provision of grants has increased up to the point at which virtually all those gaining admission to a university, teacher-training college (or) college of advanced technology . . . are eligible for a grant covering fees and maintenance. . . . Secondary school leavers are thus able to present themselves as candidates for full-time higher education with little or no financial constraint.’l This quotation suggests two points. First of all, in many other countries,

candidates unfortunately have financial problems which are quite different from those met with in the United Kingdom. Secondly, the passage quoted

1. Iriterriatiorial Study of University Admission: Access to Higher Education, Vol. 11, Chapter XI, ‘United Kingdom (England and Wales)’, p. 534, Paris, Unesco and the International Association of Universities, 1965.

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makes it clear that it is referring to full-time education. When there are not enough grants to cover all needs, however, students have recourse to the precarious solution of part-time or full-time work. Sometimes, when the students are receiving social-security benefits in addition, the work they do is even illegal and remains undec1ared.l Out-of-school work introduces a variable which has a very clear differ-

entiating effect. The fact that some of this work is not done openly makes it hard to be precise, but depending on the country, 15 to 40 per cent of students do part-time and 5 to 15 per cent full-time work, night work in particular. This is clearly a formidable restraint and a cause of great differentiation in university life. It is likely that some students work for money although they would have enough from family or public sources if they were more careful as to how they spend it, but the considerable number of students who work under Western systems nevertheless provides evidence of the inadequacy of most aid systems and highlights the physical and intellectual handicaps that such inadequacy inflicts on a large section of the student population.

INFLUENCE OF AID ON THE STUDENTS’ MENTAL OUTLOOK

It is obvious that the need to work for money can only arouse feelings of protest and rejection in those obliged to do so, except in the case of exceptional characters who find difficulty a stimulus. It is interesting to examine, however briefly, the psychological effects of aid. Most adults frequently tend to compare present aid systems with the absence of aid from which they had to suffer and over which they triumphed. These reminiscences sometimes lead them to compare grant-aided students with themselves and to regret or condemn the students ‘lack of satisfaction’ or ‘lack of gratitude’ towards the social group or indeed adult society as a whole. When students in countries where aid is granted on a minimal scale point

to a comparable country where aid is available to all, they have an irrefutable argument. Or, at least, it can only be refuted by a transient argument or provisional justification based on the financial and economic situation of the country in question. But however well-founded these explanations might be, they have little effect on young minds which always see things in black and white. The result is that inadequate aid systems and the related need to work to earn money cannot be other than sources of hostility which, consciously or unconsciously, are transferred from the political to the university system and from this to university life itself. The day-to-day effort

1. Work which is an organized part of education, as in the East European socialist countries, obviously has nothing in common with out-of-school work done for purely financial reasons and having no connexion with the university, which we are discus- sing here. It has nothing in common either with the social work contributing to the country’s economic development which the 1959 commission proposed in India.

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then seems, at least subconsciously, as a task both imposed and impeded by the conditions of life. A reaction of this kind may seem excessive when one recalls the efforts,

which in their totality are considerable, made by the community to meet the massive increase in student numbers, itself a sign of how the opportunities for higher education have increased. For political authorities and for a large number of adults, inadequacies in the conditions of life of students within the country to begin with, and then between students of different nations, are only an indication of further steps to be taken along the road on which considerable progress has already bcen made. Students find such inequality a scandal and the generation which has the political and economic power in its hands ought to take this opinion into consideration. Experience has shown that demands or protests considered unacceptable or even inconceivable prior to certain serious student disturbances are subsequently admitted and answered. SO far as is possible, it would certainly be wise to provoke as few of these disturbances as possible.

THE STUDY-GRANT SOLUTION

The solution which it appears difficult not to adopt seems indeed to be the one now showing its merits in the United Kingdom, the East European countries, and to a lesser degree in other countries also (see Table 12). This is the system under which grants are given to all students, sometimes called the pre-salary scheme, or, better still, the study grant. The financial and moral difficulty of giving automatic grants to students

from rich or well-off families has, as we know, been circumvented by invoking the material and psychological independence of the students on grounds of age and maturity. In any case, the experience of several States has shown how difficult it

is to make grants while maintaining certain exceptions when the parents’ income is above a given level. Real economy seems to call for grants without restriction. There clearly remains the basic problem of how to verify both a student’s

integrity and his work. This ought to be possible without too much difficulty through flexible yet exacting bodies made up of administrators, academic staff and students. They would be assisted for each branch of study by having a well-defined average course which serve as a yardstick for measuring each student’s progress. This system seems much preferable to the setting up of ponderous machinery for checking students’ attendence at lectures and practical work. The objective criterion of success at examination, or continuous assessment, seems to give cast-iron guarantees of simplicity and objectivity. A tripartite body would, of course, be able to weigh up the reasons (health, difficulty at work, etc.) which certain stndents might put forward to explain some particular delay.

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It would be for the economists and politicians, rather than for us, to seek for ways of financing these study grants, the extension of which to the greatest possible number of countries is both highly desirable and, it must be repeated, quite feasible since certain countries already apply this system without difficulty. W e shall simply say that the example provided by the United States could be taken and systematized, at least as an intermediate solution. There, university finances are in large measure provided by private enterprise. One might also ask whether the notion of the ‘training levy’, to be found in a certain number of European countries, though frequently in a narrow form, might not be widened. It ought to be possible to generalize this compulsory levy, which is paid by firms to technical colleges of their choice. It would be based on the number of jobs available in all industrial, commercial or public enterprises, in other words in the public as well as the private sector. It would then amount to a considerable sum of money which, increased by a large State subsidy, would make it possible to introduce the study grant. It would surely be right for all businesses to play a direct part in the training of their skilled ranks. If it were thought that the financial burden was too great the grant could, as a temporary measure, be paid only to students above a certain age, 20 or 21 for example. Up till that age, it could be provisionally considered that the student’s maintenance was still the responsibility of the parents who would, in any case, be assisted by family allowances and supported, of course, by a scholarship system which would be continued until the qualifying age for a grant. It would not be unacceptable if a certain number of young students sought help from their parents in this way, when it was possible, while those parents were receiving financial assistance from the State for their children, were still legally responsible and, in spite of modern trends, still exercised a relative degree of moral authority over them. W e are well aware that the distance to be covered may seem considerable

or even out of reach to quite a large number of States. Paradoxically, the developing countries, which have made an exemplary effort by giving grants to all their students, will have to carry a further burden similar in scope to that of other nations, since their student populations will increase at about the same rate as the national income, whether this is one of the results or one of the factors of this increase. It is likely that the developed countries will progressively achieve what

some have already managed to do and it is to be hoped that governments will see that this is accomplished as soon as possible.

FULL PARTICIPATION AND PLANNING

The study-grant system has a considerable additional advantage, since it provides an opportunity for reorganizing university administration.

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As we have said above, grants should be made in a flexible yet exacting way and this could be done only by a tripartite body, W e should add here that students could with advantage be given a priority part to play within this body, in one way or another. Indeed, it is important to point out that the complaints often made about the behaviour of student representatives on joint bodies of students and administrators relate to the old order of things. When students have general feeling that they are confined in a university system where they only play a subordinate and accidental role they may be led to make excessive use of their restricted right to speak and make decisions in order to voice their protest in whatever ways are open to them. This gives rise to the complaints of disorderliness, laxity, demagogy or systematic opposition which are made, in somewhat old-fashioned terms, to student representatives in traditional systems. Nevertheless, as it must be more and more obvious that it is unacceptable

for adults or near-adults to have their affairs run from the outside by other adults with administrative power in their hands, it is urgent to seek ways of defining student ‘participation’ in such a manner that it acquires that relevancy which alone will forestall irresponsible reaction. Although student delegates under the traditionnal university organization have sometimes adopted frivolous attitudes or taken up a position of systematic verbal opposition, it is only by introducing real participation, that is to say entire participation, that full support and responsibility on their part can be hoped for. It is vital to observe, in addition, that effective democratization of higher

education can only come about by way of this general broadening of university administration. W e have shown that the modern conscience calls for free access to the

university and for free choice of studies. Here too, however, it must be a specific freedom. It will not be provided by concessions existing in principle, only, but by effective equality in aid systems, whatever a student’s social situation and whatever line of study he chooses. W e have attempted to show that, within a broad view of multidisciplinary

higher education, this complete liberalization ought not to cause disquiet to those anxious to see a certain final concordance between the education offered and the careers open. The notion of a predetermined adjustment of the number of students to the number of jobs now appears as an absolute oversimplification. It is by broadening both universities and the education they offer that a relationship will finally be achieved between what has been learned and the tasks to be accomplished, between the general education received and activities which are themselves in a state of continual evolution. It would thus be unacceptable, in a free system, for a majority block

in the administration to bring pressure to bear over the choice of studies, for example, by giving larger grants for certain subjects. Student participation must be protected from such indirect interventions due to excessive planning. For us, this is a new opportunity to repeat that although the planning of

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means is necessary, planning in accordance with external objectives is not possible in a liberal university system. It remains true, as we have observed several times in connexion with

other topics, that the problem of student aid is still dependent on a political choice which, by changing the data, also changes the conclusions.

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To sum up, democratization still has to be achieved. It will only be achieved through a whole series of financial, political, sociological and psychological measures. However complete financial measures for higher education might be in theory, they would only be partially effective if they were not merely one of a series of co-ordinated elements brought into play, beginning at the primary school, continuing through secondary education and finding their full realization in higher education. One last set of figures (from France) will show the extent and, in particular,

the diversity of the effort which is needed (Table 13). Thus from 1962 to 1966, the rate of objective probability of access to

higher education rose from 1.1 to 2.7 for farm workers, from 1.3 to 3.4 for workers and from 9 to 16.2 for white-collar workers. Nevertheless this praiseworthy progress lags a long way behind the new lcaps to be found in the rates applicable to more favoured categories: the rate for children of industrialists rose from 54.4 to 71.5, for the children of middle-grade personnel from 24.9 to 35.4 and for the children of professionals and higher executives from 38 to 58.7. Not only docs the lack of balance rcmain, but it has become worse.

TABLE 13. France : relationship between father’s social and employment category and accePs to higher education.

Objective probability of access Father’s social and to higher education professional category

1961/62 1965166 - Farm workers Formers Workers White-collar workers Owners (industry or commerce)

Middle-grade personnel Higher ranks and liberal professions

Of which, industrialists

- 1.1 2.7 3.4 8.0 1.3 3.4 9.0 16.2 13.9 23.2 54.4 71.5 24.9 35.4 38.0 58.7

Source. P. Bourdieu and J. C. Passeron, La Rcpuod~rction, p. 260, Paris, editions de Minuit, 1970.

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W e have shown that the origin of this unevenness and these differentiations is to be sought in the whole school and university system. Corrective action can be taken either on structures or functions and one is as important as the other. Within social systems which, in theory, are unchanged or change little, two broad fields of action are open to political and university authorities: 1. Action to modify school and university structures could have two aims

in view: to level out those structures so that they are no longer comparable to a kind of murderous steeplechase, to open them up to the greatest possible number of pupils or students and not to introduce until the last possible moment procedures designed no longer for exclusion, but for an explained and accepted diversification.

2. The structural reform would be accompanied by a functional reform, which in some respects has already begun under certain systems. This would consist of: freeing schools and universities, at least partially, from their anachronistic slavery to examinations; ensuring that pupils and students can lead a normal life from the material and personal point of view through a system of study grants, both extensive and exacting and free from any pressure concerning their choice of subjects; and finally, directing training towards a broad intellectual and educational outlook which, while abandoning excessive specialization, would give preference to multidisciplinary studies. These would meet the aspirations of young minds, would satisfy employers and be in line with the trends of modern knowledge towards convergence and synthesis. This multidisciplinary direction, which is in any case reconcilable with either of the two major university systems, would make it possible to offer freedom in the choice of studies and also for these studies to be adapted to employments the definitions of which are themselves evolving more and more.

In other words, it is more and more apparent that action of a psychological and functional nature is necessary. It would not be enough simply to measure the burden of social and personal handicaps but, through suitable training given to primary- and secondary-school teachers, to exert every effort to make up for these handicaps by providing continuous information to pupils and students, by discreet but constant psychological help and by unceasing endeavours in verbal and verbo-conceptual education-in short, by bringing pressure to bear from many points on the functional processes by which feelings of inferiority are engendered. Lastly, to indicate the spirit in which these innovations might be

approached, we cannot do better than again to quote a key passage from a report submitted by OECD to a conference of ministers of education of member countries in June 1970: ‘The ability of individuals to play a constructive role will, more than in the past, depend on the awareness of their own responsibilities and the spirit of understanding which education makes it possible to acquire, on a deeper knowledge and recognition of the

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choices open to society, and finally, on a certain “critical” view of society (meaning liberation from “blind” social forces). ‘In other words, the social role of education will depend on individual-

ization, since social cohesion and the autonomy of the individual are inseparable. This new idea and socialization may have far-reaching repercussions on curricula and teaching methods.” However as a close to our study, we must ask international and national

political and university authorities to open their eyes to the considerable differentiations which remain at the three levels, particularly at the level of higher education, and to realizc that this is evidence of an internal and external organization which is lagging behind the very rapid evolution of the modern world and the modern mind. Thus the progressive lessening of differentiations will be the way in which democratization is achieved and the yardstick by which it is measured. The system by which aid is granted to students has the value of a test. Although sincerely desired, democratization still has to be achieved in a

large number of systems. It is certain that States will pay heed to its various demands, which are far from being just administrative or material. None will be surprised that since democratization is a human problem and, indeed, one of the most decisive, other factors of the same order are at stake. It is these economic, sociological and psychological factors which we have attempted to place alongside the front-line administrative and material elements. Indeed, these lattcr problems, better known but not always better dealt with, are not of greater importance.

1. Le Mode, 18 June 1970, p. 7.

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Part Two 001s and the democratization of higher education

by J. A. Lauwerys, B. Holmes, A. B. Dryland

I. Introduction

Policies to expand education have gained support as a consequence of the Second World War. In countries where universal primary schooling already existed, pressure arose to expand opportunities at the second level of education. Where secondary education for all had been virtually achieved, the expansion of tertiary or third-level education became an issue of policy. In countries still lacking universal primary education a demand was voiced for the establishment of such a system. During the immediate post-war period arguments in favour of expansion and democratization were based upon principles of equality and justice, according to the argument that education is one of the fundamental human rights. The passage of time has seen the widespread acceptance of this view as

the basis of policy. To a vcry considerable extent most governments have accepted expansion as desirable. For the most part such policies have been associated with a stated desire to make education accessible to a wider spectrum of a given country’s population. The democratization of education has been central to the theme of post-war reform. The group of nations principally considered in this report is composed

of those in which universal primary education had been established prior to the Second World War (United States, U.S.S.R., Japan, France, United Kingdom, Netherlands); moreover, for the most part, children in these countries were going to neighbourhood or common primary schools for the first four or five years of their school life even before the war. There were, of course, exceptions; in addition, the age of starting school and the age at which the first level ends vary from one country to another. Some of these countries were already in the second stage of development in that their secondary schools, at least at the first stage, enrolled virtually all children. Consequently, this report is concerned with the factors involved in (a) the democratization of secondary-level schools and (b) the influence of policies at this level on the expansion and democratization of the third level of education. No country in which universal first-level education is now effectively

lacking has been included in this report for specific consideration. In developing countries such as these the availability of primary schools and the factors which influence access to them are extremely important deter-

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minants of what happens at the second level of education, let alone the third. Policy at the second level, under such circumstances, is a less decisive factor in reducing the proportion of young people qualified to enter universities and other institutions of higher learning than lack of provision at the first level. As more and more young children are enrolled in primary schools and stay on to complete the course, the problems of selection and organization in second-level schools will become more acute. It is difficult to predict when any given developing country will achieve universal primary education. Certainly, a commitment to education as a human right implies that the subject will continue to command a high priority in policy-making. Consequently, this report should be regarded as relevant to such countries in so far as it draws attention to some aspects of secondary-level policy which become important once universal primary schooling has been achieved. Those concerned with national policy formulation in such countries might

well, in their long-term planning, look closely at the evidence evoked in the countries mentioned in this report. Evidently, a structure of second- level education which now serves developing countries well by selecting young people in terms of manpower needs may not do so in the future. While the details of second-level development policy may not be crucial at the moment, they will become so in the not-too-distant future. Those aspects of policy discussed in the report would seem to be the most important of those to be considered as nations move from a position of universal primary education to one of secondary ‘education for all’.

SOCIO-ECONOMIC A N D POLITICAL CONDITIONS

Before describing in some detail those aspects of education which may influence access to higher education, it is perhaps necessary to note that educational policy cannot be formulated or implemented in a vacuum. Detailed policies are formulated within a pattern of political relations which vary in the light of the aspect of education under discussion. A careful comparative study of the processes of forming detailed policy

has not been attempted. Nevertheless, governments wishing to introduce expansionist practices would do well to pay attention to the possibilities of mobilizing political and professional support. As for implementing detailed policies, two sets of conditions are needed

for success. Economic conditions must facilitate rather than obstruct reform. In countries, (a) with limited resources or, (b) recovering economically or, (c) suffering from occasional economic setbacks, the steady implementing of a consistent pattern of educational policies has been impossible. Again, the whole pattern of social-welfare policies should be taken into account when assessing the effectiveness of educational expansion and democratization (though no attempt has been made in this survey to provide a comparative analysis of social policy). A third factor lies in the competence of admin-

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Secondary schools and the democratization of higher education

istrators and teachers to put the successful implementing of educational policy into practice. Teacher training enters into this question.

THE STRUCTURE OF THE SECONDARY LEVEL OF EDUCATION

Finally, and most decisively, demographic changes have restricted the achievement of accepted educational aims. The post-war baby boom meant that in the early fifties most countries had to accommodate a rapidly growing number of school-age children. By the late fifties the bulge had reached second-level schools; soon the pressure for accommodation was felt very strongly in higher education. Under these conditions, Frank Bowles and his collaborators prepared their careful study for Unesco and the International Association of Universities, Access to Higher Education, this study assessed the availability of places in higher education and the excess of applications in several countries. In Volume 11, national case studies showed how educational systems acted as agencics of selection, leaving in the various countries different proportions of the age cohort eligible to enter the final processes of gaining entrance to higher education. The proportions of the age cohort entering universities and other institutions vary from one country to another. The Bowles analysis reflected a hypothesis which had been held by re-

formers in Europe for many years, namely that the structure of second- level education was closely correlated with numbers in higher education. The report, drawing evidence from countries where all children effectively complete the first level of education, surveyed those factors within the second level of education which reduce possibilities of entering higher education. It identified three major types of sccond-level school organization. The assumption was that as the structure changes from a multi-partite form to a unified or comprehensive-school type, access to higher education is facilitated. The three basic forms of organization for second-stage education identi-

fied by Bowles are as follows:

Structure A, which contains three parallel lines of students, non- interchangeable from the age of 12. One line of students are prepared for university education; a second receive a general education followed by teacher training deqigned to produce primary school teachers and a third are provided with vocational and technical education of a practical type.

Structure B is a simplified version of structure A. ‘It maintains the single line of student direction in general education as the only method of access to universities, but in a second line also provides a common programme of general education as the first cycle of secondary education for the other students. At the end of the first cycle, pupils who pass a selective examination may either continue in a teacher training or technical programme . . . or leave school entirely.’

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Structure C. ‘In this form of organization all primary graduates may enter secondary school without examination. . . . Teacher training tends to disappear as a programme within secondary education. . . . Technical education, branching off from general secondary, is often part of the programme within a comprehensive school and includes certain of the core subjects which also appear in general secondary. General secondary, in turn, is presented as a fairly broad programme which permits the students a good deal of freedom of choice. In such systems, the formal school-leaving examination has tended to disappear. Its place as a requirement for university entrance has been taken by university entrance examinations. ‘In this type of organization the school-leaving age is usually 15 or

older and students generally remain until the end of secondary school, although there is a sizeable loss at about the age of 15. In 1950 seven countries followed this pattern.’

In 1950, a change (which may be designated a democratization process) towards a structure C configuration is increasingly identifiable in those developed countries previously classifiable as A or B. Of the six countries now under consideration, France and the Netherlands have until recently been classifiable as structure A systems and the United Kingdom as structure B. Changes towards structure C (in which Japan, the United States and the U.S.S.R. may be included) have occurred but are not complete. It is particularly important now to consider the internal organization of

unified schools (type C according to Bowles). There are broadly three forms of unified school. One, type I, enrols children at the point of entry and keeps them in the same school for eight, nine or ten years, e.g. U.S.S.R. and Sweden. In type I1 children are transferred from the first-level (or primary) school and continue in the same school up to the compulsory attendance age; a minority remain in this kind of comprehensive school for eight or nine years. Examples are found in England and Wales and France. The third possibility is type 111 where there is an identifiable middle school into which pupils enter without tests and from which they can go on to the second stage of the second level of education without talking examinations. Such systems include those of Japan and the United States of America. As more systems of education begin to show similarities, the Bowles

typology, devised as a result of a survey of a large number of markedly different systems, becomes less useful because of its relative imprecision. More recent analyses have suggested that other aspects of the organization of the second level of education need to be studied. The ritualization of authority within a school may influence democratization. Moreover, the ways in which knowledge is organized, and the grouping of pupils within a school on the basis of ability to perform well in one or other combination of subjects, have their influence. Such ability is frequently tested by examinations which enable pupils in unified schools to be placed into groups whose pupils possess somewhat similar ability. Such devices within a school

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determine the size of the group passing through the system to the point of entry into higher education. Indeed, they may affect the democratization of higher education almost as much as differentiation by school type.

INTERNAL FACTORS A N D SUPPLEMENTARY AGENCIES

Therefore, an examination of the key factors which aid or obstruct the democratization process becomes necessary. In this report they are categorized as follows.

Internal factors (Chapters II to VI). The transformation of A and B structures is closely connected with the raising of the school-leaving age which has occurred through a spontaneous increase in school attendance by the relevant age group as well as through government action. However, as more students with more varied abilities remain to be educated problems concerning the internal organization of schools become acute. Methods previously employed to isolate intellectually able students (selection practices), to estimate progress (academic tests) and to prepare new teachers (teacher education) should be investigated and revised before democratization can proceed. *

Srippleinentary agencies (Chapters VIZ to IX). Selective secondary education of the structure A and B type with a low school-leaving age has the effect of ridding the teaching staff of educationally and socially deprived pupils who can transfer their problems to the labour markct at an early stage. The move towards structure C, in establishing the principle of education for all, with a rising school-leaving age, involves not only the maximization of opportunities within the schools of the second stage, but also the provision of evening and correspondence courses on a scale large enough to meet the requirements of people who may wish to continue or resume their studies after leaving school. So that the best use may be made of all the facilities available by as many students as possible, the new structure should be supported by systems of social aid and educational counselling, including vocational guidance, at both levels.

1. The report is based on the assumption that sooner or later in most countries there will be a move towards some form of unified second-stage school (at least at the first level and probably at the second).

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11. General considerations

The progress of secondary educational systems of the structure A and B types toward the C type is depicted by Bowles in terms of the abolition of selective entrance examinations at the beginning of the secondary stage and by the provision of a broad general programme. The theoretical identification of these structural changes, however, may mask the continuation of selection practices including multilateralism, specialization, streaming and academic tests which are inimical to the democratization process. Since the implementation of the changes referred to by Bowles occurs gradually from the beginning of the first level of the second stage, it is likely that the demands of the second level and of higher education will continue for some years to distort the new structure. The predilection of many established teachers for traditional methods and content will also prove to be a factor delaying the progress of the change. Of the six countries under consideration, Japan has been classifiable as

structure C since the late 1940s, and the United States and the U.S.S.R. for longer still. In France and the Netherlands (structure A types), and the United Kingdom (structure B), changes towards a structure C configuration have taken place, but they are far from complete.

MULTILATERALISM

Multipartitism is fundamental to the organization of second-stage schools of the structure A and B type. The practice commences as a result of the entrance examinations at the beginning 01 the first level. Pupils are included or excluded from tracks leading to higher education on the basis of already proven abilities. Although transfer between the tracks is theoretically possible, the difficulties of the academic courses make transfer to them unusual. The continuation of multipartitism as multilateralism in the common school has attractions from the point of view of organization and teaching, but it favours pupils (especially those from advantaged backgrounds) whose talents have developed early in life.

9

SPECIALIZATION

Specialization involves the adjustment of courses to gratify the interests and

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ambitions of pupils. The students are permitted to select new subjects either to add to those already studied or to replace one or more which are being discarded. Specialization may be justified by reference to the requirements of higher education institutions or the labour market; its continuation in schools of the structure C configuration seems to be unavoidable. However, if it takes place early in the first level of the second stage and if it is the result of competition, then it too favours pupils who have developed early.

STREAMING

Traditionally, European schools have been streamed according to achievement in the classical languages and mathematics. According to the OECD report, streaming could be found in any of the schools within the multipartite system which, until recently, was the pattern of secondary education in the majority of OECD member countries. Since it would appear to reflect even more than multilateralism and specialization, the discredited selective admissions process, it might well be dropped as the move towards a structure C configuration occurs.

ACADEMIC TESTS

Systems of differentiation are maintained for the most part by examinations at the point of entry to a stage of level of education and throughout that stage. School-leaving examinations are designed to test what a pupil has learned during the stage about to be completed and to serve as selection tests for the next stage. Everywhere educationists are committed to the view that selection techniques

should be fair. The United Nations Declaration of Human Rights stressed the fact that access to education should be available on the basis of ability and the capacity to benefit and not on an ability to pay or on the basis of social background or political influence. A variety of examination techniques are available. They are: (a) written-

essay-type examinations; (b) oral tests; (c) intelligence and attainment tests involving short answers, multiple choice, true-false, etc. ; (d) practical exercises; (e) assessment with reference to student’s record and his parents’ wishes; (f) continuous assessment. The last technique has recently been gaining advocates in Anglo-Saxon countries. It is, in fact, an old device which is still used to a considerable extent in European schools. In the U.S.S.R. every answer is graded so that an impressive record of a pupil’s achievements over the years is compiled. Mark books are common features of European schools. The objection to examinations, however, is based more on the question of what should be tested than of how the testing is done.

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Control

The above techniques can be conducted or administered by members of a school’s staff (internal) or by outside examiners (external). In any case, some form of moderation is built in to ensure that standards are similar.

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111. Second stage, first level

In the countries studied, all children who complete primary education enter second-stage schools. State legislations to this effect set a minimum school- leaving age which at present ranges from 15 to 18 years. In the United Kingdom and France it is to be raised to 16 in 1972, while the Soviet Union intends to make ten-year schooling compulsory from 1970, taking the minimum school leaving age to 16 years. These policies have a socio-political background and are designed to democratize education. As the OECD report states: ‘The raising of the compulsory school-attendance age is a policy measure based on social and political reasons; it often follows on a practice of voluntary enrolment which, in turn, it re-stimulates.’’ Pupils are subjected to selection practices at the first level of the second

stage. These practices sometimes begin before the first stage is completed.

F R A N C E

In France, which continues to have a system of second-stage schools corresponding to the Bowles typology A, a number of school types, or courses within a school, exist, and selection takes place at entry. It is possible for a child to gain entry to an academic secondary school without an examination on the recommendation of the Department Commission for Admissions. The commission recommends which type of secondary school the children should attend after considering their marks, their school records and their parents’ wishes. This list is then submitted to the secondary schools and a committee, consisting of the headmaster, his deputy, two members of the staff, one representing the arts and one the science side, a district primary inspector, a primary school-teacher and a representative of the parents who sits only in an advisory capacity, considers the commission’s recommendations and the parents’ wishes, and then has the power to choose which children will fill two-thirds of the places available in the school. Candidates who are not chosen have their names sent back to the commission and are assigned to a school by the inspector of the academy on the advice of the commission. Although colkges d’enseignement secondaive have, since 1959, been planned

1. Development of Secondary Education, Paris, OECD, 1969.

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to replace lycies, coll2ges, Ccoles normales and centres d’apprentissage, few have as yet been established. Since 1962, however, a four-year orientation period for 11-year-old pupils has been gradually introduced with the object of discovering with increased efficiency where each child’s abilities lie, and of postponing categorization. Yet, at the end of their first three months in secondary school, pupils are placed in one of three sections: classic, modern or transitional. The courses in the three sections are intended to be sufficiently similar to allow transfer from one section to another, as their strengths or weaknesses dictate. In fact, the possibilities of transfer from the less academic to the more academic sections are very limited from the first year of secondary school onwards, and the orientation period seems to provide more opportunity for unsuitable pupils to drop out of academic courses than for late developers to join them.

NETHERLANDS

In the Netherlands, there appears to be no national method of selection of pupils, each school ‘board’ being responsible for the manner in which it selects its students. Traditionally, entrance to academic secondary schools has been determined by a competitive examination. At the same time, other selection procedures have been introduced in which trial classes, reports on prowess and understanding in the final year of primary schools, as well as psychological tests, can be employed. In 1968, 67 per cent of all forms of secondary schools were using the new kind of test for allocation to secondary schools. A ‘bridge year’ for similar purposes of orientation now facilitates the transfer from primary schools to the parallel courses of the secondary schools. What is not always made explicit is that two, or possibly three, forms of this bridge year exist. The Queen’s Regulations 307 (1967) outline the programme of the bridge year in pre-university and academic-type schools; this programme is quite different from that in the bridge year in lower vocational schools. Hence it will be almost impossible for a child who successfully completes the bridge year in a vocational school to transfer to a higher form of education. The older-established and highly differentiated Dutch system has thus scarcely been touched by the innovation.

ENGLAND

In England although all children at about the age of 11 pass from primary to secondary education, they are not all considered able to follow the same course. In 1944, the Education Act established the principle of secondary education for all, but it left the local education authorities to implement the act as they thought fit and most of them established grammar schools for the academically able, and secondary-modern schools for the majority (type B). Some comprehensive schools were established, but in 1962 less than 4 per cent

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of all secondary-school pupils were enrolled in such schools. The rest of the secondary-school population-some 96 per cent-had to undergo some form of test for selection to secondary education. However, in 1965, the Department of Education and Science issued a circular which requested all local education authorities to submit plans for reorganizing their secondary education on comprehensive lines. One reason for such a move was the objectives and doubts which had been voiced about the fairness of selection procedures. Because these I 1 -plus selection examinations are administered by the local education authorities, there is considerable variation in detail in the various areas ; broadly speaking, however, the examinations consist of an intelligence test and tests of attainment in English and arthmetic. The comprehensive school system towards which the United Kingdom has

been moving since 1964 is organized at local level in a variety of ways. In very few instances would the descriptions ‘grammar school forms’ or ‘modern school forms’ be used (thus reflecting the old divisions); but general education for all entrants at the same level is a rarity. Children entering some schools are placed in one of three groups: (a) selective pupils; (b) non-selective pupils; (c) remedial pupils. Promotion from one group to another is possible, but in practice the number is small.’ In this system, which has moved closer to structure C (in a minority of

schools) than is the case in France or in the Netherlands, pupils are enabled, after three years, to select subjects for study in the remainder of their school careers. The choice is guided by parents and teachers with a view to meeting the requirements of higher education or employment and limited if subject and potential seem, from previous evidence, to be at odds.’ The practice of streaming has not been abolished. ‘At the present time the

first year in comprehensive schools is a testing ground for the virtues of streani- ing and setting in comparison with mixed ability groups or no streaming. At present each camp is confident of being right. Final decisions must wait until the present first-year pupils have worked through to the end of the cour~e.’~

JAPAN, U.S.S.R., UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

In countries where schools of type C have been established for some time, i.e. Japan, the United States and the U.S.S.R., there are no overt selection tests for the second stage of education at the end of the primary stage. In the primary schools (grades 1-6) in the United States, however, a careful system of testing gives each pupil a graded reading age which makes it possible to see whether or not he or she is achieving according to well-established norms.

In Japan, the United States and the U.S.S.R., general education is provided

1.

2. 3.

Incorporated Association of Assistant Masters, Teaching in Comprrliensitve Schools: U Secorid Report, Cambridge, 1967. ibid. ibid.

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at the first level of the second stage. Multilateralism has been phased out. Specialization on a limited scale continues. In Japan and the United States, students in the third year of the second stage are offered a limited number of elective subjects. The American student who is not considered capable of taking academic electives in the third year of the junior high school will stand little chance of gaining a place on the college preparatory course of the senior high school and, therefore, his chances of higher education are slender. In the U.S.S.R. options have been introduced at the seventh grade. They seem designed to cater to the high achievers since they provide more modern material studied at more abstract levels. Except in the U.S.S.R., where streaming is not accepted as desirable, the

system has not been eliminated. It occurs in Japan at the first level of the second stage in preparation for entry to the second. In the United States, streaming by ability takes place from the seventh grade, the first year of junior high school. Pupils are graded on the basis of their elementary school record and their scores in achievement tests.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Selection at the first level of the secondary stage becomes too premature and too decisive an operation when it is on the one hand no longer required that a large proportion of pupils will enter the labour market soon after completing the first stage and when, on the other, it is assumed that an increasing proportion will participate in both levels of the second stage. It is therefore recommended that:

1. Multilateralism should not be retained, especially in combination with orientation techniques, since its effect of rigid categorization is undesirable.

2. Specialization of some kind should still be permissible towards the end of the first level of the second stage to meet the requirements of the second level. If it occurs voluntarily, in the light of each pupil’s maturing interests, it may be regarded as appropriate to the democratization process.

3. Streaming of pupils at this level should not unconditionally be abandoned since some element of achievement incentive is considered desirable for pupils of this age.

4. Academic tests of the continuous assessment type should be employed. No isolated examinations of pupils at this level should be permitted tu have a decisive effect.

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IV. Second stage, second level

ENTRANCE EXAMINATIONS

In most systems of education there is a break between the first and second levels of education at the second stage. Often the break occurs at the end of the period of compulsory attendance but this is not always the case, particularly in systems with a type A structure where the course requirements of the academic secondary school often determine when the school-leaving examination takes place and when selection for the second level occurs. A raising of the school-leaving age tends to raise the age at which selection

for the second level of secondary education takes place. It has been noted that selection at the age of I 1 or 12 for academic secondary education, which until recently virtually ensured admission to higher education, is now being deferred to a later stage. This has, on the one hand, opened the doors of secondary schools to all children; on the other, it implies that all secondary- school pupils should follow a general education programme for the first few years of the second stage. Increasingly, it is in the second level in all systems that the pupils are given advanced courses preparing them for admission to higher education. Of the six countries under discussion, only France and Japan have an

organized system of examinations at the end of the first level of the second stage, but in all the countries different types of upper secondary education exist; a pupil’s chances of access to the academic tracks which lead to higher education are determined to a greater or lesser extent by his achievement at the lower level of the second stage.

France

It is now accepted in France that during the last four years of compulsory education a child will be oriented successively towards entry to the second cycle, for courses and programmes which correspond to his ability. When the orientation counsellor has recommended transfer to the fifth year but when the parents reject this decision, the pupil takes an examination to reassess his ability. When a pupil decides to enter the second cycle, he can follow a short-term course lasting not more than two years or a long-term programme

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lasting three years. All these examinations in France are conducted at the national level and are therefore standard measure for all children.

Japan

Article 3 of the Fundamental Law of Education in Japan stipulates compulsory education at elementary and lower secondary level (6 + 3); thereafter it is voluntary. Courses of lower secondary schools are of a general nature; specialization starts in the upper secondary stage. As the number of applicants for the upper secondary schools always exceeds the number of places available, admission to these schools is generally selective. Courses in the upper secondary schools are classified as general and vocational (agricultural or industrial, etc.), and some of the upper secondary schools offer both types of courses. Examinations for selecting pupils for upper secondary programmes in Japan

are not conducted on a national basis. They usually take two forms: (a) an examination prepared and conducted by an organization ; and/or (b) judgements by institutions based on pupil’s grade records, the number of credit hours earned and kinds of courses taken at the lower secondary stage. In the third year of their lower secondary school, all pupils take a uniform

test given in their prefecture. Mental tests, which are usually standardized, are also administered at the prefecture level. The aims of this screening are twofold: (a) to measure scholastic achievement in the subjects learned at lower secondary schools, and (b) to contribute to selection and guidance of pupils.

Netherlands

Under the old system in the Netherlands, it was apparently believed that children of differing aptitudes and abilities could be accurately identified at about the age of 12. Once they had been ‘drafted’ into any form of secondary schooling they were expected to complete the programme successfully. There was no means by which a pupil could transfer from one school type to a less academic one or the reverse. Under the new system, any child who cannot complete a year’s programme

of a given school type can be moved into a less rigorous programme as he moves up through the general secondary system. At the same time, a late developer might also be transferred to a more academic school.

England and Wales

In England and Wales where every pupil can leave school at the age of 15 (16 in 1972), such a choice is made by the pupil, with the concurrence of his parents, at about the age of 14, but no rigidity is exercised. Even those who had decided to leave school at the age of 15 and have, therefore, followed a general course of studies during their fourth year, can stay on for the fifth

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and sixth years and sit for one of the public examinations. The General Certifi- cate of Education (GCE) taken at two levels-ordinary (‘0’) and advanced (‘A’)-is designed to suit only 15 per cent to 20 per cent of the students based on an intelligence range, and is usually an academic type preparing students for higher education while the Certificate of Secondary Education (CSE) is taken at the age of 16 and is designed to suit the next 40 per cent to 50 per cent of intelligence range.


In the United States, three structures of secondary schools are in operation, i.e. 8 + 4, 6 + 6 and 6 + 3 + 3. The new structure of secondary schools in the United States creates two clear divisions, i.e. junior high school (three years) and senior high school. Present reorganization is modifying the last two years of elementary schools (old 8 + 4 structure) and the four years that follow. The American schools aim at providing a broad and balanced education for all within the same school classification. It was observed that many students in the traditional 8 + 4 system found it convenient to drop out after the eight years of elementary school, but the new junior high school, which follows a six-year elementary school, has reduced the number of drop-outs by easing the transition from the elementary school to the more complex and more highly organized senior high school. Transfer from the most common form of junior high school to the senior

high school has been made easy in terms of unit requirements. For instance, the requirements for a four-year senior high school were 16 units while those for the new senior high school (in the 6 + 3 + 3 system) are 12 units. Yet, for the majority, there are no rigid requirements should a pupil want to stay for senior high school. It is his choice, and his parents’ decision.

U.S.S. R.

The only examinations now remaining in secondary schools in the U.S.S.R. are end-of-stage examinations, i.e. after the eight-year secondary education (incomplete secondary), or after the complete secondary at the end of ten years. The Soviet examination at the end of eight-year school serves two purposes. First, it is a terminal qualification for those who leave school after this examination and, second, a qualification which is partial requirement for a complete secondary education. At the end of the final year every candidate gets three marks: the end-of-year mark based on the regular check-up of day-to-day work, the examination mark and the final mark based on the first two. This guarantees the objectivity of the final mark which is entered on the school- leaving certificate. This certificate and a satisfactory report are obligatory for a candidate who is to enter the second cycle of secondary education preparing the way for higher education.

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END- 0 F- S CH 0 0 L EXAM IN A TI ONS

Purposes of the examinations

Examinations at the end of secondary education serve the following three purposes: to measure academic achievement of secondary education ; to provide ' for an award or a qualification of terminal value; to prepare for entrance to 1 higher education, implying a predictive bias. Examinations given at the end

' of secondary education in all the countries under study almost always fulfil ' these functions.

The French baccalaurtat and other professional and industrial brevets, the Japanese upper secondary-school graduation certificate, the British GCE and CSE and the Soviet full secondary-school certificate are qualifications on their own merit. Where institutions of higher education hold their own entrance examina-

tions, as in the U.S.S.R. and Japan, the usefulness of these examinations is still recognized; however, for the candidates it involves duplication of work.

Administration of examinations

Administration of such examinations varies from country to country; the examinations are organized at the national level in France, at the regional level in the United Kingdom, U.S.S.R. and Japan, and at the local level in the United States where examinations given to all the candidates in a given region or state are standardized. In France, all holders of the baccalaurtat or an accepted equivalent are

eligible for admission to an institution of higher education. The baccalaurtat is essential to enrol in a facultt. Students are admitted to the other professional and technological courses with the relevant brevets. On the other hand, students are admitted to the grandes tcoles only after a difficult competitive examination. These prestige schools offer preparation for careers on the highest level of public administration, education, business, the army and the navy, etc. Yet, recent measures, under the decrees of 22 June 1966 and 3 November 1966, have made it possible for the underprivileged and for people in employment to gain admission to higher education. New higher education institutions (instituts universitaires de technologie) have been established. In Japan, where there are both public and private institutions-junior

colleges, technical colleges and universities-selection is made by the institution concerned on the basis of an entrance examination, and the report given by the upper secondary school principal. Such institutions, however, also use the tests of the Educational Test Research Institute (both scholastic and aptitude tests) instead of, or along with, their own examinations. The proportion of candidates accepted by these institutions is about one to six. Selection methods

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employed by public and private institutions are occasionally quite dissimilar but are most often the same. In the Netherlands, there are no leaving examinations for children in the

old continuation schools or classes. Decisions concerning the vocational schools in respect of this point have yet to be made. In other words, at the end of the eight-year period of compulsory education there are no leaving examinations in general secondary schools. There appears to be no strict national standardization. Holders of their leaving certificates have access to no form of higher education in the old sense. However, holders of a final diploma have access to some form of higher education. For modern secondary schools and gj,mtzasia, two forms of final examinations occur, depending on whether or not candidates lean towards the sciences. Nationally set papers are conducted by teachers in the schools in the presence of a representative from the appropriate State commission. Holders of these diplomas can move on to a range of higher education institutions. Minimum requirements for entry to a university in the United Kingdom

are five passes at ‘0’ level and two at ‘A’ level of the GCE. But for admission to teacher-training colleges and the institutions in the public sector these passes are reduced to either only five ‘0’ levels or three at ‘0’ and two at ‘A’ level. Institutions of higher education in the United States (colleges and universities,

both public and private) set their own requirements for admission. At one extreme, any high-school graduate may be admitted to a public institution within the state; at the other, the requirements may be very exacting and may follow a rigorous elimination of all but the most highly qualified. While the former is a simple process where the secondary school submits the information regarding the applicant who is automatically admitted, the latter follow complex and exacting processes. In the Soviet Union, there is keen competition for places in higher education.

All Soviet citizens under the age of 35 who have successfully completed a full secondary school course and obtained the certificate of maturity are eligible to sit for an entrance examination, but there is room for only a fraction of these. (The proportion of applicants accepted varies from place to place, ranging from one in three to one in eight.)Entry is determined by the candidate’s performance in the competitive examination and his place 011 the list of priori- ties. Since entry is by open competition, candidates can emanate from all types of secondary schools, having followed different types of secondary-school programmes. Yet, in view of the fact that students in polytechnical schools spend more time on general education, they usually have a better chance of admission. Decisions regarding admission are made by the committee on admissions of a particular institution within the broad framework of the general regulations issued by the Ministry of Higher and Secondary Specialized Education.

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RECOMMENDATIONS

If democratization is considered as a process of maximizing the abilities and education of all students, it is clear that the process is inhibited by examinations, especially by external examinations. While all these countries are aiming at democratization of higher education, examinations taken at the end of secondary education are widely used for selection purposes. Examinations label candidates and lead to rejection; on the other hand there are other, unanticipated consequences of these examinations which are anti-democratic: (a) they influence curriculum and teaching in secondary schools in a way that ignores the needs of pupils; (b) they penalize students who are under- achievers, late developers and slow learners; (c) they cause schools and teachers to be ranked according to the number of successes in examinations; (d) they create Clite groups of students and teachers. Examinations are used to select or restrict the flow of secondary-school

leavers in higher education. The alternative method which induces democratization is the process of advice, guidance and orientation: making judgements about the ability, interests and aptitude of students, and then directing them into the most suitable courses. This implies expansion of existing higher education and creation of new courses to suit all abilities, including those who previously were considered unqualified for higher education. Countries aiming at the democratization of secondary education will become involved in the expansion of higher education. In the meantime, it is recommended that:

1. Entrance examinations to the second level of the second stage should be abandoned as soon as possible.

2. Grouping of students in the second level should continue on the basis of voluntary selection begun during the first level.

3. Internal objective assessment of students during the second level should be carried out so that all students, whether proceeding to higher education or not, receive a leaving certificate based on continuous testing rather than on a single achievement.

4. Questions of access to higher education should be the concern of the respective institutions of higher education.

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V. The new common school

The school, which in Bowles’ structure C configuration has emerged as the replacement of the multipartite system of structures A and B, has taken one of three forms.

THE ALL-IN COMPREHENSIVE SCHOOL

In this form, pupils are accepted at what was formerly the beginning of the first stage and provides education as far as the second level of the second stage; no entrance examination is required. Multilateralism and streaming are avoided. Specialization is postponed until the seventh year. Academic tests, until the completion of the course, are of the continuous assessment type. The first competitive examination takes place at entry to the second level of the second stage, from which a proportion of students are excluded.

THE COMMON SCHOOL

This form replaces the obsolescent multipartite institutions of the second stage; although the entrance examination no longer exists, the break between the first stage and the second takes place as before. The characteristics of the school tend to be closely similar to those of the institutions which it supersedes, particularly because of pressures from the unreformed first and third stages. Multilateralism, specialization, streaming and academic tests are all to be found.

THE MIDDLE SCHOOL

Here, a three-year course is provided at the first level of the second stage; entrance occurs automatically. The course consists of general education. Multi- lateralism and streaming are not employed. Voluntary specialization takes place in preparation for the second level of the second stage, to which all pupils are admitted without examination. Continuous assessment takes place during the three years, but otherwise academic tests are excluded. It is not a difficult task to establish schools termed comprehensive both at

the first level and at the second level of the second stage of education; in so

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doing governments may conclude that they have taken a major step towards the democratization of secondary education. However, a school labelled comprehensive may be organized and may function as though it were a collection of former-type differentiated schools. The practices which existed before the new schools were built (differentiated curricula, streaming and permission for youngsters to leave school before they are old enough to take the qualifications necessary for entry into higher education) may be continued in the new schools. In other words selection may operate as strongly in so-called ‘comprehensive

schools’ as in the older type of school. Further, unless entry into higher education is reorganized at the same time as the schools, the pressure to enter the third stage may impinge upon the schools, at the second stage, and prevent their functioning in the way intended.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Of three forms mentioned above, the all-in comprehensive school and the middle school are considered to serve the needs of democratization. The middle school is not affected by pressure from the next stage; the pressure that affects the all-in comprehensive school at present is of a temporary nature. In neither case are pupils divided into tracks. Specialization occurs late; choice of subject is permitted with a greater degree of freedom in the middle school than in the comprehensive school. Streaming is excluded and academic tests are non-competitive. Each is part of an entirely new pattern of education based on the assumption that at the second level pupils should be given equal opportunities. Nevertheless, it is by no means certain that the aim of full democratization

of education is everywhere best served by developing only secondary schools of middle-school type as rapidly as possible. The pupils in the older age groups are not always the most gifted; they may simply be the children of well-to-do parents. The quality of the work done may suffer because there is a lack of well-educated and well-trained teachers. The whole ethos of the school may be unfavourable to serious study and work. At a certain stage of economic, educational and social development, when there is much poverty and when class differences are marked, it may be wise to accept for a time the existence of selective secondary schools to which admission is gained only after passing examinations and where generous grants and scholarships help those with real gifts. In a time of scarcity of educational resources, the national welfare may be best served by a policy that makes sure that these resources are channelled towards those best able to profit from them.

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VI. Teacher education

N O R M A L SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES OF EDUCATION

Until the beginning of the twentieth century, future teachers were educated along two entirely distinct paths. First, those who intended to work in secondary schools spent three or more years in a university, studying ordinary academic subjects, and in time, were awarded a degree, as in the case of all their fellow students. They then moved back to school as junior teachers. In those days curricula changed slowly, the methods of teaching were stereotyped, and not unlike those of the university; the content of instruction remained unchanged for many years. Thus, a sort of modified apprenticeship, respectful of conservative tradition, sufficed, or was thought to suffice. Even now, in the 1970s, many teachers everywhere still follow this same path-and many older, orthodox administrators and school principals tend to believe that professional courses in education are a waste of time and money because the mere holding of a degree is an assurance of competence, and because all a teacher needs to know are the ‘tricks of the trade’, such as how to keep a class in order or how to write on the blackboard. Such tricks are best learned in classrooms. Nevertheless, serious and valuable courses of professional education are

now provided in most universities and a majority of new entrants spend at least a year equipping themselves for their future profession. Even where the new system has not yet been fully established, it is usual for young secondary teachers to take serious part-time courses in the sciences of education and to work for a while in classrooms under the direction of experienced teachers who are able to explain the principles of their profession. The second stream of education had no contact with the university and

was not thought of as ‘higher education’. It was originally devised because university graduates-there were few of them at the time-were unwilling to work in poverty-stricken schools with working-class children. Therefore, staff for such schools had to be provided by making special arrangements, by establishing special training institutions. At 12 or 13 years of age, bright, intelligent children were selected by their teachers and by inspectors and offered admission to ‘Normal Schools’ where they were taught the material necessary to do a good job. The programmes included an academic component

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which consisted of a simplified secondary-school course dealing with subjects taught in elementary schools; for example, mother tongue, history, geography, science, mathematics, drawing. Professional courses were added in areas such as the philosophy, history and psychology of education. The students were also given the opportunity of observing classes of children and of participating in actual teaching under the direction of older men or women. At the age of 18 or 19, they received a certificate and were appointed to schools. As the output of secondary schools grew-and it did, particularly after

1900-the Normal Schools changed. After about 1930, most of them recruited their students at the age of 17 and 18, and expected them to hold secondary school-leaving certificates. The length of the courses diminished to two years -but these were post-secondary. The names of the institutions changed first to teacher-training colleges, then to colleges of education. The next stage of evolution, already reached in many countries, is the lengthening of the programmes to three or even four years and the awarding of university degrees. The colleges may also widen their offerings to include ordinary academic subjects and may prepare their students for a wide spectrum of occupations apart from teaching: from journalism to librarianship and social work. Thus the old breach between the two paths of entry into the teaching profession-the elementary and the secondary-is being filled. Nevertheless, in spite of their anachronistic nature, Normal Schools continue

to exist in some countries and are well supported by parents and public opinion. The explanation is simple. Since these schools were originally intended for working-class children in need of help, fees are seldom charged. On the contrary, free board and lodging were often provided and, often, even monetary awards. Thus the Normal School system offered-and still offers-an inexpensive path through the equivalent of secondary education to modest posts which seemed poorly remunerated to upper-middle-class people but which were in fact highly attractive to manual workers, exposed to unemployment and insecurity of tenure. In a word, the Normal School system offered an alternative to the usual academic educational ladder. At a particular moment in the evolution of society it broadens opportunity of access to education. It is thus an agency which promotes equality of educational opportunity. It is by no means certain that the time is now ripe to abolish this alternative

everywhere and to insist upon all future teachers completing full secondary education, presumably of an academic type, followed by ordinary university courses; the secondary system may not yet be extensive enough in its coverage and not yet sufficiently diversified in the range of studies it offers. It is worthy of note that colleges of education almost everywhere still offer

some of the attractions of the former Normal Schools. Admission to them is usually easier than admission to universities. Fees are lower or non-existent. Boarding facilities are usually provided at little cost to the students. True, their prestige is usually lower than is that of the university. Nevertheless, they continue to be attractive to children of parents of modest means.

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THE DIFFERENT STREAMS IN TEACHER EDUCATION

Clearly, the quality of teaching provided in schools influences the chances which the pupils will have of being admitted to universities, etc. Consequently a critical evaluation of teacher education is needed, including questions of how intending teachers are recruited, through what forms of education they pass and how they are assessed for teaching and given a certificate to teach. It is also important to discover the differences in preparation of teachers moving into the various stages of education and into the different school types at the second stage. Policies affecting the national distribution of teachers--suitability, promotion, career prospects-also have an important bearing on the kind of teacher groups of pupils within the school are likely to have. The main assumption is that, other things being equal, inequalities in the

education, certification and placement of secondary school-teachers will be accompanied by unequal opportunities for their students to gain access to higher education institutions.

INEQUALITIES O F TEACHER EDUCATION

Let us consider first the relative lengths of the preparation of the various types of teacher needed by the systems surveyed and the way in which these types fit into the system. In the six countries, two types of institution provide for the education of

secondary school-teachers: non-university institutions, which generally operate solely for the education of teachers, and universities (or colleges), which usually contain or are attached to a department, institute, faculty or school to deal with professional education courses. In all the countries studied, it is possible for primary-stage teachers to be

transferred to secondary schools. The education of primary teachers is generally inferior to that of teachers in secondary schools because it can be shorter and/or of a lower level. Thus, when such transfers occur, the education of teachers at the secondary stage can become unequal. Another potential source of these inequalities is in-service courses which

might serve to provide higher qualifications for a select number of teachers. However, in addition to keeping teachers LIP to date with new ideas, these courses have been and continue to be used largely to upgrade the education of emergency staffs, and thus help standardize teachers’ qualifications.

INEQUALITIES OF CERTIFJCATION

Even if the minimum certification requirements for secondary teachers were the same, inequalities in their education could arise if some of them took advanced study leading to higher degrees. In all six countries, most universities

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offer masters’ and doctoral programmes in non-professional educational studies. A distinction needs to be made between trained teachers-that is, those

who have completed an approved course in professional and non-professional education-and qualified teachers, that is, those who have only completed an approved course in non-professional education. It is assumed here that, other things being equal, a trained teacher is better than a qualified one and a qualified one is better than an unqualified one. Permanent certificates are issued to untrained teachers in private schools not receiving State aid in all the countries concerned except the Soviet Union, which has only State schools, and Japan.

INEQUALITIES OF PLACEMENT

If all teachers were equally well educated, it would not matter from the view- point of democratization of higher education where they were placed. However, it has been shown that certificated teachers are unequally educated. Thus, the even distribution of these inequalities throughout the schools of a country is important for achieving the required democratization. That employers tend to select the best-educated applicants may be inferred

if a quota system limiting the number of good teachers allowed to work in each district or school has had to be introduced. In each country the State school employers, be they national, regional, or local, allot each school a quota of teachers based on the number of children in attendance; but the limitation only applies to the number, not to quality or type of teachers. Probably, selection committees in all the countries try to pick the best qualified applicant for each teaching position advertised. By a process of elimination this leaves unattractive areas with the poorest selection of teachers to choose from. What has been said about the placement of teachers through assignment and

application to schools within a country or district is also applicable to the placement of teachers to classes within a school; to ensure the utmost democratization of higher education, teaching quality must be evenly distributed not just among the schools but also among the students who attend them. To remove the effects of both these inequalities, two broad courses of action

are suggested: (a) that minimum standards be laid down for the education of teachers; (b) that teaching talent should be evenly distributed throughout the schools of each country. The second course of action could be carried out by several methods, e.g.

(a) by the introduction of a quota system, limiting the number of highly qualified teachers in each school; (b) by the recruitment of a pool of ‘master’ teachers who, in return for financial compensation, are willing to be appointed wherever and whenever gaps appear in the even distribution of teaching talent.

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THE IDEA OF A NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF EDUCATION

In most countries, the total number of institutions concerned with the professional education of teachers tends to be large and many of them are too small to permit specialization among their staff which, for the most part, has to disperse its teaching over a whole range of subjects. In consequence, standards are frequently rather low and little useful research is done. The gains reaped from concentration and integration would be considerable. An example of what can be done may be drawn from eastern Canada. The provinces bordering on the Atlantic were the first to be settled by Europeans, chiefly British and French: they established colleges and universities, many of which still flourish. The province of Nova Scotia, for example, has five major universities and four degree-granting colleges all of which are concerned with the preparation of teachers-although the total population is less than 800,000. Few of the departments of education deal with more than, say, 150 students. The need for co-operation is evident. In 1970, the provincial government established an autonomous Atlantic

Institute of Education, financed from public funds and charged with the duty of improving and promoting teacher education throughout the province-and, hopefully, throughout the whole Atlantic region when the other three provinces of Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick and Newfoundland decide to associate themselves with the project. The first aim of the institute is to encourage and organize co-operation, thereby improving efficiency and achieving economy by the elimination of wasteful duplication. The second is to draw up an over-all development plan, making sure that the right kinds of specialists in education are being prepared. The third aim is to initiate and direct meaningful and concrete research, immediately applicable to the improvement of teaching and drawing on the resources available in the schools themselves. The governing board of the institute consists of representatives of the Ministry

of Education, the local educational authorities, the universities, the colleges of education, the Teachers' Union and the students. Although the institute organizes some regular courses of instruction and although it is empowered to grant degrees including the doctorate, it is not primarily a teaching institution. It is not in competition with its constituent colleges nor with university departments of teacher education. None of the staff have lasting tenure; they are either on secondment from universities or else on contracts of limited duration. A few examples will indicate the kind of activities undertaken. There is a

permanent committee of heads of colleges and departments of education which is directing an inquiry into staffing resources and preparing a ten-year master plan for the development of teacher education. The plan will be based on careful estimates of demand and supply of teachers in the foreseeable future. A clearing-house is being established which will deal with all applications from students who wish to prepare themselves for the teaching profession;

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Present problems in the democratization of secondary and higher educatio’n

it will also help direct these students to the institutions best suited to their needs. The clearing-house will be extended to deal with all applications for posts in schools; a great convenience both to beginning teachers and to remote rural authorities. Co-operation has been established with the local television services; teachers are being shown how to prepare scripts to be telecast to all schools. Under an ‘Innovative Schools Project’, specially qualified members of the staff of the institute are locating schools in which interesting and valuable experiments in education are being tried out, whether in curriculum, method or classroom organization. Material help and advice are made available to the teachers concerned. A newsletter informs all the teachers of the area about what is going on. Two major gaps in the training facilities offered in the area have been

identified: school guidance and counselling; special education (i.e. teaching of handicapped children). In each, courses leading to a master’s degree have been organized. The teaching is provided by staff drawn from all the constituent colleges. It goes without saying that they are distinctly better in range and quality than they would be had they been provided by one institution only. The above, of course, are only instances intended to illustrate what a national

institute of education can do. The general idea is to construct an instrument that will establish co-operation among all the institutions of a province or area or country that are concerned with the preparation of intending teachers. The instrument, of course, must be given an autonomous existence and be allowed to develop an identity of its own. Thanks to co-operation, it becomes possible to combine economy with efficiency. Wasteful duplication can be eliminated and the resulting resources employed to fill up gaps in the prevailing programmes. Such institutes are most successful when closely tied to the actual concerns

of ordinary schools and ordinary teachers. It is not necessary for them to be much concerned with long-range academic or theoretical research; that can be left to universities. It is better to concentrate on more modest tasks of obvious and immediate utility, tasks permitting teachers in schools to make their own contribution. The activities of national institutes help to improve the prestige of studies

and research in education. Thereby, the alternative path through higher education-the training college rather than the university-is made more attractive and more acceptable. They are thus one component of a comprehensive effort to move towards full and generous equality of opportunity. Moreover, they provide part of the administrative mechanism for constructing a real system of higher education out of the usual collection of separate institutions which include universities, technical colleges, teacher colleges, schools of art, and so on. A national institute of education can easily be integrated within such a system and, through it, training colleges can be brought fully into contact with universities.

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RECOMMENDATIONS

1. Normal Schools, at the second level, must continue to operate and be well supported until the output of general secondary schools (dealing with pupils up to the age of 17+ or 18 years) is amply sufficient; that is, until the students leaving such schools experience difficulty in gaining admission to universities or in securing places.

2. Efforts should be made to develop the curriculum of Normal Schools so that in range and in quality of work they approximate the curriculum of general secondary schools. The aim here is to make it possible for those leaving the h'ormal Schools to secure admission to university courses.

3. Efforts should be made gradually to increase the age of transfer from the general school system to the Normal School, until the college of education finally recruits students of the same age as does the university.

4. The length of the courses provided in colleges of education should be increased as quickly as possible to the minimum insisted upon by universities for the award of the first degree. The ultimate ideal is a teaching profession which is fully graduate.

5. Special help (reduced fees or fee tuition; grants in aid; bursaries) must be provided in Norinal Schools and colleges of education, at least until applications for admission are considerably in excess of available places.

6. Efforts must be made to forecast in detail the probable demand for teachers and to adjust the numbers prepared in accordance with such demands. Unemployment among young teachers must be avoided; it is demoralizing, frustating and destructive of the ideals that lead to high-quality work in schools.

7. Standards of certification, based upon established standards governing minimum length of professional training and quality of course work, should be laid down and nationally enforced.

8. Efforts should be made to attain an equitable regional distribution of teachers with high qualifications, discouraging their drift towards the larger cities. Geographical as well as social equalization should be aimed at.

9. Colleges of education should pay much attention to in-service courses, particularly for teachers in rural areas so that pupils in those areas should be as well taught as those in cities.

10. National or provincial institutes of education provide a useful instrument for improving the quality of teacher education and for achieving equality of opportunity both of a geographical and social kind.

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VII. Social aid

FINANCIAL AID TO STUDENTS

On the surface, it may appear that one of the easiest ways of encouraging young people to stay at school beyond the statutory age and to enter higher education is to give more financial aid to students as a positive inducement to them to continue their studies. It certainly seems reasonable to assume that there may be a considerable loss of talent in many countries, in that many young people are forced, because of the financial situation of their families, to leave secondary education either at the earliest possible moment or, in any event, well before the completion of the full secondary cycle. In England, for instance, the considered view of the National Union of Teachers is that by far the greatest loss of talent lies in those who leave school at the age of 15, for although many who leave at 16, 17 or 18 will not enter universities or colleges, large numbers will enter professions or posts of some ultimate responsibility, pursuing part-time correspondence studies or at least becoming aware of the existence of such avenues to further progress. It is tempting to argue that the social class differences in taking up educational

opportunity are due wholly to economic factors; thus, although living standards in Western Europe continue to rise, the rate of access of manual workers’ children to any sort of tertiary education remains low. In 1962, only 3 per cent of the children of farm workers and 1.4 per cent of those of industrial workers gained access to higher education in France; the corresponding figures for Great Britain (4 per cent of the children of skilled and 2 per cent of those of semi-skilled and unskilled workers) are only slightly more favourable. Although such social groups form a very substantial part of the active population, their children form only 30 per cent of the student population in Great Britain, 12.6 per cent in France, 11.5 per cent in Belgium, 10 per cent in the Netherlands and 7.5 per cent in the Federal Republic of Germany. This argument needs to be examined with some care since, in some cases,

the income of families of manual workers is as great as that of non-manual workers; the deciding factor in whether youngsters go on to higher education is not economic but rather a question of the value placed on education by different social groups. In examining the question of financial aid to students it must be borne in mind that although such aid may be significant, it is not

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the only factor involved in persuading parents to enable their children to stay on at school into the second stage of secondary education and to enter higher education.

TYPES OF FINANCIAL AID

Three fairly distinct means of helping students iinancially can be distinguished: these are the scholarship system, the grant system and the loan system. The scholarship system has been the traditional means of financing able

students. Scholarships are awarded to the most able after a competitive examination. The scholarship is first and foremost an academic achievement with certain financial consequences. This system was efficient when a high degree of selection was both socially and intellectually acceptable but is now being replaced by a system of grants or loans. The grant system, unlike the scholarship system, provides aid to all who

qualify by examination, and sometimes by offering places in certain educational institutions without competition. The lack of competition is the significant difference between the scholarship and the grant; however, as the pressure of numbers on places in higher education becomes more intense, an element of competition is introduced to the extent that institutions select their students rather than accept all who are qualified. The loan system involves repayment of sums borrowed, although rates of

interest may be low; the method often works in conjunction with a bonding system which allows full or partial remission of the loan if a student enters a certain specified profession for a stated number of years. All the countries examined in the study give some forms of financial aid

to students. Usually the criteria of academic ability, economic need and wiilingness to take up particular occupations apply everywhere; yet the emphasis placed on the various criteria varies from country to country.

The scholarsliip system

Very few countries, with the notable exception of Japan, have retained the scholarship system at the secondary level; it remains at the tertiary level. The significance of the scholarship is not the monetary award which follows the competitive examination but the academic prestige it bestows on the successful candidate and the access it gives to the most highly respected educational institutions. In financial terms, the scholarship is less significant than it was before the Second World War since other forms of financial aid are available to needy students. In Japan, there exists a State scholarship system whereby promising junior

high school students sit a national examination, those successful being awarded 300 yen monthly throughout the senior high school. However, this system would appear to be intensely competitive as the awards are very few.

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Both France and England also retain elements of the scholarship system at the tertiary level. What has come to be known as the ‘Oxbridge’ system is still significant in bestowing prestige not only on the candidates who gain open scholarships but also on the schools from which they come. Similarly, in France, success in competition is much sought after. Able

youngsters who can pass the highly selective hurdle of the entry examinations into the tcoles supe‘rieures benefit not only from the enhanced opportunities in life automatically acquired through having received tertiary education in such prestigious institutions but also from higher grants.

The grunt system

This method is becoming more widespread: such aid may be given to all who qualify following an examination, or following entry to certain educational institutions. In France, too, the importance of financial assistance to secondary school

pupils has become increasingly recognized. The Encyclopkdie Pratique de 1’Educutiorz (1960) noted that ‘thanks to such scholarships, children of modest origin have been able to elevate themselves to a superior social class’. The law of 21 September 1951 (Andrk Marie) dealt with grants for pupils at lyckes and colleges and was amended successively by 1959 to embrace awards for all secondary levels. An inquiry conducted by Girard in 1954 among boys of ‘high intelligence’ showed that the desire to assist parents financially was a potent factor in early leaving. Subsequent work by Clerc indicates that parental expectation and awareness of the possibilities of education has increased and that many parents wish their children to remain at secondary school until its completion at the age of 18; in 42 per cent of cases where these hopes were not realized, however, expense was the main explanation. The grant system is perhaps more widely accepted in England and Wales

than in any of the other countries; but while students support the system, the government, in its concern over the cost of providing higher education, increasingly questions it. The statutory basis for the present direct system of student assistance in

England and Wales began with the 1944 Education Act, but its administration is complicated by the existence of a great many separate local-education authorities. It gave these authorities the discretionary power to make awards, and an amending Act in 1962 made it mandatory for them to grant awards to all students accepted by universities and by similar institutions for degree and degree-equivalent courses. Awards for students in other courses, and for all at secondary level, remain discretionary with consequent wide variations and anomalies. The criteria used by individual local-education authorities to arrive at the awarded figures differ wildly, and no ministerial guidance has been offered since 1957; the amounts in very many cases are so small as to form no incentive for parents to keep a child at school. Whilst no fees are charged at

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State schools, to qualify for a maintenance grant for a secondary pupil in some authority areas the parental income is already so low as to indicate family circumstances of direct poverty.

The loan arid the borid systeni

In Japan, loans range from 1,500 yen per month for high-school pupils (360 yen = U.S.$l, but the purchasing power is somewhat higher), 1,500 or 2,000 yen monthly for technical-school students, 2,500 to 3,000 for junior- high and undergraduate students and 10,000 or 15,000 yen monthly for post- graduates. The Nihon Ikuei Kai (Japan Scholarship Foundation) lent some 14 million yen to 300,000 students in the fiscal year 1966; for those unable to obtain money from this source, there are more than 1,600 other organizations providing loans to secondary and tertiary students of varying degrees of length, interest and repayment. In 1967, one in twenty-seven high-school students (compared with one in thirty-three in 1965), one in five university students and one in three post-graduates received such assistance. Repayment of official loans must commence one year after the completion of courses, with all or part of the loan being waived for those who take up teaching in any State establishment-a fact which helps to explain why 50 per cent of all student teachers were loan-assisted in 1967. In France, many students bond themselves to teach for ten years in order

to get free tuition and a government stipend whilst they train. The United States provides a most interesting study since it has the greatest

number entering higher education. Despite the fact that a greater proportion of the young people attend college than in any other country, a smaller proportion were, until recently, in receipt of any financial aid. In an effort to remedy this situation, Public Law 89-329 of 1965 allocated $70 million for each of the three fiscal years to assist qualified high-school graduates of exceptional financial need to obtain the benefits of higher education. Institutions of higher education desirous of obtaining funds from this source to enable them to make educational opportunity grants have had to agree to establish or strengthen close relationships with secondary-school principals ‘with a view towards motivating students to complete secondary school and pursue post- school educational opportunities’. More significant, in spite of the increasing percentage completing the high-school course, the commissioner has been empowered to enter into contracts with ‘State and other local educational agencies and other public or non-profit organizations’ with a view to identifying qualified youths of exceptional financial need and encouraging them to complete secondary school and undertake post-secondary training and to publicizing existing forms of student financial aid, including aid thus furnished. Thus, while over 90 per cent of the population between the ages of 6 and 18

are in school-the highest proportion in the world-it would appear that there is still sufficient wastage of able children as to cause concern.

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An interesting variation is found in the U.S.S.R. in the form of direct financial payment for work done by pupils in trade schools. In general, secondary education grants appear to be readily available, awarded on the basis of need following a parental means test. According to H. J. Noah, 80 per cent of Soviet full-time day students receive

stipends. Entry to some institutions of higher education is, of course, highly competitive, so that there is a scholarship element to the grants which vary in amount according to the faculty the student enters and the grades he secures in his examinations. They are thus used as an instrument facilitating the allocation of students into various fields, in accordance with the over-all general manpower plan.

OTHER FORMS OF AID

In examining the factors which may encourage or deter young people from staying at school, consideration must be given to whether the school system is free or not and whether books and stationary must be purchased by the pupils themselves. In Japan, while textbooks are nominally provided at elementary and lower

secondary schools (but not beyond), evidence from official statistics would indicate that some outlay is often necessary at this level. A students’ assistance exists to operate student dormitories, counselling centres and an employment opening service for senior high-school students. Textbooks traditionally have not been provided free in secondary schools.

In France, Halls noted that in 1965 the cost of textbooks for an 11-year-old pupil starting an academic course could be as high as 85 francs and at 16 years as much as 290 francs. The Chenot Commission of April 1963 indicated concern over the fact that school accessories in many areas were not provided free and in May 1964 it was decreed that some textbooks would in future be provided free for the 11-13 age group in all State secondary schools, a grant of 40 francs per capita being made every three years, which is the estimated life of a textbook. Hitherto, there has been no tradition of school libraries in France, but a ministry circular (February 1970) has decreed that funds will be made available to all State secondary schools to create libraries. In England and Wales, all primary and secondary education is free, as are

textbooks, exercise books and almost all materials. All schools have facilities for serving meals, or ready access to shared dining-rooms. The current charge to pupils is 1s. 6d. per day, but this charge is often waived in cases of need, assessed by school-welfare officers according to criteria of family income, receipt of social-security benefits and so on. Free milk (one-third of a pint per day) was provided for pupils in all schools from 1939 to 1967, but thereafter only at primary level. By statute, transport is either provided or paid for by the local authorities

for all pupils who reside at a distance of three miles or more from school,

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while pupils over the age of 14 are granted travel passes, valid in term-time, to enable them to travel at the relevant reduced rate. Most authorities make provision for free school uniform, shoes, etc. The pattern throughout Eastern Europe would seem to be of free education,

school meals free or heavily subsidized, extensive school medical services and increasing expenditure on social facilities. A system of secondary boarding schools developed very rapidly in the Soviet Union at one point but no longer appears to be expanding.

RECOMMENDATIONS

While it is clear that lack of money may be a powerful deterrent to the continued education of able young people from disadvantaged groups, it is less clear as to what level of scholarship or loan must be available before the parents of such children are to be persuaded to allow their children to remain at school or to enter the academic streams which lead to higher education. It may be that changes in attitude are more significant than increased levels

of financial aid although, conversely, it may be argued that when financial need is really severe, aid may be all important. In many cases, education in the disadvantaged groups is not valued for its

own sake, nor is there general acceptance of a pattern of delayed gratification; that is, education prolonged into the second level of secondary education and beyond may seem to be unnecessary and undesirable. It is also the case that since academic studies and prolonged education

are alien to many families, the social and economic advantages of allowing children to remain at school beyond the statutory age may not be apparent. In such cases more information and better guidance and counselling services may be of greater significance than increased aid. In developed countries such as the United States and England, social class

may often be a question of life-style rather than income. That is, families with comparable incomes may make radically different assumptions about the ways in which their incomes should be allocated. This is not to deny that poor families exist, and that such families do need

positive financial incentives in order to keep their children at school; but it should not be assumed that to make loans and scholarships more widely available or to increase their value will automatically lead to extensive increases in children from lower social groups demanding access to higher education- although in conjunction with other factors such increases may be likely. Apart from better guidance services, the most significant factor in creating

greater demand for education may be the increased recognition in the community of education as desirable.

It is therefore recommended that: 1. A distinction be drawn between expansion and democratization; the two

terms are not necessarily interchangeable. A financial policy which encour-

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ages expansion may not at the same time encourage an increased proportional intake into higher education of young people from disadvantaged and lower social class groups.

2. A further distinction should be drawn between a policy of financial aid which is viable at the level of the second stage of secondary education, and which may not be as suitable at the tertiary level of education.

3. It should be recognized that financial aid may be a less significant factor in encouraging the democratization of second-level secondary education and higher education than changes in attitude; once the attitudes of students from disadvantaged groups are modified, making them anxious to continue their studies, then financial aid may be an additional persuasive factor. Governments should thus consider the need for more effective guidance

and counselling services when they are considering the various methods of financial aid as a tool in democratization.

4. Governments should examine more closely the possible links between manpower planning, financial aid and democratization, particularly when the question of bonding is under consideration. Such a scheme giving remission of loans to those students willing to enter certain professions at least ensures a supply of able entrants into occupations deemed necessary by governments and can also be directed specifically at disadvantaged and lower social class groups if this is thought desirable.

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VIIT. Vocational and educational counselling

THE FUNCTION O F GUIDANCE

Guidance can be one of the major factors assisting the democratization of education. All aspects of guidance seem to be important but vocational guidance has a ‘syphoning-off’ function; that is, it may encourage pupils to take the immediate satisfaction of earning rather than studying and thus ‘investing’ in future earnings. To be effective, educational guidance ought to be continuous, taking advantage of standardized tests to measure progress and diagnose weaknesses and of systematic data collection to record progress as well as full information on courses available and the entry requirements of the various educational institutions, so that any progress made by the pupil may be fully utilized. In this way social impediments to academic achievement-familiar and social class norms, lack of finance and so on-may be reduced to a minimum. As Bowles observes: ‘The choice of studies made by students and the levels of education to which they aspire depend in large part on the information and advice they receive about existing educational opportunities. Certainly, guidance may help increase the total numbers of pupils staying

on after the school-leaving age; it may also influence the directions, educational and vocational, which these pupils take. For example, guidance personnel may dissuade individuals from choosing ‘fashionable’ and ‘overcrowded’ subjects such as literature or sociology in preference to subjects in lesser demand such as applied science or engineering, especially when the pupil has little knowledge of the requirements of any of these courses.’ The process potentially benefits not only the individual but society as well,

for in contemporary societies one of the principal functions of guidance in secondary schools is the early identification of talented youth. Yet, this is certainly not its only-nor even its chief-purpose. True, guidance may reveal that the son of an unskilled manual labourer has all the gifts and abilities needed to pursue the arduous studies that lead to high professional posts-and the educational system should be so adjusted to make such studies and such a career possible. It may also show, for instance, that the son of a doctor lacks the basic aptitudes and intelligence that would allow him to profit from higher 1. Access to Higher Edzication, Vol. I, op. cit. 2. ibid, Vol. TI.

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education, while possessing other gifts which, if cultivated, would lead to happiness rather than frustration. But educational counselling has objectives broader and more generous than

mere vocational guidance. Properly conducted, it helps children and young people to accept themselves and their own weaknesses-an essential step in growth towards maturity and adulthood. It can remove emotional and intellectual blockages that prevent progress. It can promote self-confidence and independence. It may lead towards the harmonization of the claims on individuals made by family, school and society. All this means that counselling helps to achieve equality of opportunity

for all because it gives a better chance to the young to realize more fully the potentialities within them.

TYPES OF GUIDANCE SYSTEMS

Guidance is a process of helping individuals, through their own efforts, to discover their potentialities for personal happiness and social usefulness, while counselling is usually thought of as one of the many methods of giving guidance, usually by means of the one-to-one interview. Guidance systems may be of the: (a) ‘mechanical’/informal; (b) formallnon-

professionalized; or (c) formallprofessionalized type.

Mechanicallinformal guidance

The mechanical/informal approach refers to those guidance systems which applied in most English and Japanese secondary schools. Here ‘guidance’ is mechanically administered by the educational system. Selection is made by a competitive system of examinations for entry into prestige academic schools. Those pupils failing to gain entry to these schools must be content in the schools of an inferior academic reputation. Within these schools some form of ‘stream- ming’ or ‘setting’ by academic ability is practised. Educational ‘guidance’ is provided by the selective and specialized structure

of the school system. Further differentiation on the basis of academic ability is accomplished by ‘streaming’ or ‘setting’ within the academic and non- academic schools. Further selection and guidance takes place at the end of the first stage of secondary education. Still further selection takes place at the end of secondary education when pre-university examinations are taken. Automatic ‘guidance’ is critical to the pupil’s developing educational patterns

since an inability to qualify at 1 I, 16 or 18 is largely instrumental in preventing further educational progress of an academic or highly specialized nature.

Formallnon-pro fessionalized guidance

A second system of guidance to be examined may be termed ‘formallnon-

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professionalized’. This type of guidance exists in some English public and larger State schools, in many Russian schools and in most French schools. Guidance is built into the system formally and is mainly dependent on non-professionalized personnel, that is, the general teaching body, the parents and other children. Some of the State secondary schools in England adopted the house tutorial

system; but-because, unlike many public schools, they are non-residential- the periods of formal and informal contact between tutor and pupil are limited. Tutorial periods are often built into the time-table for one-or in rare cases- two periods per week, when children’s personal and general learning difficulties are dealt with by the tutor. Expert guidance is given by outside agencies, but this element tends to be

minimal, for the staffs of child guidance clinics give help to a minute proportion of children and the youth employment or careers officer sees most of the children who are to leave school for a matter of minutes only. In the Soviet Union the first stage and first level of the second stages of

education are given in a common eight-year school. No problem of selection and transfer exists between the first and second stages of education, though the problem of selection does appear at the change from the first level of the second stage to the second level. This final level of secondary education is provided in three main types of schools, the secondary, polytechnical and secondary specialized, sometimes known as ‘teknicums’, and the vocational technical schools which may be trade schools, schools for working and rural youth. The latter courses may be full time, part time, or be taken by correspondence. In theory the pupil mixes with all social groups in the eight-year common

school. He is guided into that specialized school where his talent can best be developed; society profits from the fact that education has a large practical element which helps ensure a ready supply of skilled labour. At all stages guidance is given by teachers, by other pupils, by parents and by trade-union and Communist Party officials. None of the latter personnel are specifically trained to give guidance though all are expected to help the child to cope with his school work, his personal and social relationships. In France, the 1959 law created a two-year observation cycle (cycle d’obser-

uation) which forms the first two years (later four years) of the first stage of secondary education. It is during this cycle that a child’s interests and abilities are observed. Guidance during this and subsequent stages is given by teachers. Difficult cases may be referred to specialized outside agencies. Guidance is an officially recognized function of the school; though teachers do not receive a long and systematic training in guidance theory and practice, only teachers with certain pedagogical and psychological qualifications can teach at the cycle of observation stage. Consultation with the parents is encouraged at every stage. Critics of the French approach argue that their system of guidance probably

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falls into category (a), the mechanical informal type, for ‘ certain blindly mechanical methods’ very often take the place of proper guidance today.’ Much of the guidance, though formally organized, is given to French pupils by non-professionalized personnel, namely the teaching body. To systematize the guidance procedure a guidance council is set up which includes representatives of the parents, teaching staff and at least one professionally trained counsellor. This unit is intended to serve a number of schools.

Formallpro fessionalized guidance

In the United States, guidance is a highly formalized and specialized function of education and is typical of the third type. School counsellors responsible for guidance are employed in practically all secondary and in most elementary schools. Some of the larger secondary schools have three full-time counsellors, one of whom may specialize in psychometrics, one in psychotherapeutic guidance and one in general educational guidance. Some smaller elementary and secondary schools may share one counsellor among two or three; in yet other schools-particularly the smaller variety-there are counsellorlteachers (part of their work consists of teaching and part is devoted to counselling and guidance). Though outside specialized guidance agencies exist in the United States, most guidance is school-based (as in Europe and Japan) but differs in so far as this guidance is given by professionalized personnel. Guidance services may function positively-that is actively-in the process

of helping the democratization of education. In performing this function, the guidance services encourage pupils to stay longer at school and make strenuous efforts to ensure that information about educational and other opportunities is available to all pupils, parents, teachers and administrators. Yet other guidance systems are neutral; that is, the ‘market forces’ of supply and demand are allowed to operate unhindered and guidance personnel offer their services mainly at the request of the individuals concerned. Guidance personnel may also function negatively in the process of democratization when primarily interested in identifying the highly talented pupils and when endeavouring to assure that these pupils take rigorous courses in prestige institutions. In this way, by concentrating on talent, guidance personnel tend to penalize the mass of pupils.2

RECORD KEEPING

In the United States, elaborate records are kept continuously, thereby earning the term ‘cumulative records’. Some states and districts lay down standard cards; other systems are designed for one school only. The data entered on

1. Access to Higher Education, Vol. I, op. cit. 2. J. W. B. Douglas, The H o m e and the School, London, McGibbon & Kee, 1964, and

B. Jackson, Streaming: an Educational System in Miniature, London, Routledge, 1964.

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such cards include information about parents, siblings, home conditions, religion, socio-economic class, etc. Supplementary to environmental information there appear personal data: abilities, achievements, interests, values, vocational and educational expectations. In England and Wales, in contrast to the United States, the record cards

have not until recently been considered very important. Of late some areas have adopted comprehensive types of record cards, in other areas schools have designed their own. Most record cards have academic grade notes along with some brief comments of the pupil’s attitude towards a given subject. Age, form, position in class, special comments are also recorded. The only national forms are kept by the Youth Employment Service which persuades the school to complete personal, educational and environmental details. The points are physical make-up (including appearance and handicaps in physique and speech), attainment, general intelligence, special aptitudes, interests, dispositions, and domestic circumstances. In Japan, record cards are kept, but these resemble the cards in England;

they concentrate on subjectively assessed grades according to subject. Record cards in France are extensive and elaborate. They are kept from the

first year at the secondary level until the pupil leaves school. Detailed notes are kept of achievement and aptitude tests, also of grades, examination results and the recommendations of the guidance council. By the time the student leaves school an elaborate series of records have been developed. In the U.S.S.R., elaborated records are also kept. Even at the kindergarten

level these records are extensive. At the secondary level the records include name, birthday, parents’ occupation and place of work, parents’ names and siblings, home conditions, nationality, marks and grades, attendance, practical work, membership of clubs or circles, socially useful work done, health, physical-cultural activities, sports and academic ‘prizes’, bad behaviour and other characteristics. A child also keeps his own record book in which his grades are noted; this book follows him up through the school system. Records are essential if one is to trace the developing abilities inherent in

the pupil’s progress. Entry to higher education in certain United States colleges and universities is dependent on the grade received at the upper secondary level. In all the other countries surveyed, entry into higher education is determined primarily on the results of competitive examinations. Until selection by competitive examinations is abandoned for a more continuous assessment, the record cards will remain comparatively unimportant for selection for higher education though they are important as a basis for evaluating an individual’s suitability for entry or transfer to college preparatory or other courses.

COUNSELLING A N D THE N E W STRUCTURE OF SECONDARY EDUCATION

The older, now outworn, structure of secondary education provided a variety

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of types of schools: academic, vocational, technical, agricultural, general, normal, and so on. The system thus automatically guided and selected young people from the age of 11 or 12 along predetermined paths. Guidance was provided informally by teachers who knew their pupils well, having taught them a whole range of subjects. Things have changed and continue to change. The new secondary schools

-comprehensive, common or neighbourhood-usually offer a very great choice of possible options and subjects. All the previously existing types of instruction, and new ones too, are now available within a single institution. The number of choices is bewildering. How can pupils without adequate counselling discover those which will lead to the most rewarding and satisfying results? Then, too, the schools get larger and larger. In addition, more and more

subject specialists are employed; they teach each child perhaps only once or twice a week and, therefore, hardly know them. In such schools, many pupils feel anonymous, little more than numbers. They realize no one knows them as human beings, as individuals with particular hopes and wishes. In the absence of counsellors, to whom should they turn for help? It is not too much to say that the hopes aroused by the establishment of

the new comprehensive structures will not and cannot be realized until an adequate and well-developed counsellor service is established. One injustice, that of too early selection, which favours the well-to-do, will have been removed. But another will have been installed since the needs of individuals will have been ignored. In a word, the nature of the new secondary schools makes it essential to appoint counsellors on every staff. Far better to have an average-class size of thirty pupils and two counsellors than to have an average size of twenty-eight and no counsellors. But the counsellors must be well trained: they should be equipped with

the appropriate skills and knowledge. Unfortunately, appropriate courses are very scarce and even these are available only in a few countries. What is needed is the development in university departments of education of skill- oriented programmes that emphasize practical knowledge, skills to help pupils, teachers and parents, and ultimately the positive results that can be achieved with these skills. Evidently, the training programmes would also have to include a great deal of practical work under expert supervision. Among basic skills needed for adequate counselling, the following are probably the most important: communication and human relations ; behavioural analysis and management; information utilization and decision-making ; application of learning and instructional principles ; dynamics of group processes.

CONCLUSIONS

The democratization of education is a common goal in many contemporary societies. One of the dimensions of such change is a quantitative measure of

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an expansion of education provision and increased educational opportunity. Does the expansion of guidance help the democratization of education, or is the converse true, or do these factors operate independent of each other? So many other factors are involved: changing norms and expectations; the

new skills needed in a rapidly changing economy; increased financial provision, both private and public, which allows a large proportion of the population to follow a longer period of formal education; the fact that one can only reproduce the opinion of authorities and compare this with what appears to be happening within the educational system. One such American authority argues that the demand for guidance and counselling has increased; of seven preferred reasons quoted, two are relevant to our argument: 'education enrolments have risen at all levels and have brought with them a commitment for additional (guidance) personnel to insure quality education . . . (and) . . . more and more parents send their children to college (higher education), with school counsellors inevitably seen as assisting in the attainment of that objective."

RECOMMENDATIONS

1. Ministries and local authorities should establish comprehensive counselling services under the authority of the Ministry of Education. Every child and young person should have access to a counsellor. Counsellors should be considered an essential component of the teaching staff of every school.

2. University schools of education should develop modern and well-planned courses for the training of the larger numbers of counsellors needed to draw full advantage from the new structures at the second level of education.

3. Guidance personnel cannot make available more places at the secondary or tertiary stage of education for this will be determined by government policy. What they should do is supply parents and pupils with information as to where alternative secondary and tertiary courses are available and thereby help make sure that as many places as possible are filled.

4. The present financial inducements to study are provided mainly by central and local authorities. Guidance personnel should assist parents by keeping them informed of the grants and scholarships available and methods of securing these benefits.

5. Careful cumulative research of the progress and development of children should be kept by counsellors; these documents should be strictly confi- dential, and professional secrecy should be maintained, just as it would by medical men treating their patients. Only objective records dealing with progress in mastering school subjects should be kept over the years. Princi- pals of schools and teachers should have access to these records only through the agency of the counsellors.

1. G . E. Gass, 'Guidance in Russia', in: B. Schertzer and S. C. Stone, Fundunzerztnls of Cozinselling, Boston, Mass., Houghton Mifflin, 1969.

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6. Counsellors should take note of official educational policy and of employment prospects. However, guidance, particularly vocational, is only part of their general duties.

7. Counsellors should work in co-operation with school medical officers. 8. Every teacher needs an elementary acquaintance with the general principles

of counselling, sufficient to enable him to make full use of the contribution of the professional (specialist) counsellor. Therefore, a brief course on counselling and guidance should be included in the professional preparation of all teachers.

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IX. Evening and correspondence courses

T H E ROLE OF PERMANENT EDUCA.TION

Permanent education is important as a factor in the democratization of studies. The importance of evening and correspondence courses, it has been observed, cannot be overestimated; it is essential that all those who, for reasons of social origin, sex or regional conditions, have either curtailed their studies or followed courses contrary to their vocation or aptitudes should dispose of facilities for resuming their studies by evening or correspondence courses organized on a regular basis.’ At present the facilities available vary considerably from country to country.

U. S. S. R.

In the U.S.S.R., as noted in a Unesco report,’ pupils are divided into the following categories on the basis of their results in the secondary-school (second-level) entrance examination: 1. The group at the top of the list receives places for full-time education. 2. The next group is admitted to evening courses (including certain full-time

practical study courses) ; the employment time-table is specially planned so as to provide these students with time off for study; they are entitled to supplementary paid leave for oral and written examinations, laboratory work and the preparation of papers, theses and so on; they receive time off to attend certain courses; they are not sent on distant missions or transferred to another place of work; and they have the use of specially equipped factory libraries and laboratories for carrying out their practical work. Such part-time study, of course, takes longer than full-time study.

3. The remaining candidates, should they wish to study, are encouraged to take correspondence courses whose duration of which is still longer.

The students with the best results in evening courses are transferred to the full-time study category, while the top students in the correspondence category move up into the evening-course group.

1. Access to Higher Edzicafiori iri Europe, Paris, Unesco, 1968. 2. ibid.

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England and Wales

Here, the variety of courses available to those who wish to improve their educational qualifications must be among the largest in the world. Yet the part-time resources available through the university extra-mural departments, the Workers’ Educational Association and the local-education authorities, for example, are mainly designed for adults. Technical colleges providing full-and part-time courses have been developed in all parts of the United Kingdom in the past 150 years. Ten of these colleges were made colleges of advanced technology, and, subsequently, technological universities during the 1960s. In 1966, the creation of thirty polytechnics, made up of an amalgamation of technical colleges offering advanced courses, was announced. A concentration of higher courses in these institutions is planned. Three hundred ‘local’ technical colleges provide full- and part-time courses mainly for students up to 19 years of age and 180 ‘area’ technical colleges offer more advanced courses leading to external degrees or higher national certificates. The approximate student figures for England and Wales in 1955/56 were 156,000 full-time, 19,000 sandwich courses, 608,000 part-time day, 778,000 technical (evening) and evening institutes (general and recreational) 1 ,075,000.1 By 1965/66 the total figures reached over 3 million students, an increase of 50 per cent over 1955/56 figures. Between 1952 and 1962, ‘0’-level candidates studying at secondary school

increased by 260 per cent while candidates studying at technical colleges or studying privately increased by 510 per cent, the latter groups forming 53 per cent of the whole in 1962 as opposed to 19 per cent in 1952. At the Advanced level school candidates in the same period increased 130 per cent, while numbers for technical college and private candidates increased by 440 per cent, with the latter groups forming 37 per cent of the 1952 figures and 56 per cent of 1962 figures. There are at least fifty correspondence colleges in the United Kingdom.

They furnish courses for about 500,000 students of whom at least half are resident overseas. Independent of the public sector of education, they provide opportunities for students to acquire the qualifications more usually made available through a secondary-school course, but their drop-out and failure rates are high.


Junior and community colleges and state universities form the ‘second chance’ for those potential students who have not the entry qualifications for more selective institutions. In 1960, about 44 per cent of high-school graduates

1. W. 0. Lester Smith, Education, Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1957.

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had been in college preparatory courses though 18 per cent of those who went on to higher education had not been. Factors which must be considered by those giving guidance are the selection

of the college and the furnishing of details to the college concerning the student. Drop-out rates are high in institutions with low admission requirements, which alone constitutes a form of selection.' Many junior colleges give a two-year post-secondary schooling which may form part of a four-year first-degree programme. Junior and liberal arts colleges have 42 per cent of all students in higher education while universities have 43 per cent. The traditional practice of working one's own way through high school

and university courses in the United States provides opportunities for adults. Course requirements and academic standards vary throughout the country, but avenues for adults undoubtedly exist in many areas. The annual enrolment in correspondence courses at all levels is estimated at 2 million, this form of tuition being large enough and of sufficient interest to have developed its own researchers and its own literature; many courses are available to those who wish belatedly to pursue secondary studies. Significantly, the Public Law of 1965, which devoted some $70 million

annually to students for the next three years, authorized (for the first time at higher level) the provision of funds to education authorities to encourage secondary-school drop-outs of demonstrated aptitude to re-enter educational programmes, including post-secondary programmes. This path exists in the United States and is becoming more frequent.

Japan

In Japan, the situation appears more complicated because of the structure of Japanese education within Japanese society. The former reflects the hierarchical pattern of the latter; progress from junior to senior high school, and from the latter to junior college or university, would appear to rest completely upon examination success. Taken in conjunction with the shortages of both schools and teachers, it appears that unsubsidized correspondence courses offer the only effective avenue to a person who wishes to acquire formal secondary education once he is above customary school age. Japanese university entrance examinations are severe and to cater to those

who fail them at the first attempt, i.e. on the conclusion of the senior high school course, a number of full-time cramming establishments exist wherein failed students are prepared for a second or third offering. Although such establishments are fee-charging, their importance in Japanese education should not be minimized; in 1967 they catered to some 200,000 students, a substantial figure when related to the number of final-year full-time senior-high-school students that year of approximately 13 million, or about 13 per cent.

1. Access to Higher Education, Vol. I, op. cit.

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Pressures on education at all levels have led to the introduction of evening- class programmes at senior high schools and of part-time studies at universities. In the former case, the course then takes a minimum of four years instead of the full-time three, and in the latter a minimum of four instead of two or three. In 1967 more than half a million people were thus studying at senior high schools (some 11 per cent of the number of full-time students), with some 123,000 at universities, an almost identical percentage. Mention has been made of correspondence facilities. While not State

subsidized, these are State-regulated to the extent of demanding from the participants a yearly attendance of twenty days full-time at a designated centre in order to ensure some direct tuition. This represents an attempt to improve the education value of such courses. It is significant that female students (one in five of the total number of

Japanese students in higher education in 1964) formed one in six of students in universities though they take nearly three-quarters of the places in junior colleges. It appears that junior colleges provide a method of supplying extended and higher education to those of the community who are underprivileged.

France

In France, special consideration and preferment is given to workers who wish to enter university for, since 1961, they have been able to enter without the baccalaurkat on condition that they have worked for two years, are over 24 years of age and have passed a special examination. The National Conservatory of Arts and Crafts holds evening classes leading to an engineering degree which are attended by a great number of students. These students are able in certain circumstances to transfer to universities to continue their studies. Nationally organized correspondence courses are also available. They offer both secondary and higher education courses.

Netherlands

In the Netherlands, correspondence education has until recently been regarded as inferior to oral education. In an attempt to rectify this attitude, the Foundation Inspection of Education

by Correspondence was set up in 1947; one of the results of its activities is that most accredited schools claim to have fully qualified staff, a situation not always applicable to ‘oral’ schools. At any rate in theory it might be suggested that the quality of teaching in these institutions is at least on a par, if not better, than that in normal ‘oral’ schools, but this would be a difficult empirical study to evaluate, taking into account the variables implicit in the two different methods of teaching and their associated didactics. The bond between this

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foundation and the Ministry of Education and Sciences has grown during the subsequent period and the government now pay the cost of inspection procedures of accredited schools. Under the old laws, higher elementary education courses (possibly types

one and two) are conducted by two centres; these same centres run programmes for the modern secondary-school diplomas (type four) and gyinnasiu (type five). A third centre also runs programmes for these last two diplomas. The activities in the vocational field at the secondary level are manifold

and it is impossible to sort out which courses are run at the lower, middle or upper levels. However, it is fair to suggest that provision exists in the Nether- lands for an adult who left school without a relevant diploma, or who subsequently realizes the value of such diplomas in terms of access to higher education, to pursue further study on a part-time basis if required.

It seems unlikely that the activities of these institutions will decrease under the Mainmoth Law, but no evidence is available of their work under the new conditions.

CORRESPONDENCE EDUCATION AND THE FUTURE

The above examples show that a great deal of correspondence education is available in many countries. However, it is not always well integrated into the normal systems of education either at the second or third level; it is seldom looked upon as a perfectly valid route, an alternative to the full-time straight- from-school traditional path to higher education and professional promotion. Quite often it is thought of as a minor aid which can properly be left to the care of the private sector. Yet, correspondence education provides a powerful instrument for equalizing

educational opportunities. First, such education serves those who live far from great urban centres. Second, it serves those who develop late, whose gifts mature slowly, who lack the docility that leads to success in school, or who find it hard to pass examinations of a formal kind. It is an instrument that should be cherished, polished, used to the full. It is relatively inexpensive and helps precisely those who deserve help because they are willing to expend effort. It is capable of great extension and of providing well-planned courses in areas so specialized that perhaps only a dozen students in a whole country need and desire tuition. What is needed everywhere is a realization of the fact that the full potential-

ities of correspondence education deserve careful study. Afterwards, steady and deliberate efforts will have to be made to relate the programme closely to the conventional systems. For example, it becomes necessary to remove all impediments hindering correspondence students from taking public examinations; to grant to all staff engaged in correspondence education full equality -in salary or pension rights or promotion-with the staff in the conventional schools ; to make transfers between the systems easy and automatic. In addition,

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there is seldom any difficulty in recruiting personnel. Many teachers find it easier and more rewarding to work under conditions in which problems of maintaining classroom discipline do not arise. The recognition that correspondence education is a worthy and valuable

alternative to full-time college or school education should generate a desire to modernize and improve it. There is now no need to rely exclusively upon the written word. Tape

recorders and video-tapes are inexpensive and easily used. Reading machines and microfilm make it possible to send all kinds of material across vast distances at little cost.

Improvement

It is not necessary for students to feel isolated or cut-off from the centre. Group feeling and loyalty can easily be built up. So can the feeling of ‘belonging’-which is a facilitator of learning. Some of the best correspondence systems in the world-in Australia and New Zealand for example-achieve remarkable results. They use television for opening and graduation ceremonies. They make sure that every communication with students contains some personal message, perhaps a photograph, to assure them that they are thought of as individuals. They bring students to centres, often at a university, at weekends or during summer vacations; thus, social relationships can be established, and learning takes place under traditional and customary conditions.

PERMANENT EDUCATION

Developments of the kind described in this chapter illustrate the growing attention now being paid to the notion of ‘permanent’ education. There is, of course, nothing new in the idea that education, in the full sense of the word, is a continuing lifelong process and that adults as well as children are learning all the time. But what is new is the realization that in modern societies grown-ups will of necessity learn a great deal-and much of it relevant to their jobs-in an informal way at their place of work, from newspapers and maga- zines, from mass media and so on. What is new, too, is the acceptance of the argument that this being so the formal system will have to be changed and adapted. Teachers, administrators, parents, citizens will have to stop thinking of education as a process which begins at 5 or 6 years of age and is completed at 16, 18 or 22 years of age. Among the consequences of the new outlook, the following seem most

significant: Permanent education vastly increases the opportunity of access to the sources of knowledge and skill. It opens the possibility of tapping an immense reservoir of human ability-the men and women who left school early, or who at adolescence had little desire to learn.

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Permanent education is one reaction to the fact that the very swift development of technology and industry makes it essential to train and retrain the workers at all levels.

But only integral education is relevant and valuable. The job to be done is not simply to provide technical instruction and know-how. Social education is equally important since it is often an attachment to outworn social beliefs and myths, rather than ignorance of techniques, that prevents progress. In addition, the morale of an industrial population cannot be maintained if spiritual and cultural needs are ignored; people should be thought of as human beings rather than as robot-like accessories to computers and machines.

If education, including vocational and professional training, is available to adults of any age, no selection process can ever be final. There will always be a second, third and even fourth chance of securing admission. The young woman of 20 who is offered a place in a course leading only to qualification as a medical technician or nurse, though her hopes were set on the full medical course, need not despair. She can try again after the completion of the technician training-or at any later date. The opportunity of ‘trying again’ makes it much easier for individuals

to accept rejection by a selection process; it also stresses self-selection- always preferable to selection by others. Those who are sure of the wisdom of their hopeful choice will try more than once.

At present, almost everywhere, full-time courses carry prestige. They seem to be thought of as somehow more respectable or even better educationally. There is no reason for accepting such assumptions, for they are not backed by solid evidence. Indeed it would be wise for all universities, technical colleges and other institutions at the third level to order the administration and the organization of their work so as to cater properly to full-time and part-time students at once, and for these institutions to accept the responsibility of arranging more special courses lasting a week, a month or a term. Is there any good reason why a four-year university course leading to a degree should not be taken in two or three or four slices, if the student so desires?

In making choices among careers, fields of study, kind of college best suited to needs, young people at school have the advantage of advice given by their teachers and sometimes by vocational guidance agencies. But if men and women of all ages are to move in and out of colleges, trying to extend their skill and knowledge or simply seeking enlightenment and cultural enrichment, much not now available will have to be done to provide adequate information and guidance ; something like a lifelong counselling service will be needed to help adults find their way among the multitude of possibilities.

The new media of mass communication, together with programmed learning and teaching machines, should be fully employed in the service of ‘permanent education’.

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As an example of the way in which notions such as these can be brought together and related, mention should be made of the ‘open universities’ which have been established in the United Kingdom and in Japan. The British ‘University of the Air’ is supported by a substantial government grant. By 1971, it was providing courses for students working at home and no special qualifications were demanded before registration. The students are helped by television, radio and correspondence courses. If successful in the examinations, they are granted degrees equivalent to those granted by the ordinary universities : the passing of a final examination earns one credit; six credits earns a degree. Already by July 1970, more than 34,000 applications had been received for the courses opening in January 1971. The Open University uses the technical facilities of the BBC but is indepen-

dently administered. The BBC has also recently established eight local (sound only) stations, with considerable autonomy, and it is likely that about thirty more will operate before 1975. Each takes into account both formal and non-formal education, gearing its offerings very closely to local conditions and concerns. Much attention is paid, of course, to the needs of schools: local history, environmental studies, choice of career, etc.

RECOMMENDATIONS

The effects of the provision of evening and correspondence courses do not appear to have been taken into account in the formulation of the Bowles typology. As a factor in the democratization of studies they have great importance as already stated, especially when they are available on a large scale as in the United Kingdom. It is clear, however, that their existence outside the full-time education structure can involve duplication and wastage, and that they are regarded by some of their potential clients as inferior to a full-time oral course. 1. There should be established, in every Ministry of Education, a section dealing with permanent education. It would include, but go beyond, the sections or departments now concerned with adult education.

2. It should be recognized and accepted that secondary education is a level of education and not an indication of the age at which instruction is administered. An adult may take a secondary course.

3. Correspondence education should be encouraged and promoted. It can be organized either directly by ministries of education or by universities or by colleges. Full courses at the secondary level should be available to young people as well as to adults.

4. Radio and television should be fully used to supplement the correspondence courses. In this way defects due to regional problems can be to some degree corrected. All correspondence and part-time evening courses should be incorporated, on a basis of full equality, into the appropriate level of formal education. There should be no discrimination at all as regards examinations, value of qualifications earned, privileges awarded.

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5. All staff engaged in correspondence, evening or part-time education should be fully integrated into the ordinary teaching staff and granted the same conditions of salary, promotion, pensions, etc.

6. Finance, tuition and examinations should be under public control, if publicly provided. Nevertheless, if there is no monopoly of education vested in the State-that is, if private and independent schools may function legally- there would be no reason to forbid the establishment of private correspondence schools operating with private funds.

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Part Three State study assistance in Sweden

and the other Scandinavian countries

by S. Mattsson

I. Presentation

The intention of this report is to illustrate the efforts being made in Sweden and the other Scandinavian countries to stimulate education at all levels and to provide citizens of all ages and of different social origins with the means of acquiring education. This aspiration is one of the most important elements in present work on the democratization of higher education in Sweden. Chapter I1 contains a brief historical account of the development of State

study assistance in Sweden. Since 1964, State study assistance has been based on two main principies:

one applying to secondary school (Chapter V ; see section entitled ‘State Study Assistance for Secondary-school Education’) and one for post-secondary education (Chapter V; section entitled ‘State Study Assistance for Post- secondary Education’). Certain supplementary forms of assistance are also described in Chapter V. To give a background of the structure and objectives of these two forms of

assistance, an account is presented in Chapter 111 of the educational system in Sweden, also concerning recruitment, periods of study and qualification requirements for admission to higher education. Chapter VII contains an account of the rules concerning the rights of

foreigners to receive assistance for studies in Sweden. The recommendations of a committee concerning revision of the rules for State study assistance for foreign students is at present being considered. Partially altered and more detailed rules in particular may be expected in the future. Chapter VI11 contains an account of the total costs to the Swedish State for

study assistance and the relation of this assistance to total State expenditure, etc. Extensive co-operation in cultural and other fields exists among the Scan-

dinavian countries (Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Norway and Sweden). Within the Nordic Council, for example, a recommendation has been adopted that the Scandinavian countries shall take steps to bring their educational systems into alignment, especially in respect of the content of education. A recommendation has also been adopted for a wider acceptance of academic degrees in the various Scandinavian countries. In 1959, at a meeting of the Scandinavian ministers of education, a resolution was adopted stating that students should retain the educational benefits received from their own country when studying

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in another Scandinavian country. At a meeting of the Nordic Council in February 1970 a recommendation was adopted to the effect that, with the participation of students, an investigation should be made of means for obtaining uniformity in the granting of educational benefits in the Scandinavian countries. Chapter X contains a brief account of the State study assistance in the other

Scandinavian countries.

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11. Brief historical account of Swedish State study assistance

Regular State study assistance was introduced in Sweden in 1919. Parliament then voted funds for educational loans to assist talented but indigent pupils to study at public educational establishments of various kinds. The loans were free of interest during the period of study and the two succeeding years. Thereafter, interest was payable at a very low rate. For the most needy, the amount of the loan might be on a level sufficient to cover educational and living expenses. To a small extent the State also made grants to stimulate education among youth from less well-situated homes. Owing to the limited financial resources of the country during the period following the First World War and the years of depression in the early thirties, however, the development of this assistance proceeded slowly during the 1920s and 1930s. O n several occasions since, State study assistance has been improved and

extended to increasing categories of students, and today embraces all students at public educational establishments and at private establishments of varying kinds under State supervision. Assistance has also been made universal in the sense that certain allowances are payable irrespective of the financial status of the parents. In 1939, a significant improvement in the study assistance was decided

upon for students at universities and colleges. A number of grants were then introduced in the form of free board and lodging for talented students of small means. The grant-holders could also obtain loans to an amount sufficient to cover their educational and living expenses. These grants were later successively extended to other higher educational establishments. When, in 1964, the system of grants and loans was replaced by the new system of study funds described in Chapter V (‘State Study Assistance for Post-secondary Education’), grants in the form of free board and lodging became payable to 47 per cent of students entering universities and comparable establishments. In 1960 students at higher art schools were placed on an equal footing with other college students in respect of grants and loans. This brought about a radical improvement in the educational facilities for youth studying art of many kinds. A very important reform was introduced in 1946 for graduate students

and equivalent categories. Parliament then decided that a person who had completed his studies and taken a degree might have all his educational debts

20 1


placed in loans secured by a government guarantee. The object of these loans was to put the debts of academicians on a sound basis and to free them from dependence on private creditors and guarantors ; these were placed in various banking establishments. The funds for the loans were met by the banks, but the period of amortization, which was at most fifteen years, and the rate of interest (4 per cent above the highest deposit rate), were determined by the government. The ‘academician loans’ also had a great significance for older academicians, as no backward limit in time was specified as to when a degree should have been taken in order to entitle to a guarantee. Owing to the new forms of State study assistance during the period of study that now exist, the academician loans are being successively abolished. During the years 1946-69 such loans were granted to some 15,000 persons to an amount of 110 million kronor. No limit was set for the extent of the total government guarantee. In 1950, the form for loans secured by government guarantee was extended,

the advance thereafter being made during the period of study. The amount assigned to the individual student per annum was intended to cover direct educational expenses and reasonable living expenses. At the same time, the right to educational loans was extended to pupils at a number of educational establishments at the level immediately below university and college. The requirement of success in studies was treated liberally. The same applied to the question to parents’ finances. Only if the parents had an especially high income or large body of capital were the children denied a government guarantee. The loans were free from amortization for two years after the completion of studies, thereafter repayable within a period of at most fifteen years. The interest was the same as in the case of the academician loans. During the years 1950-64, when educational loans were superseded by study funds as described in Chapter V, government guarantees were granted to some 143,000 students totalling 475 million kronor. No limit was set in this case for the total government guarantee. In 1961, in order to ease the burden of debt for those who had received loans

for their education, parliament decided that State and State-guaranteed educational loans should be written off to the extent of 25 per cent in accordance with given rules. The write-off does not apply to loans received under the rules applying as of 1964. Loans have hitherto been written off for some 151,000 students to an amount of altogether 192 million kronor. As regards pupils at secondary schools, people’s high schools, vocational

schools and lower continuation schools there has been a successive improvement and expansion in the course of the years. In 1945, grants for board and lodging in the school locality, or for daily travel between home and school, were introduced for educationally fitted pupils, especially from rural districts. In the following year, the study assistance was again reintroduced in the form of a non-means-tested basic grant of 500 kronor per academic year for pupils who in their home district had no opportunities for education

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State study assistance in Sweden and the other Scandinavian countries

above the general primary-school level. Means-tested grants of at most 540 kronor per annum were also introduced. All grants were subjected to the requirement of educational aptitude. In 1952 a more uniform system of study assistance was created, partly in the form of study allowances, which were not means- or aptitude-tested, and partly of grants for which such tests were required. At the same time the benefits were greatly raised. Educational loans, too, were raised to at most 2,500 kronor per academic year. In 1956, a government committee appointed to investigate national assis-

tance measures for families with children and associated questions presented proposals for extended State study assistance. The committee stated: ‘It is a national interest that young people, according to talent and proficiency, should receive a suitable education for their future career. It appears urgent, therefore, that the influence of the family economy on the individual’s choice between occupational work and continued education should be limited as far as possible. A considerable reinforcement of study assistance should therefore be striven for. Such reinforcement appears greatly desirable also from the general point of view of cost equalization.’ O n the basis of the committee’s proposal, the 1957 parliament decided to improve greatly the study assistance for pupils at secondary schools, vocational schools and other youth schools. This brieff y described development of State study assistance in Sweden

relates to the period up to 1964, when new forms of assistance entered into force. The background of the 1964 reform is described in Chapter 1V. A description of the new forms of assistance will be found in Chapter V, which also describes certain special benefits for students.

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111. The Swedish educational system

PRIMARY SCHOOL

Since 1962 Sweden has had a nine-year compulsory school called the comprehensive school. Children start school in the year in which they attain the age of 7. No examinations are held in the comprehensive school, but grades are

awarded. At the end of comprehensive school the pupils can apply to continue to gymnasium and a large number of other forms of secondary education.

SECONDARY SCHOOL

Since the introduction of the comprehensive school the interest in continued education has grown greatly. The number of pupils in the three forms of secondary school-gymnasium, continuation school and vocational school (as from 1 July 1971 combined into the gymnasial school)-constitute about 85 per cent of the 16-year age group.

Gymnasium

The gymnasium has five lines: humanities, social science, economics, natural science and technology. All lines are three-year, but the technology pupils may continue for a fourth year and then become gymnasia1 engineers. All lines qualify for continued education at a university. Like the comprehensive school, there are no examinations at gymnasium, but grades are awarded. There are gymnasia at 125 sites in Sweden.

Continuation school

Continuation school is a two-year, secondary form of school introduced in 1963. There are now continuation schools at every place where there is a gymnasium. Continuation school has three lines: social science, economics and technology. It provides a comparatively broad basic education with considerable elements of general education. It is nevertheless more goal- directed than the gymnasium and places greater emphasis on the practical

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application of theoretical studies. A pupil who has passed through continuation school-at which, again, there are no examinations-can enter into a job or continue studying for various professions, such as social welfare, certain teacher appointments, nursing and jobs in offices and industry. Of the continuation- school vacancies, 25 per cent are reserved for older applicants who have either passed through vocational school or have at least three years of vocational practice.

Vocational school '

Local government vocational schools exist at places where there is a gjwmasium as well as at many others. They provide training for various vocations within industry and crafts, trade, office work and in the nursing sector. The length of courses varies from one term to several years, and both elementary and very qualified vocational training are available. Vocational schools are also run by county councils and many private enterprises.

Adult education

Swedish adult education has greatly expanded in recent years. The many people who in their youth could not go to school for more than perhaps six or seven years can now, as adults, extend their education. The continued reformation of adult education is considered to be the most important social measure of the 1970s. There are several kinds of adult education:

Local-government adult education has been arranged since 1968 on the basis of the curricula for the upper level of comprehensive school, gymnasium, continuation school and vocational school. The adult who wishes to study can take one or two subjects at a time and, if he so desires, can continue up to complete qualification for the form of school he has chosen. Teaching

1. During the academic year 1971/72 the gymnasium, continuation school and vocational school are to be combined into a single form of school called the Swedish Gyrniiasial School. Among its twenty-two lines will be the present gymnusiurn and continuation-school lines. This is principally an organizational reform. It implies that teachers, teaching aids and buildings can be jointly used to better effect; pupils have better opportunities of changing to a new line of education if they so desire, and vocational education is put on the same footing as other education. With the introduction of the gynii~asial school, vocational training will be entirely reformed (while the gynznasium lines, for example, will remain unchanged). Pupils who choose vocational education will receive a more modern and broader basic education in this field, and a gradually increasing specialization. Apart from direct vocational training all will study certain general subjects. They will also have a certain choice of several general subjects. The vocational lines wiIl be a two-year programme, but longer education will be required for certain vocations to be given in special courses. The academic year will be forty weeks both at comprehensive and gymnasia1 school. All of these schools are run by local governments.

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is principally given in the evenings, but at some places there are also day courses. Teaching is free of charge.

There are two State schools for adults. The students take correspondence courses in their homes but visit the school in periods of usually three weeks for supplementary oral teaching.

Correspondence teaching is widespread in Sweden. Extensive adult education is given also through radio and television courses and by business enterprises and trade-union organizations, etc. The most extensive adult education is within the popular educational movements. Every year 150,000 study circles are organized, with 1.5 million participants.

People’s high schools

The 115 people’s high schools are boarding schools principally for adults, with the aim of giving a general education. Most students, however, come to obtain a basis for continued education. The subjects are often the same as at the gymnasium, but the content is more adjusted to adults. The courses last for one, two or three years.

Labour market training

Labour market training, which is arranged for reasons of employment policy, is given chiefly in the form of retraining courses, especially for the unemployed and others who need to change their occupation. Training is given primarily for occupations within industry and office work. Each year, 95,000 persons attend such courses for which special grants are made. The training is given either within the ordinary school system or in specially arranged courses. The planning and assessment of the training need are done by labour-market organs.

POST-SECONDARY EDUCATIONAL ESTABLISHMENTS

Among the post-secondary paths of education are the universities, colleges, establishments for training of different categories of teachers, higher artistic training, training of nurses, physiotherapists, public-health officers, schools of navigation, etc. Post-secondary education is considered in principle to be education above the level of the gymnasia1 school. There has been a conscious striving on the part of the government in various respects to place lines of education outside the universities and colleges on an equal footing with the latter. Benefits which were earlier reserved for the universities and their students have been made available, in principle, for all paths of education above the gymnasial-school level. With the increased influx of persons demanding higher education it has

also been urgent to create an attractive alternative to university and college

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education. At the same time, young people who have not passed through gymnasium have been given a better opportunity to compete for vacancies on various lines of education for which the requirement of gymnasia1 schooling has not been necessary. This has been achieved by introducing special forms of education for which comprehensive school qualifies (cf. ‘Primary School’ above). The new feature is that a higher level of schooling (e.g. gymnasium) shall not as a matter of course give priority. Practical experience will as a rule be considered as valuable from the competitive point of view as school education. The attempt to realize these principles has been made by means of quotas under which an applicant competes only with other applicants having the same background. The number of students at post-secondary establishments (entitled to State

study assistance; see Chapter V, ‘State Study Assistance for Post-secondary Education’) was about 141,000 during the academic year 1968/69. The number of students increased greatly during the 1960s. This is especially

marked at the universities and colleges. During the academic year 1960/61 , there were more than 36,000 young people studying at Swedish universities, colleges and comparable educational establishments. In I965/66 the figure had passed the 65,000 level and in 1970/71 had reached about 135,000 students. A forecast for the mid-1970s shows that the total number of students at universities and colleges and comparable educational establishments will then exceed 150,000. Of those who attain the age of 24 years in 1970 roughly one in five probably go on to higher education. These figures reflect the development of higher education in Sweden. Especially marked has been the influx to the unrestricted intake faculties and subject-fields. During the last five years the number of students at faculties of arts has more than doubled, with the emphasis on the social sciences. At the same time the number of vacancies on restricted intake lines increased, e.g. medicine, odontology, technology, etc. There has been, in round figures, a 50 per cent increase during the last five years. A radical change has been introduced in the basic education at faculties

of arts; the rules for higher education have been liberalized; the training of researchers has been changed and better adapted to the current systems in France, the United Kingdom and other countries. The present decentralization of higher education reflects the striving to

furnish higher education at a considerably greater number of places in the country. The creation of four affiliated universities at which students may study at a faculty of arts for an academic degree within different combinations of subject fields has relieved the burden on the universities and made higher education available to new groups of youth. In the next few years a further decentralization will take place, as a result of which certain combinations of education will be available to students at additional places, principally in northern Sweden. Apart from systematically decentralized education, an extensive academic

education is taking place in different external forms (university extension).

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More than 15,000 Swedes, principally adults, are studying under the university- extension scheme. An interesting feature of this education is recurrent radio and television courses in certain university subjects, and special correspondence courses. An important reform in the next few years is likely to be the extension of

vocational courses at the universities. During the year 1969/70 experimentation with such courses began, with the main emphasis on aid to the developing countries, labour-market technique, staff administration and information processing. These lines of education can be incorporated into studies for an academic degree and constitute a new method for solving the problem of bringing education into line with the requirements of the labour market. Another reform which will leave its mark on the expansion of university

education in the next few years is a wide liberalization of the rules for admission. The intention is successively to make higher education available also to those who lack formal qualifications but who, through occupational or other work, have acquired knowledge that equips them for higher education. Liberalized rules for admission are at present being tried out within certain subject fields at faculties of arts and are being considered for the training of medical students. Proposals will soon be presented concerning more universally applicable rules.

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IV. Background of the educational welfare reforms of 1964

In I959 the government appointed a committee to investigate educational welfare measures in the field of higher education. The Minister of Education at that time stated the following in the terms of reference for the committee: ‘To give to all the opportunity of education for which they possess the necessary talentsis one of the chief tasks of a democratic educational policy. At the same time it is of the greatest importance from the national point of view, by drawing upon all talents, to create the resources of well-educated manpower which are essential for continued progress. . . . These educational aims, however, naturally imply not only that the reception capacity of the educational system should be increased and the quality of education improved, but also that satisfactory economic conditions should be created to enable the individual to make use of the improved educational resources. That the opportunities for education should differ according to the financial circumstances of the applicant is opposed to the principles of a democratic educational system. It is in the national interest, therefore, by different means to attempt to level out the differences in the costs of education as far as is required to ensure that nobody is prevented on financial grounds from receiving the education he desires. There is also the immediate effect of educational stimulation which such equalization measures possess.’ A n important element in educational policy was considered to be the educational-welfare measures. In 1962 an additional committee was appointed to supervise the study

assistance to pupils at gymnasia, people’s high schools, vocational schools and other lower continuation schools, i.e. schools from which recruitment io higher education takes place. It was noted in the committee’s terms of reference that a considerable broadening of recruitment to higher studies had occurred during the post-war period. Nevertheless factors other than mere interest and ability must still be presumed to play an important role in the choice of education by youth. Financial circumstances obviously still have a considerable effect on the choice between education and quicker entry into a career, even when young people have good prospects for higher studies. This was indicated by the fact that in the early 1960s only about 20 per cent of gymnasium pupils and about 16 per cent of students at universities and colleges were recruited from working-class homes. It was therefore considered necessary

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to pay special attention to the gymnasia1 stage when increasing the State efforts to bring about a wider recruitment. The proportions within the various social groups who went on to gymnasium

in the early sixties are illustrated by the following figures (percentage intake): 1. Academicians, officers, business executives, higher officials: 72. 2. Farmers, primary-school teachers, tradesmen, lower officials, certain crafts-

3. Workers in general: 28. Questions of educational welfare had also been considered from the point of view of pure family policy, since increasing numbers of young people continued their education during the ages 16-19. For families this implied a considerably increased financial burden, especially as a number of benefits ended-within social policy and within the field of taxation-when the youngest child reached the age of 16. As a step in family-policy measures, therefore, it was considered that extension of State study assistance to pupils of secondary- school age was of special interest. The two committees pointed to several essential differences in the social

structure for pupils in different forms of school, especially in secondary schools, in relation to the social structure of the entire population, In 1960 more than 50 per cent of wage-earning males aged 35-54 years were workers, while only 25 per cent of those admitted to secondary school came from this social group. Academicians constituted about 3 per cent of employed males of that age group but accounted for about 15 per cent of secondary-school pupils. A special investigation showed a clear relation between social environment

and entry to gymnasium. This applied also to youth in the lowest social group (group 3), even if they had high grades in their preceding school. The socially correlated fall-off at different educational levels had been proved to take place over a period of years at the transition from primary school to the lower secondary school of that time, and also from lower secondary school to gymnasium. On the other hand, it was found that no major socially or geographically correlated fall-off took place at the transition from secondary to post-secondary studies (at universities, colleges and the like). Despite the large differences which still existed, however, between the social

structure of university and college students and that of the entire population, there was nevertheless a not insignificant broadening of the recruitment to higher studies during the 1950s. The proportion of working-class fathers of university and college students was 8 per cent in 1947 against 14 per cent at the beginning of the 1960s. This tendency was undoubtedly actively supported by the reinforced educational welfare measures during the latter half of the 1940s and during the 1950s, but these measures were obviously still insufficient. One of the chief problems which the committees had to consider in their

proposals for reform was, accordingly, to open the way for a further social broadening of recruitment to higher studies.

men and other workers: 44.

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Another circumstance which required attention was that a growing number of students, especially among those who were already of age, appeared to wish to finance their living expenses during their period of study without assistance from their parents. The hesitation about taking educational loans appeared to have been greatly reduced. The reason for this was presumably the vigorous expansion of the Swedish economy, with full employment and a favourable situation on the labour market for highly educated manpower, and with favourable prospects also for future earnings. In the light of this situation indebtedness could be viewed, from the individual’s point of view, chiefly as a changed distribution of income in time. In view of the increased indebtedness of these students-which must be

considered as a reality in the future as well-it was also important for the committees to pay special attention to the problems associated with indebtedness in individual cases. Rules must be constructed for repayment of loans in such a way that the repayment does not in any respect lead to an unreasonable sacrifice especially in regard to earning conditions during the repayment period. The committees submitted proposals for two systems of financing studies,

one for gymnasiul schools (e.g. gymnasia, vocational and lower continuation schools) and one for post-secondary studies (universities and colleges, schools of education, nursing schools, etc.). The 1964 parliament decided to introduce a new State study assistance scheme on the lines proposed by the committees (see Chapter V). Investigations have shown that the social recruitment in recent years has

strikingly improved. The State study assistance has undoubtedly had a great significance for this development. The recruitment to higher education is nevertheless still uneven. From an investigation made in 1968 it is apparent that of all 20-year-olds in social group 3 only 8 per cent go on to higher education, while the figures from social groups 1 and 2 are 63 and 23 per cent respectively. This shows that additional resources must be allocated in different respects in order to further influence recruitment in a democratic direction. Special importance may be ascribed to the State study assistance for secondary- school education.

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V. Present forms of State study assistance in Sweden

As already noted, State study assistance in Sweden is now available under two main systems, one for secondary school and one for post-secondary school studies. For the purpose of allocating assistance for secondary and post-secondary

education, the latter is considered to be education at those establishments in which the main proportion of the pupils are of age (now officially 20 years). It may also be said that post-secondary education is considered in principle to comprise education after the completion of gymnasia1 school. Within secondary-school education (and so within the secondary-school

study-assistance scheme), however, there are a large number of pupils above 20 years of age, especially at the vocational schools and, above all, within adult education at the secondary-school level (see Chapter 111). The following account takes into consideration the decisions concerning

certain new improvements of State study assistance passed by parliament in the spring of 1970.

STATE STUDY ASSISTANCE FOR SECONDARY-SCHOOL EDUCATION

It should be mentioned by way of introduction that families with children receive State assistance in the form (among others) of a ‘child allowance’. This amounts to 100 kronor per child per month up to the quarter in which the child attains the age of 16. The child allowance is thus also paid during the period when the child is at compulsory school (comprehensive school). For children attending comprehensive school (or corresponding forms of

school which are in course of being abolished) in the quarter after attaining the age of 16, an extended child allowance of 100 kronor per school month (an academic year is nine months) is paid within the framework of State study assistance. In certain exceptional cases a pupil at comprehensive school may receive a ‘travel allowance’ or ‘boarding allowance’ for schooling away from his place of residence in accordance with the rules set forth below. The costs of travel to and from comprehensive school, however, and the boarding of pupils from, for example, sparsely populated areas, are normally covered by the local authority.

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Differentiation of secondary-school pupils for dixerent forms of State study assistance

The main factor determining whether a young person can afford to go on to secondary school is whether or not he is a member of the family economic unit. A pupil belonging to a family economic unit is usually considered to receive an appreciable portion of the costs of his education from his parents. A pupil who does not belong to a family economic unit, on the other hand, must be assumed to undertake the responsibility for his own maintenance. From this it follows that the latter category of pupils generally have a greater need of support from elsewhere for financing of their studies. This is why age has been taken as an acceptable measure for deciding whether pupils actually belong to a family economic unit or not. The State study assistance for secondary-school education has been differentiated on the basis of pupils’ age. The boundary line is 20 years, at which children now officially come of age. For a pupil who attains the age of 19 years at most during the calendar year

in which the academic year or course stxts, certain parts of the State study assistance are means-tested in respect of the parents’ finances. For these younger pupils the expression ‘younger pupils’ is used below. For a pupil who attains the age oE 20 years or above during the calendar

year in which the academic year or course starts, the State study assistance is paid without means test in respect of the parents’ finances. From the point of view of educational welfare, therefore, these pupils are entirely independent of their parents. For these older pupils the expression ‘older pupils’ is used below.

Forms of State study assistance .for secondary-school education

Assistance to younger pupils Study allowance. A study allowance is paid amounting to 100 kronor’ per school month. The allowance is paid to all pupils without application and irrespective

of the parents’ financial situation. For most pupils the study allowance is a continuation of the child allowance

(or extended child allowance) and has hitherto been paid in the same amount per month as the two latter allowances. It is to be regarded as an allowance to the parents for the educational costs of their children. During the academic year 1968/69 study allowances were paid to some

197,000 pupils in a total amount of 121 million kronor.

1. At present rates of exchange 100 kronor are equivalent to U.S.$19.23, f 8 (st9), 105.87 French francs and 69.75 German marks.

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Travel allowance. A travel allowance is paid without means test for daily travel between home and school as follows:

Distance travelled in kilometres (minimum) 6 15 25 35 Travel allowance in kronor per month 50 70 90 110

The amount of the travel allowance is determined on the basis of the fare by public means of communication, the allowance covering roughly half the fare. The allowance is intended to equalize the costs of study between pupils

who live far from school and must therefore travel every day and pupils whose home is near the school. During the academic year 1968/69, travel allowances were paid to some

76,000 pupils to a total amount of 40 million kronor. Boarding allowance. A boarding allowance is paid without means test to

an amount of 125 kronor per school month to those in need of boarding. The boarding allowance constitutes a contribution to the cost of board

and lodging at the place of study; its intention is to equalize the costs of schooling between pupils remote from the school and pupils living near it. Parents’ expenditure for board and lodging of a child away from home

may vary very greatly, depending on the extent to which the school directly subsidizes board and lodging. Typical costs at people’s high schools are 175-340 kronor per month. At central apprentice-training schools and agricultural schools the board and lodging expenses are between 175 and 225 kronor per month. During the academic year 1968/69 board and lodging allowances were paid

to some 48,600 pupils to a total amount of 37 million kronor. Income-tested allowance. Income-tested allowances are paid as follows (in

kronor):

Taxable income 0-8,000 8,100-1 2,000 12,100-20,000 Allowance per

If the student’s parents have the custody of at least one other child less than 16 years of age, or if the parents are liable for maintenance for such a child, an income-tested allowance of 25 kronor more per month than indicated above may be paid. By taxable income is meant, the income subject to State tax taking into

account both parents’ and students’ income. Income is also counted as one-fifth of the part of their total capital exceeding 50,000 kronor. The relationship between taxable income to gross income in 1970 will be

seen from Table 1. (The examples relate to a married taxpayer in normal circumstances; only one of the parents is assumed to have an income.) The report of the Low Income Committee, Incomes of the Swedish People

(Government Official Reports 1970:34), verifies in a striking way how education affects future earnings. The medium wage for men and women together among

school month 75 50 25

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TABLE 1. Relation between taxable income and gross income, Sweden, 1970 (figures in kronor) ~~ ~~

Corresponding Taxable gross income annual income

(approx ) Income conditions

0- 8,000 U p to 16,000 This group chiefly includes persons with early retirement pension, widows or disablement pension, or on part-time work and, in the upper income bracket, a considerable number of employees within certain low-wage occupations.

8,100-1 2,000 16,000-20,000 For permanent full-time employees on the Swedish labour market the medium wage according to a recent investigation is 24,340

12,000-20,000 20,000-28,000 kronor per annum in the age group 34-44 years.

employees with secondary-school and comparable or longer education exceeds the medium wage among those solely with primary-school education’ by 36 per cent in the age group 14-24 years, 55 per cent in the 25-34 age group, 88 per cent in the 35-44 age group and 127 per cent in the 45-64 age group. The aforementioned skewness in the social recruitment for education above

primary-school level has been the reason for basing State study assistance on the financial situation of the parents. The income-tested allowance must be viewed as an allowance to parents for the pupil’s living expenses during the period of education. In conjunction with other forms of allowance and study loans, this is also judged to have significance in the choice between continued schooling and entering an occupation. During the academic year 1968/69 income-tested allowances were paid for

about 65,000 pupils totalling 26 million kronor. Means-tested allowance. Means-tested allowances are paid amounting to 75

kronor per school month in cases when there is an extremely great need of State study assistance over and above the allowances described above. The main condition is that the pupil shall be entitled to a maximum ‘income-

tested allowance’ (75 kronor per month; see ‘Income-tested Allowance’ above). This is intended chiefly for children of unmarried and divorced parents with very low incomes. During the academic year 1968/69 means-tested allowances were paid for

about 11,300 pupils amounting to 7 million kronor.’

1. As a rule, maximum seven years of schooling; Chapter I11 (‘Primary School’) with particulars of the present nine-year comprehensive school.

2. From the foregoing account of allowances available, it is apparent that a pupil of not more than 19 years of age may receive allowances, not subject to repayment, to amounts which vary from 100 to 400 kronor per school month, i.e. from 900 to

215


Study loans. Study loans are granted after a means test to ‘younger pupils’ (19 years or under) to a maximum amount of 4,000 kronor if the period of study during one year is at least ten months. If the period of study is shorter, the loan is reduced proportionally. A full-time pupil who has a maintenance liability for a child may receive

a larger loan. The extended loan facilities introduced in 1964 were intended primarily for

adult students. For ‘younger pupils’ a certain restrictivity must be observed. This is bound up with the notion that studies at the secondary-school level should as far as possible not involve indebtedness. For pupils whose parents have limited means of assistance in their studies, however, the loan is used to supplement the various allowances to the extent necessary to cover costs of education. The means test is based on the parents’ and the student’s own finances.

If the student is married, account is taken of the spouse’s finances instead of those of the parents. The limits assigned to parents’ income in the means test correspond roughly

to those for the ‘income-tested allowance’ of 25 kronor referred to above If the pupil has brothers or sisters supported by the parents, the income limit is raised in relation to the number of brothers and sisters. Under special circumstances, the means test may be more lenient. N o security is required for study loans. Interest is paid for the entire period of the loan (at present 64 per cent). Interest during the amortization-free period (cf. repayment rules below) is added to the capital and paid off in instalments during the entire amortization period. Amortization usually starts during the third year after completion of studies

and continues annually for twenty years at most. A relief of the amortization conditions may be granted after testing in each particular case. If the repayment capacity of the borrower is permanently reduced, e.g. owing to illness, the loan may be written off in part or in whole. If the borrower dies, the remaining debt is always written 0ff.I This State study assistance is paid in accordance with the same rules during

the entire period of education to a pupil who attains the age of 19 years at most during the calendar year in which the academic year or course starts. There is no aptitude test. Nor are specific results of study required during the educational period.

Assistance to older pupils. As stated above, ‘older pupils’ are those who attain the age of 20 or more during the calendar year in which the academic year or

3,600 kronor for an academic year of nine months. The variations of the amount are dependent on the parents’ and pupil’s financial situation and on the distance between the pupil‘s place of residence and the school.

1. Furthermore, study loans can be obtained after a means test to an amount (maxi- m u m 4,000 kronor) which entirely covers reasonable educational expenses.

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course starts. From the point of view of assistance these pupils are considered to be entirely independent of their parents. Augmented study allowance. An augmented study allowance of I75 kronor

per school month is obtainable without application. This augmented allowance is a general allowance for educational expenses and is not subject to a means test except in so far as a deduction is made for apprentice wages or other similar remuneration exceeding 125 kronor per month and paid during the school period. Apprentice wages are paid to some extent, especially at vocational schools. During the acadenlic year 1968169, augmented study allowances were paid

to some 23,200 pupils to a total amount of 26 million kronor. O n an average, every pupil received 1,100 kronor.

Study loans. Study loans are granted after a means test to ‘older pupils’ (20 years or above) to an amount of a maximum of 6,500 kronor if the period of study during one year is at least ten months. If the period of study is shorter, the loan is reduced proportionally. A pupil studying full-time and with maintenance liability for one child

may receive a larger loan. The study loan together with the augmented study allowance described

above is available in an amount sufficient to cover normal educational and living expenses. A means test. however, is made of the pupil’s own and his/her spouse’s finances in accordance with roughly the same rules as for students at post-secondary educational establishments (see the next section below). This means that the pupil himself may at present have an annual income of 5,040 kronor and capital of 37,800 without effect on the study loan. If his income or capital exceeds these amounts, the study loan is reduced by a proportion of the excess amount. In the same way as loans to ‘younger pupils‘, no security is required for

the loan. lnterest conditions and rules for repayment and write-off are the same as for the study allowance described above.’

STATE STUDY ASSISTANCE FOR POST-SECONDARY EDUCATION

Students at universities, colleges and other post-secondary educational establishments receive their State study assistance under a special study funds system.’ This system has certain similarities with the Swedish social insurances. The amount payable under this system per term (half-year) is protected

against depreciation of value by being linked to the index-regulated base

1. During the academic year 1968/69, study loans were made to some 27,700 ‘younger pupils’ and ‘older pupils’ at secondary schools to a total amount of 87 million kronor. The mean amount per pupil was 3,132 kronor.

2. The number of students at post-secondary educational establishments in the academic year 1968/69 was about 140,900. Roughly 70 per cent of them, about 97,300, drew study funds. An amount of 167.3 million kronor was paid in study allowances and 586 million kronor in repayable study funds, a total of 753.3 million kronor.

217


amount according to the General Insurance Act. Repayment of the portion which is not an allowance is also index-regulated and is thus made in stable monetary value.

Rules for granting of study funds

Aptitude test. During their first year of study all students receive assistance without an aptitude test. After one year of studies the student must exhibit satisfactory results in order to receive further assistance. Between 90 and 95 per cent of students are thought to be entitled to this form of assistance with regard to their merit rating.

Maximum period for grant of study funds and age limit. In the absence of special reasons to the contrary, study funds can be granted for at most sixteen terms (eight academic years). Examples of special reasons for the receipt of study funds during a longer period are studies for a doctor’s degree and researcher training. A basic academic degree usually takes four to five years, a medical degree about six to seven years. A person above 45 years of age cannot be granted study funds in the absence

of special reasons. The assessment in these cases is very liberal. This is in line with the government’s intention to stimulate older persons to take a course of education and thus to improve their competitivity on the market. For shorter periods of education of one to two years study funds are granted up to the age of 50.

Amount of study funds. As already noted, the amount of study funds is index- regulated; it amounts per term (half year) to 70 per cent of the base amount. The base amount is at present 6,300 kronor. The amount of study funds is thus at present 4,410 kronor for one term.

This amount is intended to cover normal educational and living expenses during five months of study. During the sixth month of the half year, which is normally a vacation period, the student is expected, through his own work or otherwise, to cover his living expenses. If the student has a maintenance liability for a child below the age of 16

years, a child allowance of 12.5 per cent of the base amount is payable per term and child. The child allowance is at present 787 kronor for one term. If special reasons exist (they must be extreme cases) study funds can be

paid to a larger amount than 70 per cent of the base amount. Examples of such reasons are abnormally large expenditure for educational material, course fees at certain private schools or at schools outside Sweden (see Chapter VI). Of the amount of study funds, 875 kronor per term represent a study allow-

ance, which, accordingly, is not repayable. The remainder of the study funds (including child allowance) are repayable in accordance with the rules set forth below.

218


A student who so desires can apply for an amount smaller than the maximum. In such a case he receives primarily the study allowance to which he is entitled.

Reduction rules. The student’s right to receive study funds is dependent on his own and on his wife’s income and capital assets. Income is taken to be gross income prior to deduction of tax. O n the other hand the parents’ income or capital does not affect the right to study funds. The reduction rules are as follows:

Own income. Free amount per term, 40 per cent of base amount. The free amount is at present 2,520 kronor. If the income exceeds the free amount, the study funds are reduced by two-thirds of the excess amount.

Spouse’s income. Free amount per term, 140 per cent of the base amount. The spouse’s free amount is thus at present 8,820 kronor. If the income exceeds the free amount, the study funds are reduced by one-third of the excess amount.

O w n capital. Free amount six times the base amount. At present the free amount is 37,800 kronor. If the capital exceeds the free amount, the study funds for the term are reduced by one-fifth of the excess capital.

Spouse’s capital. For a spouse the free amount and reduction rules are the same as for the student’s capital. The spouses’ capital amounts are assessed separately. In total, accordingly, in the maximal case two spouses together may at present possess capital amounting to 75,600 kronor without reduction of the study funds.

On reduction of the study funds, the allowance and the repayable amount are reduced proportionally. If special reasons exist, income and capital which-in accordance with the

rules above-would reduce the study funds, may be ignored. An example of such a case is one that occurs when a capital asset cannot be sold or used as security for a loan for coverage of educational expenses. If study funds are granted, even if they would not be granted under the main rule, no study allowance is paid, but the entire amount of the study funds must be repaid.

RULES FOR REPAYMENT OF STUDY FUNDS

Principles

Educational credit without subsidy. At the time of the introduction of the study funds system it was already known-and further brought to light by later investigations-that persons who had received education at a university, college or similar educational establishment had very much higher incomes than persons who had not received such education. As already mentioned, the main portion of the study funds has the form

of an educational credit. The reason why the choice did not instead fall on

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Pre,sent problems in the democratization of secondary and higher education

a system based to a greater extent on allowances was chiefly that, on grounds of general justice, it was not considered reasonable to favour still further the groups which received higher education. On similar grounds, it was felt that a credit system should not allow large subsidies to borrowers. A conventional system of loans, in which the loans are free of interest or run at a very low rate of interest, was also inconceivable.

Suitable periodization of repayments. A general characteristic of the method of repaying a debt in the form of amortization plus interest is that the total outlay is greatest during the first year of amortization, after which it successively diminishes. This is because the annual interest is calculated on the balance of the debt, which diminishes as successive repayments are made. The periodization of the outlays consequent on the method of a conventional

amortization loan is not suitable for repayment of an educational loan. A person who has been undergoing education is usually least capable of making repayments at the start of his active occupational period. In the first place, most professions which require education are ‘career professions’, i.e. one starts at a low level on a fairly moderate salary and then advances and continuously receives an increase of salary. The highest salary level is often attained when one approaches pensionable age. Usually, moreover, a person who has recently completed his education

also has higher living expenses. He may have the support of a family with small children (women may be forced entirely to abstain from a gainful occupation owing to difficulties in arranging for care of their children). Expenditure of a non-recurrent character is also usual during this period, e.g. in the form of spending that has been postponed during the period of study, or what may be called ‘establishment costsy, for example for setting up house, moving to new accommodation and the like. A certain successive reduction of the value of money must also be counted

on; every krona paid at the beginning of the amortization period is thus worth more than at the end of the amortization period. Finally one must reckon on a certain general rise of living standards in the community as a whole, which also means that the burden of a conventional educational loan is greatest at the beginning of the repayment period. Thus, it may be said that the distribution of the repayment burden over the

years for a conventional loan is precisely what it should not be for an educational credit-viewed from the borrower’s point of view.

Conclusions. The main requirements in a system of educational credits were that they ought not to contain any major elements of subsidies to borrowers and that the periodization of repayments should be so arranged that the burden was not greatest at the beginning of the repayment period. The repayment method which was considered to reasonably meet both these

220


requirements was a system of repayment in stable money value but without interest. In the last decade the consumer prices in Sweden (including rises of indirect

taxation) have annually increased by 3 to 4 per cent. It may be assumed that this trend in the purchasing power of the krona will continue. The calculated depreciation of the money value then corresponds to an interest cost of 3 to 4 per cent if the educational credit is repaid in stable money value. A n interest cost of 3 to 4 per cent may appear low and imply that the afore-

mentioned aim of not creating a system o€ subsidies to borrowers is not attained. The following points, however, should be noted. A normal rate of interest on loans in Sweden is at present about 8 per cent.

When calculating income tax, however, interests on debts are deductable from the taxable income. In the Swedish taxation system the marginal taxes are fairly high, a marginal tax of 50 per cent being common. Tax deductions with a nominal interest of 8 per cent, therefore, imply that at ordinary income levels the real interest is only about 4 per cent; i.e. the real interest corresponds largely to the average depreciation of the money value. In actual fact, accordingly, repayment in stable money value but without interest does not imply an actual subsidy to borrowers--on condition, naturally, that the change in value of money is roughly as stated above. What the system chosen implies for the second main aim, namely of

attaining a favourable periodization o€ repayments, will be seen from the sequel.

Rules

Base amozmf. As already mentioned, the benefits under the Swedish social insurances are index-regulated. The base amount corresponds to 4,000 kronor at the 1957 value of money. The base amount is altered according to the consumer price index, which also takes into account changes in indirect taxation. At the beginning of 1970, the base amount was 6,000 kronor. The base amount is also used for index regulation of study funds.

Conversion of study firnds paid. The study funds to be repaid-'the study loan', -are converted to the present base amount. If for the spring term of 1970, for example, a person received 3,000 kronor in repayable study funds, this figure corresponded to 3,000/6,000 = 0.500 of the base amount.

Repayment. The two calendar years immediately after receipt of the last study funds are free from repayment. The repayment thus starts during the third year after the student received study funds for the last time. The total study debt (indicated in number of base amounts) is divided by

the number of years for repayment. This gives a charge quotient which is equivalent to the number of base amounts to be repaid annually.

22 1


The number of years for repayment is determined as follows. Repayment must usually continue up to the year in which the recipient of the study funds attains the age of 50. It is ensured, however, that the number of years of repayment is at least 15, with the limitation that the last repayment year must fall, at the latest, within the year when he reaches the age of 65. Further- more, the number of repayment years must not be so great that the charge quotient becomes less than 0.100. The amortization for a single year consists of the charge quotient multiplied

by the base amount for the year. Depending on the student’s own financial situation, and that of his or her

spouse, a complete or partial delay in repayment can be granted for a single year. The main rule is that the student’s own and/or spouse’s income and a certain portion of their capital must total a given amount, related to the base amount, if he is to be liable for payment during a year. The entire repayment scheme is then postponed accordingly. This is easy to arrange technically without troublesome effects, precisely because the repayment is made at a stable money value. There is no need to recalculate amortization plans and the accumulation and possible capitalization of interests which will be necessary in a conventional system of loans.

Cessation of repayments. Repayment ceases: 1. When the recipient of study funds has repaid as many base amounts as he received in repayable study funds.

2. When the repayment amounts to as many kronor as would have been repaid if the loan had been a conventional loan paid in the form of annuities, running at a specific rate of interest (this rule affords protection against heavy inflation, which would otherwise mean that this form of credit was altogether more expensive than an ordinary loan).

3. If the recipient of the study funds dies. 4. In the year after the recipient attains the age of 65 (this rule may thus mean

that a person who has been granted a respite in repayment during the ‘ordinary’ repayment period has part of this debt written off).

Item 3 implies that survivors are protected against the risk of paying the study debt of a relative who dies. This applies irrespective of whether the recipient leaves assets or not. Item 4, together with the rule of respite in repayment during a single year,

implies that the recipient is protected against an unreasonable burden of repayments during his lifetime. The method of repayment in stable money value implies that one pays

each year an amount equally large in terms of stable money value. The burden is thus evenly distributed over the entire period of repayment. If the money value successively falls, one pays the lowest ‘amortization’ in kronor during the first year of repayment and the highest ‘amortization’ during the last year of repayment. In a conventional system of loans the reverse applies.

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L 0

? f P 3

Y

.-

v) I I I I

1 5 10 15 20 Year of repayment

(a)

fl , I I , m

1 5 10 15 20 Year of repayment

(b) ---- - - -. study funds

loan plus interest (net)

FIG. 1. Methods of repayment: (a) in current money value; (b) in stable money value.

223

Pre,sent problems in the democratization of secondary and higher education

From (a) and (b) of Figure 1 it will be seen how the repayments under the two methods differ during the total repayment period, here assumed to be twenty years. The annual rise of the base amount (equivalent to the depreciation of the money value) has been assumed to be 3.5 per cent per annum. The real interest has likewise been assumed to be 3.5 per cent per annum.

STATE STUDY ASSISTANCE DURING RESEARCHER TRAINING

Researcher training was reformed in 1969. The earlier licentiat degree and doctor’s degree were combined into a single scientific degree-the doctor’s degree. Studies for this degree must be arranged so that the effective period of study can be limited to four years. The financing of studies for those undergoing researcher training is arranged

according to two alternative principles-either through a salary for service as junior researcher or research fellow assistant at a scientific institution, or through a special grant, the doctorate grant, in combination with the State’s study-assistance funds for post-secondary education outlined above. The doctorate grant amounts 10,750 kronor per annum. In addition, there

is the study allowance within the study funds-1,750 kronor-thus totalling 12,500 kronor in cash. Repayable study funds, amounting at present to 7,070 kronor, are also available. In total, therefore, a person undergoing researcher training may receive 19,570 kronor in one year. If the student has children, a child allowance is paid in accordance with the rules for study funds-at present, 1,574 kronor per year per child. The doctorate grant does not reduce the maximum amount of the study funds. Grants and study funds are free of tax.

SPECIAL BENEFITS FOR STUDENTS

An account is given below of the chief benefits of indirect study assistance.

Free teaching

There are no admission fees, term fees or other fees for teaching at the government or local-government educational establishments. Such fees occur at private schools but, through allocations to these schools, the State has contributed to their reduction. At universities and colleges there are student-union fees amounting to 100

kronor per term, at most.

Free textbooks and other teaching aids

Within the compulsory comprehensive school (see Chapter 111) pupils have long received textbooks and other teaching aids free of charge. In many

224


municipalities the school materials are also free at the secondary-school stage, whereas free textbooks are almost never issued within the post-secondary stage. In February 1970 a committee presented proposals for entirely free textbooks

at all secondary forms of scliool for both youth and adult education. The committee also suggested that the principle of free textbooks should

apply to post-secondary education and that the latter students should be furnished on a reasonable scale with the textbooks required for satisfactory pursuit of their studies. This question, however, is bound up with the allocation of study funds (see Chapter V, ‘State Study Assistance for Post-secondary Education’). Details of the study fund’s system are at present undergoing examination. The question of free textbooks will then enter into the picture. The costs for textbooks and consumable materials for the academic year

1968/69 are calculated to have been as follows (in million kronor): comprehensive and secondary schools, 197 (approx.) ; post-secondary education (course literature, etc.), 44; total, 241.

Free school meals

At the comprehensive schools, the pupils receive one school meal free of charge. At the secondary stage they receive the same benefit to a large extent. The trend is towards the provision of free school meals at all secondary schools. Students at post-secondary educational establishments do not receive these

benefits. The study funds are so calculated as to cover the costs of meals.

Medical cure and weljure

At primary and secondary schools there are welfare officers and school doctors who help and treat pupils free of charge. Certain free dental care is also given. At most post-secondary educational establishments there is a health service

created at the initiative of the student organization. This service is financed chiefly out of government funds.

Travel rebates

Pupils above 12 years of age at all levels in Swedish schools receive a ‘student ticket’ from the Swedish railways. This entitles them to purchase a second-class return ticket on railways and buses between Swedish stations at the same price of a one-way fare. The reduced fare, however, may not be less than 17 kronor. The internal air services allow a rebate of 50 per cent to students below 26

years of age for travel between their place of domicile and the school locality.

Pupils’ and students’ hostels

At the secondary schools there are usually pupils’ hostels of only a small

225


scale, except at the people’s high schools, which are typical boarding schools. A concentration of large school units, with greater distances between school and home, is now resulting in an increased need for pupils’ hostels. To some extent, but with great variation, pupils’ hostels are subsidized by the school organizing bodies. For students at post-secondary educational establishments, special students’

hostels have been built up to a large extent. Earlier, considerable State subsidies were paid for student hostels. It is

now considered, however, that the rents at these hostels should follow the general level, one reason being that not all students can be accommodated at a hostel. Allowances for accommodation should in other words be equal irrespective of whether the student lives in a hostel or rents accommodation on the open market. There are many, moreover, who consider that special students’ hostels or residential areas should not be built but that student accommodation be interspersed among the ordinary housing. Students’ hostels are built entirely with the aid of State loans. State loans

are also available for furnishing of the rooms.

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VI. Right to State study assistance for studies abroad

Study assistance for secondary and post-secondary education is available to Swedish subjects for corresponding studies abroad. For studies in the other Scandinavian countries-Denmark, Finland, Iceland

and Norway-assistance is based on the same rules as set down for studies in Sweden. No special application for assistance is required in this case. Studies in other countries are subject to condition that the same studies

cannot be pursued in Sweden to equal advantage.

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VII. Facilities for State study assistance to aliens in Sweden

For studies in Sweden, a person who is not a Swedish subject can receive study assistance under the same conditions applicable to a Swedish subject if he is resident in Sweden and has not taken up residence principally for educational purposes. Consequent to these rules, an alien may not come to Sweden and unconditionally benefit by Swedish study assistance. Special consideration, however, is paid to persons who are regarded as political refugees under the Swedish Alien Act and to persons comparable to refugees, as well as to children whose parents are resident and working in Sweden. The same applies to a person married to a Swedish subject. As mentioned in the introduction, partially altered and more detailed rules

concerning the right of aliens to study assistance in Sweden may be expected.

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VIII. Total expenditure on study assistance in Sweden

The present forms of State study assistance in Sweden have been accounted for in Chapter V. Particulars were also given concerning certain expenditures for various benefits. In the sequel, a survey will be presented of the total government expenditure for study assistance according to the estimates for the budget year 1970/71. In order to illustrate the burden of expenditure on educational welfare, other government expenditure within the sphere of the Ministry of Education is included. The expenditure is broken down to separate current budget and capital budget. The capital budget includes investment allocations to different capital accounts, e.g. ‘general educational loans account’ (see ‘Study Loans’ above), and ‘the study funds account’ (see Chapter V, ‘Repayment’, above concerning repayable study funds granted).

TABLE 2. Total expenditure on study assistance in Sweden (1970/71)

Sphere of expenditure Percentage of total Ministry

Allocation in budget year (million kronor)

Total uf Education Current budget

Ministry of Education salaries, costs, etc.

Cultural purposes Ecclesiastic purposes Schools Higher education and research Teacher training Adult education Educational welfare 3 International cultural co-operation

23.1

10.3 320.0 84.7

23.1 0.3 404.7 4.8 10.3 0.1

,543.0 0.1 ,543.1 54.4 166.0 130.0 1,296.0 15.5 334.3 334.3 4.0 304.5 304.5 3.6 557.3 877.5 1,434.8 17.2 8.5 8.5 0.1 -

Total for Ministry of Education 7,267.0 1,092.3 8,359.3 100

1 Expenditure for ecclesiastical purposes is met to a large extent by ecclesiastical funds, etc. 2. Schools expenditure is borne also by the local authorities. 3. Administration, allowances, educational credits. 4. The administrative costs at the local level are borne by the local authorities in respect of the

secondary-school study assistance.

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IX. Administrative organization

The central authority for State study assistance in Sweden is the Central Study Assistance Committee appointed by the government. The committee consists of seven members and, in accordance with the regulations concerning experimental activities, a further member representing the students. Study assistance for the secondary-school stage is administered primarily

by the local education authorities and the headmasters of schools. Applications for educational loans and certain types of allowances, however, are dealt with by the central authority. Study funds for post-secondary studies are administered primarily by six

regional study-fund committees. These committees consist of five members appointed by the government and of representatives of teachers and students at the educational establishments. A decision by a local or regional organ may be appealed to the central

committee. ' At present, several government committees are working on educational welfare questions. One committee has recently presented proposals concerning rules for study assistance to non-Swedish students. Another committee is dealing with the organization of the study-fund system and with certain benefits. A third committee is investigating the financing of studies within adult education.

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X. Study assistance in the other Scandinavian countries

Brief accounts are given below of the study assistance in the other Scandinavian countries (Denmark, Finland, Iceland and Norway). Because of lack of space the study assistance provided in these countries can unfortunately not be dealt with in such detail as would have been desirable to present a clear picture of their efforts and methods to provide education for their citizens.’

STUDY ASSISTANCE IN DENMARK

Only a fragmentary picture will be given of the present rules and the extent of the assistance, one reason being that proposals have been presented for a new law concerning financial support for education. The intention is that the proposed assistance shall be built up successively.

Its main features are that, according to rules laid down by the Ministry of Education, the Danish State will grant assistance to ‘pupils’ and ‘students’ in poor circumstances who, after the end of compulsory education, take an officially approved course in Denmark or, outside the country, according to special rules. It is proposed that the assistance shall be available in the form of grants and loans. The grants will be made in the form of means-tested grants, the allocation depending on the applicant’s and his parents’ income and capital, and of ‘basic grants’, in which case the allocation is dependent solely on the applicant’s financial situation. Under the proposal, the loans will be free of interest during the period of education and subject to interest after the end of education (loan I) or both during education and thereafter (loan 11). For ‘pupils’ below the age of 20 it is proposed that assistance will be available exclusively in the form of grants; pupils above the age of 20 and ‘students’ will quality for grants and loans. The term ‘students’ defines applicants for education requiring at least twelve years of previous schooling or corresponding education and by ‘pupils’ those for whom the requirement of preceding education is less.

1. Anyone who desires further information concerning study assistance in Denmark, Finland, Iceland or Norway may refer to the following organs: Denmark: Ungdo- mmens Uddannelsesfond, Fiolstraede 244, Copenhagen K: Firilaiid: Statens Studies- todscentral, Postbox 1301 0, Helsinki 13; Icelarid: Undervisningsministeriet, Reykja- vik; Norway: Statens Lhekasse For Utdanning, Okernveien 145, Oslo 5.

23 1


For allocation under the rules applying for the academic year 1968/69 there were about 217 million Danish kroner’ available. Of this amount some 92 million kroner were paid in grants and the same amount in loans to 85,400 post-secondary students; 14 million kroner as grants to secondary-school pupils and to those attending student courses; 12 million kroner as grants to pupils in certain primary-school classes and at lower secondary-school ; and 6.5 million kroner as grants to apprentices. The total grants thus amounted to 125 million kroner and total loans to about 92 million kroner. For the individual recipient of a grant/loan the assistance was a minimum of 1,000 and a maximum of 7,500 kroner. In the sanctioning of assistance consideration was paid to the parents’, the student’s and spouse’s income and capital in accordance with certain rules. Apart from the aforesaid grants and state loans a State guarantee for edu-

cational loans in banks and saving associations can be provided in certain cases. The total assistance must not exceed 11,000 kroner per annum.

STUDY ASSISTANCE IN FINLAND

Number of students receiving study assistance

The study assistance available in different forms (grants and loans) is made to those who continue their studies after compulsory school. The number of students at various educational stages is at present as follows: gymnasium, 70,000; vocational schools and institutes, 1 1 5,000; universities and colleges, 55,000; total, 245,000.

Development of the system during the years 194448

The first extensive reform of study assistance was introduced in 1944 when, in principle, all the aforementioned stages of education were taken into account by the law passed concerning the support of vocational studies. A strongly contributory factor in the creation of this law was the shortage of vocationally trained manpower; the attempt to remedy this problem was made by improving the earning opportunities of young people in poor circumstances in the form of grants and interest-free loans. The law is still in force, but from the point of view of total financing of studies its significance is very slight since the benefits are so small. In 1948 and 1949 two laws relating to grants for gymnasia1 and college students were passed: the object of these laws was to support talented and industrious but economically deprived youths. Since 1959, a State guarantee for educational loans has also been available to college students.

1. At the present rate of exchange 100 Danish kroner are equivalent to 69.10 Swedish kronor.

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The reform of 1969

In 1966, a committee was appointed to draw up proposals for a study-assistance system suited to the conditions in Finland. A major reason for the appointment of the committee was that the study-assistance legislation was very disrupted and of little effect. Especially at the college stage the defects of the system meant that students increasingly often took a job concurrently with their studies which were generally broken off because of financial difficulties. On the other hand, an investigation showed that the social background of those studying at colleges differed considerably from the social distribution of the entire population. According to the same investigation it seemed obvious that a partial reason for this was inadequate study assistance which, for those from poor homes, constituted a hindrance to application for higher education. In its report issued in 1968, the Study Assistance Committee proposed the

establishment of a single, uniform study-assistance law. Study assistance was to consist of allowances and loans which together would cover an average of 70 per cent of the total educational expenses. The committee considered that parents’ capital should be entirely disregarded. Implementation of the committee’s proposal would have implied an increase of the study-assistance expenditure from 10 million markka’ at that time to about 435 million markka before 1974, when the law in its entirety would have entered into force. The committee’s proposal was, however, not realized in its original form.

O n the basis of the proposal made by the Study Assistance Working Group appointed by the Ministry of Education in 1968, laws concerning State guarantees and reduction of interest for educational loans were passed especially for students at the college and institutional level. These laws entered into force on 1 September 1969. This State guarantee and reduced-interest system has been extended as from 1 July 1970 to comprise all vocational and college education under public supervision.

Present studjl assistance

Talented students in poor circumstances at the gymrzasial stage may receive an annual grant of 180-360 markka. Pupils in poor circumstances who make normal advances in their studies

at a vocational school or institute may receive an annual grant of 200-250 markka and a State guarantee for a loan, the amount of which is established on the basis of the average educational expenses. For allocation to students at universities and colleges, about 8,000 grants

are made annually to an amount of 720-1,040 markka. All students fulfilling

1. At the present rate of exchange, 100 Finnish markka are equivalent to 124.35 Swedish kronor.

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certain minimum requirements have thus the opportunity of obtaining a State guarantee for a study loan based on the average educational expenses. Educational loans guaranteed by the State are subject to reduced interest

during the period of study and during eighteen months thereafter, the interest paid by the student himself being 3 per cent. Owing to the successive abolish- ment of the system, this applies for the time being only to loans to students at colleges and institutes. The maximum interest for loans without this support is a per cent. The amortization period for educational loans guaranteed by the State is

determined on the basis of the length of the period of study and the total amount of the loan, and varies between two and eleven years after taking a degree. The financial status of the parents does not affect the granting of a loan against State guarantee and reduced interest. During the academic year 1969170 about 60 per cent of students at universities and colleges and about 30 per cent at institutional level financed their studies through educational loans. In the 1970 budget estimates, about 17 million markka have been reserved

for study assistance. The guarantee amount for educational loans in April 1970 amounted to some 140 million markka.

Plans for extension of the system

Owing to the wide scope of the study-assistance system it has been necessary to develop the method in steps. In conjunction with the 1969 study-assistance reform, it became inevitable to incorporate the study-assistance legislation within the uniform legislation proposed by the Study Assistance Committee, so as to extend the circle of those receiving study assistance and to increase the amounts of the benefit. Preparation for a uniform study-assistance law is going ahead rapidly. In this connexion special attention must be paid to the development of study assistance at the secondary-school stage. The aim of the entire study-assistance system is gradually to do away with the obstacles which still seem to exist against an impartial and effective use of the opportunities for education.

Study assistance for students abroad and for aliens studying in Finland

On 1 July 1970 the system of State guarantee and reduced interest for educational loans was extended to include studies conducted abroad under the condition that the student is a Finnish subject whose residence abroad is temporary and for the purpose of study. As of the same date, the State guarantee and reduced interest can also be granted to aliens resident in Finland provided that they have come to Finland in order to remain there permanently and have been resident in the country in the past two years. In special cases, study assistance may be granted to a person who has lived

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for a shorter time in Finland if it can otherwise be established that he is permanently resident in the country.

STUDY ASSISTANCE IN ICELAND

The present law concerning educational loans and grants dates from 1967. Icelandic students receive financial assistance from a special loans fund for studies at the University of Iceland, certain departments of the Iceland School of Education, Iceland Institute of Technology, foreign universities and technical educational establishments as well as at comparable foreign educational establishments. The loans fund is used principally for educational loans. A person studying

abroad also receives a travel grant in addition to the loan. Nearly 92 per cent of the funds are used for these two purposes. The remainder goes to grants for further education and for 'major grants', which are awarded every year to seven students for five years of study for outstanding results in the matricu- lation examination. Allocations to the loans fund come from three quarters. The largest allocation

is from the State. Additionally, the board of the fund has obtained the right to raise loans of its own for issue to students and finally, there is a sum from the fund itself in the form of interest and repayments on earlier educational loans. The last grants made from the fund (1970) amounted to 86 million Icelandic

kronur,' of which 60 million is in State allocation, 20 million in bank loans and 61 million from the fund itself. The number of students granted study assistance during 1970 is rather more than 1,300, of whom nearly 600 drew assistance for education abroad. The size of educational loans varies, first according to the living expenses

in the country in which the studies are pursued, and second, according to the stage of education reached by the student, counted in years of study. In 1966, an investigation was made of the total costs for those who applied

for education in different countries. Certain minor adjustments have since been made. The mean allocation from the State has been raised slightly every year to counterbalance the increase in living expenses for studies both at home and abroad. The allocation from the State has also been raised in relation to the alterations of value of the kr6na vis-&vis foreign currency; furthermore, a sum has been granted to increase the real value of the study assistance to each applicant. The calculation of the educational loan in individual cases is based largely

on the total living expenses in the country where the education is received. From this sum the means available to the student (income and special grants

1. According to the present rate of exchange 100 Icelandic krdnur are equivalent to about 5.90' Swedish kronor.

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TABLE 3. Calculation of educational loans in Finland

Abroad Year of study 5$::$ty Abroad

1 30 40 5 70 70 2 40 45 6 80 80 3 50 55 7 90 90 4 60 60

from other quarters) is deducted and the difference is denoted as the residual cost for the student. The amount of the loan is then obtained by multiplying the residual cost by a percentage which rises in relation to the number of years of study as shown in Table 3. The income is reduced slightly before being deducted from the living expenses

in the country of education. For a married applicant with maintenance liability for a child a further deduction from the income is allowed. The student’s expenses are also raised by 25,000 kr6nur for every child to be maintained. On the other hand, no account is taken of the spouse’s income when deciding on a loan to a student. It has been stated in the law that the goal of study assistance should be to

enable anyone seeking education to meet his annual educational expenses, with reasonable consideration paid to his own ability to acquire money for the purpose. It should also be mentioned that students from the other Scandinavian

countries who are permanently resident in Iceland and studying at the Iceland University have the same right under the law to study assistance from the State as Icelandic students.

STUDY ASSISTANCE IN N O R W A Y

All Norwegian subjects who acquire an approved full-time education beyond the compulsory nine-year schooling have the right to apply for State financial assistance. For elementary further education during the tenth to twelfth school years,

assistance is given primarily in the form of a grant. This applies, for example, to the first year at vocational school, the first year at a school of economics and to secondary-school education. Pupils at these schools can also apply for an additional loan in accordance with specified rules. Pupils on other extended education which does not require preceding

secondary or corresponding education are dealt with in respect of grants in the same way as the preceding groups, but they may also apply for a full educational loan. Apprentices with an approved contract may apply for a loan to cover any difference between their salary and their educational expenses.

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Post-secondary education is financed by loans and grants for extra expenses for those who live away from home. The condition for receipt of a grant is that the education is not subsidized

by other means, e.g. by free board and lodging. A grant for a student who lives away from home is not means-tested and is available to all groups except apprentices (this question is being investigated). In the academic year 1970/71 the grant was 2,000 Norwegian kroner.’ Pupils living away from home are normally taken to be boarded pupils whose parents’ home is more than forty kilometres from the school and pupils whose daily return journey between home and school exceeds three hours. All education which does not require preceding gymnasia1 or corresponding

education qualifies for a means-tested grant based on the parents’ income and capital. The means test relates to all students supported by their parents irrespective of age or civil status. Only if particular circumstances can be documented can this rule be waived. During the academic year 1970/71 the grants ran from 400 to 1,400 kroner. A grant for an applicant who is an only child may be made within the income group of 17,000 to 19,000 kroner. The upper income limit for allocation of a means-tested grant is then raised by 3,000 kroner for every additional child in the family. The smaller, supplementary loan, which may be applied for by the group

in the most elementary form of further education, is bound by the same means test as above. For the academic year 1970/71 it was proposed that the amount be between 1,000 and 5,000 kroner. A full educational loan is intended to cover all expenditure incurred during

a year of study and not covered by a grant or by an expected contribution from the parents. Educational expenditure is understood to mean living expenses, educational materials and two journeys home during the academic year. The monthly amounts for living expenses during the academic year 1970/71

are assumed to be at least 820-900 kroner for pupils living away from home and 620-700 kroner for those living at home (the higher amount being for pupils in the three largest cities). A day-course of less than one year (seven months) but more than 34 months

entitles the student to a grant only unless the course is for complementary education. The educational loan is means-tested against the parents’ income and capital.

The applicants’ finances, and that of the spouse, if any, are also taken into account. In single-child families no contribution to the pupil is assumed at an income level below 35,000 kroner. The free limit is then raised by 3,000 kroner for every additional child in the family. The lowest parents’ contribution is 500 kroner. The contribution then increases by 300 kroner for every additional 3,000 kroner of income. The same applies to larger families. 1. At the present rate of exchange 100 Norwegian kroner are equivalent to 72.55

1

1 Swedish kronor

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The contribution from the parents is halved if the parent is above 65 years of age, if the applicant is above 25 years of age, if the applicant is himself liable for maintenance and is above 21 years of age, or if the applicant has completed at least three years of education. If there are other brothers or sisters undergoing education for which they are entitled to assistance, the contribution is divided among the brothers and sisters who are studying. Parents’ capital below 80,000 kroner does not affect the study assistance.

Of the excess capital, 15 per cent is normally added to the income, though the amount may vary according to the nature of the capital. An applicant’s net income during the academic year of above 3,000 kroner

reduces the study assistance. Liquid capital assets above 3,000 kroner are also deducted, but the capital is valued separately. Of a spouse’s income of above 15,000 kroner 30 per cent is deducted from

the amount of assistance. This limit is raised by 7,000 kroner if there are two households and by an additional 5,000 kroner for the first child and 3,000 kroner for other children. A spouse’s capital below 20,000 kroner is usually disregarded. A married applicant with maintenance liability (children) may receive an

additional assistance of 2,500 kroner per annum for the first child and 1,500 kroner for each additional child. All Norwegian subjects who acquire education outside Norway are given

full study assistance when there is a need for manpower in the vocational field in question and when the Norwegian schools cannot accept all applicants. For academic education outside Norway, a travel allowance is given to cover

50 per cent of the fare for two return journeys, expenses of up to 3,000 kroner and the aforementioned ‘living away from home grant’ of 2,000 kroner. For non-academic education no allowance is made for expenses, nor for academic further education or special education. The State loans granted to Norwegian students are free of interest during

the period of study. Interest is then paid from the end of education or from the time of interrupting the education at the rate of, at present, 42 per cent per annum. The amortization period has been made dependent on the amount of the loan and the assumed income level during the repayment period. The commonest repayment period is ten to fifteen years, but for large loans it may be twenty years. The assistance rules apply primarily to Norwegian subjects. Exceptionally,

the citizens of other countries may be placed on an equal footing with Nor- wegian subjects when they have strong and presumably permanent ties with Norway. This may apply, for instance, to political refugees, aliens on Norwe- gian vessels, or persons linked with Norway by marriage.

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present problems in the democratization of secondary and higher education

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