Hadow (1926)

Notes on the text
Preliminary pages Membership, Analysis, Preface, Introduction
Chapter 1 Development of post-primary education in England and Wales 1800-1918
Chapter 2 The facts of the present situation
Chapter 3 The lines of advance
Chapter 4 Curricula for Modern Schools and Senior Classes
Chapter 5 The place of 'bias' in the curriculum of Modern Schools and Senior Classes
Chapter 6 The staffing and equipment of Modern Schools and Senior Classes
Chapter 7 The admission of children to Modern Schools and Senior Schools
Chapter 8 The lengthening of school life
Chapter 9 The question of a leaving examination
Chapter 10 Administrative problems
Chapter 11 Conclusions and recommendations; Notes of reservation
Chapter 12 Suggestions on the curriculum in Modern Schools and Senior Classes
Appendix I List of witnesses
Appendix II Notes on nomenclature
Appendix III Statistics relating to Chapter 2(ii)
Appendix IV Post-primary education abroad
Appendix V List of publications
Index

London: HM Stationery Office

Chapter 8 The lengthening of school life
[pages 140 - 149]

158. In the preceding chapters we have described the relations which, in our opinion, should exist between the primary and secondary stages of education, and have given some account of the different types of school and curricula which will be needed in order to meet the varying requirements of the largely increased number of young persons who, in the near future, will pass, it may reasonably be hoped, to the secondary stage. For, if our proposals are realised, primary and secondary education will be linked to each other as the successive phases in a continuous process, and all normal children will begin some form of secondary education about the age of 11+.

They will begin it, but for how long are they to continue it? That question is obviously, from every point of view, of the highest importance. The effect of education on mind and character depends, in part at least, on the length of time for which its influence is exercised. The task of planning a satisfactory course of post-primary education is greatly simplified if the period which it is designed to cover is sufficiently long to allow of its being given a certain unity and completeness. The habits of orderly work and intelligent cooperation, which it is part of the function of a good school to promote, are more likely to be a power in later life, if the seeds sown at school have been sheltered sufficiently long for them to take root and grow, before boys and girls are plunged into the stress and turmoil of wage-earning employment. Even if the great majority of children continued, as to-day, to cease attending school shortly after their fourteenth birthday, we should still regard the regrading of education proposed above as a necessary and important step in educational progress. But it seems to us evident that its value will be greatly increased if children can look forward to a somewhat longer period of school attendance after the age of 11+ than is normally the case at the present time. For that reason we proceed to discuss how far it is desirable and practicable that the period of school attendance should be extended in the near future.

159. Into the early history of the law of school attendance we need not enter in detail. The Education Act of 1870 conferred on School Boards power to make bye-laws requiring the attendance of children from 5 to 13, subject to the provision that such bye-laws must grant exemptions on certain conditions to pupils between the ages of 10 and 13, and the Education Act of 1880 turned this power into a duty. The Elementary Education Act of 1900 empowered Local Authorities to compel attendance (subject to numerous exemptions) up to the age of 14, and at that point, in spite of several projects for fresh legislation, the law stood still for the next 18 years - though in fact there was during that period a noticeable increase in the number of children who remained at school up to or beyond the age of 14. When the Departmental Committee on Juvenile Education in relation to Employment after the War explored the subject in 1917, it summed up the situation by stating that 'in a sense it is true to say that the statutory leaving age is already 14, but the ways in which earlier exemption can be obtained are so numerous, and in many localities are so freely taken advantage of, that the effective leaving age often approximates rather to 13 than to 14.' The position on the eve of the War, the Committee stated, was that between the ages of 12 and 13, when the enrolment in state aided schools of all kinds reached its maximum, it included 662,000 children; that 185,000 dropped out at 13, about 85,000 between 13 and 14, and about 266,000 at 14; and that only 84,000 or about 13 per cent received any kind of full-time education after 14, while even of these the majority remained at school only for a few months beyond the attainment of that age.

160. Down to the war, therefore, approximately 40 per cent of the children left school before reaching the age of 14. Since that date, two changes of great importance have taken place, of which the first is familiar to everyone, but the second is not so generally realised as is desirable. In the first place, there has been a change in the law. The Education Act of 1918 abolished all existing forms of exemption from school attendance below the age of 14, including half-time, and made it obligatory on a child attending a public elementary school, who attained the age of 14 during a school term, to remain at school until the end of the term. The Act empowered local education authorities to make bye-laws requiring the attendance at school between the ages of 14 and 15 either of all children or of 'children other than those employed in certain specified occupations'. It also enabled authorities to grant individual exemptions to children between the ages of 14 and 15. Since, therefore, 1 July 1922, which was the appointed day fixed by the Board of Education for Section 8(1) of the Education Act of 1918 to come into operation, all exemptions from school attendance up to the age of 14 have ceased, and all children whose fourteenth birthday falls within a school term must remain at school until the end of that term. In areas where a bye-law requiring children to attend school up to the age of 15 has been made under Section 46(2) of the Education Act of 1921, a child in attendance at a public elementary school who attains that age in the course of a term is under an obligation to remain at school until the end of the term.

161. The Education Act of 1918 has not, however, been the only cause of the lengthening of school life in recent years. In the second place, there has been a striking increase in the number and proportion of children remaining at school beyond the age at which attendance ceases to be legally obligatory. We have already called attention in Chapter 2 to this development, and we need not here do more than recapitulate the essential facts. As will be seen from Table IV in Appendix III of our Report, the number of pupils over the age of 14 in Public Elementary and Special Schools was 47,066 in 1913-14, 125,292 in 1919-20, and 170,893 in 1922-23. At the first date pupils over 14 form 7 per cent of children of the age group 10 to 11 attending school; at the second 18.8 per cent; and at the third 26.1 per cent. While this growth in the number of children remaining at school beyond the age of 14 is partly to be attributed to the provision of the Education Act 1918, that children should remain to the end of the term in which their 14th birthday occurs, that requirement does not, as is pointed out above, provide a complete explanation of the movement. The increase is not spread evenly over the whole country. In some districts it is insignificant, and it is most noticeable in the areas of those Authorities which have been at pains to improve the provision made for the older children. Nor must it be forgotten that, small as the number of children over 15 attending the Elementary Schools still is, it has multiplied nearly threefold in the ten years 1913-14 to 1922-23, rising from 0.8 per cent of the age group 10-11 at the first date, to 2.1 per cent at the second. The truth would appear to be that the last ten years have seen a change in the attitude both of children and of parents towards the work of the schools. The improvement in the quality of education, and, in particular, the success of the efforts which are being made to meet more effectively the requirements of the older pupils, has met its natural, but welcome response in a heightened appreciation of the value of education and in an increased willingness on the part of parents to make sacrifices in order that their children may continue to receive it.

162. The desirability of prolonging education must depend largely on the character of the education which is offered. It is in the light of these developments and of the possibilities which they reveal - of the efforts which are being already made by Local Education Authorities to raise the standard of post-primary education and of the larger programme which we have sketched in this report - that the question whether it is expedient to raise the age of compulsory school attendance to 15 should be considered. The proposal is not a new one. It was advanced in the Majority Report of the Poor Law Commission which reported in 1909 as a means of protecting young persons against the demoralisation of character arising from premature entry into industry. It was given sympathetic consideration in the Final Report of the Departmental Committee of 1917 on Juvenile Education in relation to Employment after the War, though it was rejected for the time being on the ground that public opinion was not yet ripe for the change. It was advocated partly on educational, and partly on social and economic, grounds in the report issued by the Ministry of Reconstruction on Juvenile Employment during the War and After, which appeared in 1918. A partial and tentative step in the direction suggested was taken by the sections in the Education Act of that year, referred to above, under which local education authorities have power, subject to the approval of the Board, to make bye-laws requiring children to attend school up to the age of 15. The two county councils which have so far made bye-laws have both also made liberal use of the power of granting exemptions, and they thus appear to have employed the bye-laws as a means of retaining at school children who would otherwise have entered unsuitable employment rather than as a means of establishing any general system of education for all children up to the age of 15.

163. We have been at some pains to ascertain from the Directors of Education of a number of representative local education authorities how they would view a proposal to raise the age of compulsory attendance to 15. With this object, we addressed to them two questions, to which the great majority of those whom we approached have been good enough to reply: (i) provided that suitable provision is made for the education of children over 14, are you of opinion that the time is ripe for compulsory attendance to 15? (ii) in the event of the age of compulsory attendance being raised to 15, what period do you consider would be necessary in your area in order to provide the teachers and accommodation needed? The answers received to these questions, some of which were of great interest, varied in their tenor, but we think we fairly represent their general trend in saying that the majority thought it educationally advantageous to raise the age of compulsory attendance to 15, that a considerable number held that the time was ripe for taking such a step at once, or almost at once, and that a somewhat larger number believed that practical difficulties of one kind or another made it questionable whether the reform, however desirable in itself, could be carried out in the immediate future. It should be noted, however, that some of those who were doubtful on the last point appeared to think that, if the necessity of providing for an increased number of children arose, it would be possible to secure the necessary teachers and accommodation within a few years. The task of making the provision required will in some districts be somewhat lightened by the decrease in the school population which has taken place as a result of the decline of the birth-rate, the effect of which will be, as the President of the Board of Education stated on 22 July 1926 in the House of Commons, a fall in the next three years of upwards of 20 per cent in the number of children over the age of 11 in elementary schools. In these circumstances, there is reason to believe that, at any rate in some areas, the lengthening of the school life need not involve the erection of new buildings or the engagement of additional staff. It must not, of course, be assumed that all the space thus set free will be suitable.

164. Problems of educational organisation cannot be sharply divided from other departments of public policy. It is evident that the question whether it is desirable to extend the age of compulsory school attendance to 15, like the question whether it was desirable to extend it from 13 to 14, to abolish 'half-time' and indeed to establish any system of public education at all, is not one which can be, or is likely to be, decided on educational grounds alone. The economic and social issues which arise are only too familiar. On the one hand, there are considerations of the reactions on industry of withdrawing children between 14 and 15 years of age from industrial employment, of the ability and willingness of parents to dispense with part or all of their earnings, and of the financial cost involved to the nation in providing education for something approaching half a million children during an additional period of a year. On the other hand, there is the proved social and intellectual deterioration resulting from the premature entry of many thousands of young persons into wage-earning employment, the grave waste of part of the effort and money applied to the early stages of child life, which is inevitable when education ceases abruptly at 14, the tragic paradox of a situation in which year to year some 450,000 young lives are poured into industry at a time when industry cannot find employment for its adult workers. It may be urged that it is unreasonable to incur the burden of prolonging education at a period of great economic depression. It may be equally urged that it is unreasonable to attempt to harvest crops in spring, or to divert into supplying the economic necessities of the immediate present the still undeveloped capacities of those on whose intelligence and character the very life of the nation must depend in the future. There is no capital more productive than the energies of human beings. There is no investment more remunerative than expenditure devoted to developing them.

165. On the financial aspects of the question we do not feel called to express an opinion. The possibility that the financial reactions of educational policy may be overlooked is not, perhaps, a very pressing danger, and we have confined ourselves to a consideration of those educational aspects of the question with which alone we are qualified to deal. Provided that due provision is made, on the lines suggested in our earlier chapters, for the extension and improvement of post-primary education, the desirability on educational grounds of raising the age of compulsory school attendance from 14 to 15 is not, it seems to us, open to doubt. Such a step would do far more than merely add 12 months to the school life of the great majority of the children. Its effects would be, not merely quantitative, but qualitative, and would be felt in the years before 14 as well as in the years after it. For the extending from three to four years of the period available for post-primary education would not only make it easier for such education to be planned as a coherent and progressive course with a character and quality of its own, but would also (and this is of much more importance) ensure that it continued sufficiently long to act as a permanent influence for good in the lives of those who passed through it. In education, as in industry, there is a law of increasing as well as of diminishing returns. Too often it is the sad experience of the teacher to lose his pupils at the very moment when his earlier efforts are about to bear fruit, and when powers which have seemed for long to lie dormant are on the eve of bursting into life. The addition even of a few months to the present school life may not seldom enable him to kindle into flame the spark which but for them would have been extinguished. Nor is it a minor advantage that, by remaining at school till 15, children will be protected more effectively than today against many social dangers which surround the adolescent. In many areas regular wage-earning employment is not available for them below that age, and they spend the months immediately after leaving school in casual and sometimes demoralising occupations. If their school life lasts till 15, they will enter industry straight from school with intellects more sharpened and characters more fortified, and their physique more fit to bear the burden of the work which life will lay upon them.

166. While, however, the educational arguments for raising the age of compulsory attendance to 15 appear to us unanswerable, we are nonetheless aware of the practical obstacles which must be overcome if that policy is to be carried out. Apart from the question of finance, which is not within our purview, those which deserve serious consideration are two. The first is the difficulty experienced by parents of small means in dispensing with the earnings of their children until the age of 15. The second consists in the fact that, if children are to be retained at school for another year with advantage to themselves and the community, an increase of staffing and, (when the existing buildings are already fully utilised), of accommodation, will be required.

As the figures cited above show, the habit of retaining children at school after the age of 14 has been growing in recent years, and there is good reason to hope that, with the further improvement in the quality of post-primary education, the willingness of parents to make sacrifices in order that their children may enjoy the benefits of a longer school life will show a corresponding development. The fact remains, however, that under existing economic conditions, the pressure to curtail the education of children who ought to remain at school is too often almost irresistible. Granted that some parents who could afford to dispense with the children's earnings withdraw them from school prematurely, it is still nevertheless only too true that a large number of parents, especially when there are several children in the family, are liable to be faced by a genuine and cruel dilemma. They wish to do the right thing by all their children, but they know that, if the eldest boy or girl continues at school instead of going to work, the younger brothers or sisters may suffer, and they hesitate to expose them to a sacrifice from which they would not shrink themselves. In such circumstances, the proposal to raise the age of compulsory attendance to 15, unless accompanied by some form of financial provision to ease the strain, is exposed to the possibility of opposition, even in quarters in which on educational grounds it would meet with approval. This difficulty is genuine, and must not be underestimated. On the other hand, it must not be exaggerated. The objection that pupils who remain at school are prejudiced in finding employment, which has been brought against proposals to raise the school age by local bye-law, does not apply when the age is advanced throughout the country as a whole, since in that case they are all in the same position, and one does not gain at the expense of another. The sacrifice involved is not comparable to that incurred when a child enters a 'Secondary' school of the existing type, for the parents of such a child must normally undertake that he will remain at school till at least the age of 16, while our proposals involve an addition to the school life of only one year. The postponement of the age at which young persons enter employment may, to some appreciable extent, lighten the burden of unemployment among adults, and, in so far as it has that effect, will result in the income of working class families being increased rather than diminished. Local education authorities already spend considerable sums upon maintenance allowances, which are applied mainly in aiding children to prolong their education in 'Secondary' schools. Section 24 of the Education Act of 1921, reproducing in substance Section 11 of the Education (Administrative Provisions) Act of 1907 as extended by Section 24 of the Education Act 1918, enables a local authority for elementary education to give scholarships, including maintenance allowances, to children in Public Elementary Schools above a given age. The question of the scale upon which such allowances should be given on any general plan to pupils in Modern Schools and Senior Classes, and of the terms upon which they should be awarded, is not one upon which we feel qualified to make definite recommendations, but public opinion would, we believe, regard favourably some extension of expenditure in those cases where serious hardship would be involved if no financial assistance were forthcoming.

167. The difficulty presented by the fact that, if children remain at school till 15, additional teachers, and in many cases additional accommodation, will be required, is not a new one. It has arisen whenever, in the past, the school age was raised, or the standard of staffing and school building made more exacting. At the present time, conditions in this respect vary widely from one area to another. Several Authorities which we have consulted have stated that they can make the necessary provision almost immediately; one or two have stated that as much as seven years or more would elapse before satisfactory arrangements could be completed. The majority of those who have given us their opinion appear to think that a period of 2 to 4 years would be sufficient to enable them to deal effectively with the problem of providing for the increased number of children who, if the school age were raised, would be in attendance. In this matter, time is evidently of the essence of the problem. Neither teachers nor buildings can be improvised, and, in the case of all but a minority of Authorities, an interval must necessarily elapse before the requisite supply of both can be made available. On the other hand, if the preparations require some considerable time for their completion, it is all the more important that they should be begun as soon as possible. The intervening period is most likely to be employed to good purpose, if the date at which attendance up to the age of 15 will become obligatory is determined in advance, and if, as a consequence, local education authorities are in a position to plan the work of development with the knowledge that it will be necessary within a definite period to provide for an increased school population.

168. The course of wisdom, therefore, it appears to us, would be to pass legislation fixing the age of 15 as that up to which attendance at school will become obligatory after the lapse of five years from the date of this Report - that is to say at the beginning of the school year 1932. Such a step would have several advantages. It would be in accordance with the policy laid down in a resolution passed in the House of Commons on 8 April 1925; it would give notice to parents and employers of the impending change; it would enable Local Educational Authorities to make the necessary arrangements for meeting it; it would give an added impetus to the development of post-primary education, by making evident that it would last in the near future for a period of not less than four years from the age of 11+. We do not pretend, of course, that even with the interval suggested the reform would be free from difficulties, but we believe that they can be overcome, as even more serious difficulties in the way of educational progress have been overcome in the past; and the decline in the school population, to which we have alluded above, makes the present a peculiarly favourable moment for coping with them. In the suffering and anxiety of the years since 1914, public opinion has been stirred to a clearer realisation of the contribution which a more prolonged and thorough education may make to the intellectual vitality and moral well-being of the rising generation. The time has come, it seems to us, when the country should be prepared even at the cost of some immediate sacrifice, to take a step which will ensure that such education shall have larger opportunities of moulding the lives of boys and girls during the critical years of early adolescence.

169. In the preceding paragraphs of this chapter we have confined our attention, in accordance with the terms of reference, to the question of full-time education up to the age of 15+. It must not be supposed, however, that we underestimate the part which may be played in the future by the development of a system of part-time education. Even when the age of full-time attendance is prolonged by one year, the dangers to which young persons may be exposed on leaving school are likely sometimes still to be serious, and the importance of ensuring that they remain in contact with educational influences will continue to be urgent. Provisions for developing a system of part-time education have been on the statute book since 1918. (1) In recommending that the age of full-time attendance should be raised to 15, we have not forgotten the contribution which those provisions may make to the problem of securing that education is a vital influence in the lives of all young persons up to a later age.

Footnote

(1) Sections 75 to 79 of the Education Act 1921, re-enacting sections 3, 10, 11 and 12 of the Education Act 1918.