Wednesday 18 February 2009

Do these policies produce equal opportunity for all pupils?

Do these policies produce equal opportunity for all pupils?
To anser this question,we had better know the present policies of education first.
Before 1870,working-class children were limited to elementary schools that run by charity and almost a third of of children could't go to school as Royle mentioned in 1997. Therefore,some policies began to be done to solve this problem that Education Act turned to the first. In 1870,Education Act provided state-run elementary schools for children from 5-11 years old with 9p a week to help those lower-class children. Then in 1944,Education Act continued to get on with new policies that aimed to give every pupil an equal chance to develope their abilities--the tripartite system. This system was made in terms of intelligence tests to divide children into 3 types of secondary schools--grammer schools,technical schools and secondary modern schools. But in reality,this system didn't provide equal opportunitie that grammer schools which teach talented pupils must have better teaching resources than secondary modern schools. Besides,as the children were classified too early at 11 years old, the tests can not prove their abilities correctly taht their futures might be destroyed and it would also affect their self-confidence. As for the most popular type of schools nowadays which were required by the Labour government in 1965--comprehensive schools,they indeed largely reduced the unfairness between classes,but many pupils were still divided into ability groups that a disproportionate number of working-class pupils were in the bottom sets. It is just like the other form of tripartite system and equal opportunities haven't been produced at all. Nextly,we should mention Conservative educational policies. The most important policy of them was made by the Education Reform Act as it established a national curriculum and system of testing. What's more? It established city technology colleges and grant maintained schools in order to give parents more choices as well. However,will parents have a real choice for their children? In fact,as Smith&Noble's result,middle-class parents are more possible to obtain good schools bacause they have more money to afford with their social and cultural capital whereas working-class parents don't have the same capacity and opportunity. In addition,i think although some students from low income or low class family can continue schools by scholarship that they don't need to pay the fees,the study condition and equipment,teaching resources of them are worse than students of middle-class family and so,it's still difficult for them to get equal chance to study as others. Lastly,there is also a kind of policy--Labour educational policy in 1997. Formulated by Tony Blair,it focused on the diversity of schools following the Conservatives policies to reflect students' talent and meet their demands. However, as we mentioned above,choices usually mean limited places and selection at popular schools and it will reduce the opportunities for working-class students.
To sum up,all these policies are made so as to extend education opportunities for all people like a word by Gorden Brown "The challenge this century is the global skills race and that is why we need to push ahead faster with our reforms to extend education chances for all" and it is true that the condition of unequal opportunity has been improved a lot. But the fact that middle-class gains stays the same. If we really want to solve this problem,the basic way is to reduce inequality in the society first.

1 comment:

  1. why did you not come to dinner - I booked a table and waited!

    ReplyDelete