“The Bright Child"

One such anomaly is the theory, parallel to the view expressed by the Governor-General regarding university students, that more attention should be devoted to the “bright child” in secondary education, and less to the remainder. In other words, the proposal is to use the educational system to reinforce the special position of an “elite”.

These views are based, frequently, on intelligence testing, from which conclusions are “scientifically” drawn that only a small minority are in fact capable of successfully undertaking higher education; such views continue to be circulated in the teeth of the experience of the Soviet Union, where, for a number of years, most of the adolescent urban population has been educated to matriculation standard.

Making the Child Fit the Coat

However, the educational theory of the class-society of capitalism cannot avoid class biased conclusions. The theoretical educational “experts” of capitalism claim that 10-20% of young people are of such poor natural endowment that they cannot successfully take public examinations; another 25% or so are capable of taking some examinations at a lower level preparatory to proceeding to low-skilled occupations; a further 40-50% can reach the level of the skilled trades; whilst only 15-20% can cope successfully with higher education. For example, the Murray Committee Report, on University Education, accepts the figure of about 16%.

In this way, the whole of the child and youth community is neatly divided into the categories demanded by the social system and the division is defended, not on the grounds of the requirements of capitalist society, but on the basis of the theory that natural ability, alone, determines the kind of education the child is capable of successfully undergoing.

Brian Simon and other British educationists have shown how the I.Q. system is manipulated in Britain to serve the requirements of the social system rather than to provide a suitable education. They have presented evidence that the I.Q. regarded as acceptable or entrance to a Grammar School varies, according to the number of places available. In an area where demand for a place was not high, an I.Q. of 110 could be sufficient to gain a place. In another, where fewer seats were available, a child with I.Q. 115 could be excluded. In other words, the actual purpose of the I.Q. system and other methods of selection are to ensure that only the “necessary” number is admitted to full secondary education.

For the remainder, one result is a lowering of standards.

This is because the educational authorities in all States, whether adopting the I.Q. system or not, have set the standards to be achieved by different groups at different levels, with the result on the one hand of a growing emphasis on, the need for special opportunities for the “bright child”, and, on the other, a reduction of much of the formal acquisition of knowledge by a large percentage of children.

Parallel with this have gone changes in educational procedure — more non-academic activities for pupils, learning by playing, the use of projects and group methods of learning.

Whilst such procedures have considerable educational value, they are no substitute for planned, methodical work. When low standards are accepted as the only realisable goal, these practices become ends in themselves, and often help to prevent the pupil from reaching normal levels of achievement.

In practice, with large classes and inadequate accommodation and equipment, the result has frequently been the loss of any serious purpose in education for a large number of children. In a great number of cases, with educational goals set at low levels. many pupils leave secondary school with a very low educational achievement, in some cases virtually illiterate, and those proceeding to technical education frequently lack the basic knowledge and skills required.

The setting of lower standards as goals frequently results in a lower level of accomplishment than is, in fact, possible.

It reduces standards for both teachers and pupils.

Remedial Teaching Without A Remedy

For the group with the lowest I.Q., or poor natural endowment, the theory is that remedial teaching in small groups will raise their standards, at least to the level of literacy.

But, in reality, very few teachers are trained in remedial teaching, classes are large, and growing larger, and most of these retarded pupils receive little real education. In this way, while lip-service is given to the ideal of secondary education for all, in fact, a considerable percentage of pupils are leaving the secondary schools with a sense of failure and defeat.

Furthermore, the practice of segregating the groups in different schools according to I.Q., examination, the availability of different types of schools in different suburbs, or any other method of selection has caused great bitterness by appearing to place a stigma upon children not admitted to full high schools, and consequently reducing their incentives.

Most destructive of the self-respect and capacity to overcome retardation of retarded or slow learning pupils, is the social segregation imposed upon them in some schools, and the assumption which unfortunately affects many parents, teachers, and pupils themselves, that they are the outcasts of the system, doomed to a life of semi-literacy and social inferiority.

Once the I.Q. system is accepted, with its implied set of social classifications, such an outcome is inescapable. It is as true for the lower classes in the secondary modern schools in Great Britain, as it is of General Activities classes in N.S.W. [7]

The Wyndham Report

The same basic education is required for all children as far as the compulsory school leaving age, just as it is in primary school. Those who stay at school beyond the compulsory leaving age, should have the same basic “core subjects” to the end of secondary education, and additional optional subjects of equivalent standard.

Thus, courses should not be “academic” as in high schools, nor narrowly “practical” trade subjects, but all courses should combine scientific, cultural and practical subjects in all schools, thus enabling an equivalent standard of “matriculation” at age 17 or 18 to either University or Technical College.

As it happens, the Wyndham Report on Secondary Education in N.S.W. proposes reforms along these lines. [8]

It recognises secondary education as a right for all adolescents.

By recommending that most children be educated in a single type of secondary school, its effect will be to remove some of the discrimination and class-distinction from secondary education.

It endorses the principle of a core of subjects to be studied by all pupils alike, so taking a step towards providing a standard minimum body of knowledge for all.

By increasing the secondary school life from 5 to 6 years, it provides for more adequate preparation for University education. It reduces the importance attached to selection, and is a move in the direction of greater equality of opportunity.

The more gifted children whilst losing nothing that they at present enjoy, will undoubtedly benefit by the experience of a more normal social intercourse in schools enrolling all types of children. The same educational facilities will be available to all children; and it will be possible for the school authorities to assist children into courses of study suited to their special aptitudes and interests.

In substance the practical proposals of the Wyndham Report are progressive, even though some of its argument and educational theory are based on individualistic concepts in line with current United States educational thought.

What Can Be Done About the Wyndham Report?

The Wyndham Report needs to become an important public issue; first of all to ensure that its proposals are put into operation in a planned, methodical way and, secondly, as a rallying point in the demand for adequate Commonwealth finance to enable it to function.

This requires, in the first place, action by the working class — the trade unions and the whole labour and progressive movement. It also involves an extension of the work and activity of the parents’ organisations, and combined parent-teacher action.

If the schools are to become centres of community leadership and influence, the activity of parents is of the utmost importance. Already, parents’ organisations have shouldered the heavy burdens of providing special equipment for schools; in addition, they, in conjunction with the teachers’ unions, have helped to make education into a major political issue, to which all political parties are compelled to give attention.

Public attention has been directed to education on a previously unprecedented scale; and, in achieving this result, the combined efforts of the parents’ and teachers’ organisations have played the leading role.

Under pressure from the parents and teachers, the Prime Minister has agreed that the Commonwealth has the necessary powers under Section 96 of the Constitution, to advance funds for primary and secondary education, provided a request is made by the State governments. Clearly the time is overdue for the State governments to give their support to the growing demand for Federal aid to education.

The campaign for Federal aid requires, both direct representations to the Federal government, and the strongest measures to ensure that the State governments play their part.

If the principles of the Wyndham Report are to be put into operation, a very great increase in financial provision will be needed, immediately.

The six year secondary course will impose still heavier burdens on middle and lower income homes. A major extension of the Commonwealth Scholarship scheme is urgently needed, so that all pupils successfully progressing through secondary education after age 15, will be entitled to scholarships, either without restriction, or with an extremely liberal means test.

Furthermore, the staffing of schools will present new problems.

Especially in the early years, a considerable number of teachers specially trained in remedial work, will be needed to assist the casualties of the present system to overcome retardation in some, or all, subjects, and to take their place in normal development. New systems of teacher training will need to be developed so that secondary teachers can be trained, capable of taking a number of subjects in the junior years. Above all, there will need to be a very great increase in the number of teachers to cope with increased numbers continuing in secondary education, and to provide for the necessary reduction in size of classes. All of these and other requirements will require a vast increase in expenditure.

Already the principle has been established by the appointment of the Murray Committee on University education, that the educational crisis calls for special measures at the University level. The time is overdue for the application of the same principle in primary and secondary education.

The Murray Committee Report — and Education for National Development

The chaos of overcrowding, understaffing, inadequate equipment, and extremely poor conditions generally in universities, created the basis for a mass movement which compelled the Menzies government to appoint the Murray Committee to report on university requirements.

By limiting the terms of reference to universities, the government sought to evade its responsibility to primary and secondary education, from which the university students came. Furthermore, although it made certain recommendations regarding technical education, its financial provisions were limited to the universities, and the practical means of greatly increasing the flow of technicians and technologists were not stated. The Committee concerning itself specifically and narrowly with university education, has tended to concentrate unduly on the problems of the intellectual, the highly-trained university product; and inadequately with the basic questions of raising general standards so that an increased percentage of university graduates and highly trained technologists is a normal outcome of the system. Nonetheless, the Committee’s findings, in effect, were an unanswerable argument for large-scale financial aid by the Federal Government to the educational system as a whole.

The Murray Committee sets out the objective of increased general education in the following words:

Australia has already benefited in quite spectacular fashion from the application of science in the primary industry: there is common agreement that, with a very high standard of living, secondary industry can only maintain its present promise of great achievement by technological and managerial skill and enterprise of the highest quality; and behind all this is the basic need to drive ahead with the development of a whole continent, vast areas of which, but for the benefit of science, must remain unproductive bush and barren desert. (Par. 75.)

To achieve this purpose the Committee asserted:

“This requires, not a small number of very clever people, but a very large number indeed of highly educated men and women, and nothing short of this will do.” (Par. 75.)

Asserting that “active steps should be taken without avoidable delay by governments, universities, industries and schools”, the Committee proceeds to affirm:

Government cannot escape the duty to satisfy itself that there are enough facilities for university education to enable those young men and women of the nation who ought to have a university education, to acquire it.

The Committee goes on to set out the responsibility of the government to provide by scholarship, sufficient finance to ensure that all students of sufficient academic quality should receive a university education.

At another point in the report it is stated that

only 4.4% of the N.S.W. 17-18 age group entered the universities ... (in 1957) ... Evidence suggests that 16% of any age-group of the Australian population have intellectual ability above the minimum generally considered necessary for success at university.

To carry out the committee’s policy very large financial aid is required.

After advocating steps by which capable technical students should be assisted to convert to university courses, so increasing the pool of Australian trained technologists, it goes on to recommend a higher degree of co-ordination between university and technical education.

Every aspect of the Murray Committee Report on tertiary education has its counterpart at the primary, and especially the secondary level.

If the talent of the nation is not to be wasted or dissipated, it is clearly necessary to extend the Commonwealth scholarship scheme to at least the senior years of secondary school. Otherwise the class-privilege that limits equality of opportunity will continue to deny higher education to a large part of the population, even to a large part of the 16% regarded by the Committee as the elite.

If university students are to succeed in the better buildings and with the improved equipment recommended by the Report, the conditions existing in primary and secondary schools must be replaced by a parallel development to that of the universities.

If million of pounds are to be spent at the tertiary level in raising educational standards, tens of millions need to be spent on the primary and secondary schools. No Federal government, with any real national vision, can fail to accept its responsibilities for the development of scientific and general education, in accordance with the perspectives of the Murray Committee. A national plan of educational development in accord with national needs, and provision of the necessary finance by the government, is a basic and urgent need in Australian public life. This is all the more so, because university leaders have already stated publicly that the financial provision for universities, whilst adequate for normal expansion of universities for the next two or three years, is totally insufficient to meet the requirements of university development even for a 7 or 10 year period.

Professor Stephen H. Roberts, Vice Chancellor and Principal of Sydney University, has indicated in a recent brochure to graduates, that, with Sydney University expanding at the rate of 1,000 students yearly, and taking into account the backlag in buildings, equipment, and teaching staff, the Murray Committee provision would be totally inadequate to meet normal expansion, even without providing for substantial reduction in class sizes and other necessary reforms.

Other reports such as were issued recently by the Agricultural Institute of Australia, on the training of agriculturalists and the role of agricultural research in Australia, draw attention to the need for a great expansion of specialist training in a large number of fields. It is clear that if the Murray Committee’s perspectives of national development through the application of science are to be realised, special institutes and research establishments need to be envisaged over a whole range of activities and fields of enquiry and investigation. It is not merely a matter of extending university facilities, but of a vast extension of the whole field of research and specialist training. [9]

Furthermore, as the Murray Committee report clearly implies, the universities, if they are to perform their function of intellectual leadership, need to be freed from government censorship of ideas, and the screening of their teaching staff on political grounds.

The universities have the inescapable duty to secure their integrity in the free pursuit of knowledge

and again

Truth should be faced even though ... statesmen are human enough to be restive or angry ... when perhaps at inconvenient moments the scientist or scholar uses the license which the academic freedoms of the university allows him to bring us all back to a consideration of the true evidence.

Such reform, freeing university thought and teaching from police surveillance and political intimidation, are clearly part of the basic requirements of a university functioning in the community interest.

However, there is, so far, no evidence of any change of heart by any of the Australian governments, especially in their repressive and exclusionist attitudes to left-wing ideas.

Furthermore, far from facing up to the need for a real expansion of both university and research facilities, some State governments are considering the dilution of university courses, reducing their content, and in effect, their academic standard. For instance, the Liberal Party government of Queensland has recently given currency to the idea of “University Centres” in the large country towns, Townsville, Rockhampton, Toowoomba, to reduce pressure on the University of Brisbane.

The proposed “centres” will not have the status of university colleges, will be staffed by local officers of the Dept. of Agriculture, Education etc., and will be provided only with skeleton equipment, libraries and other facilities.

Such developments indicate clearly that at the level of universities, no less than in primary and secondary education, the crisis conditions are still very much in existence, and that “education on the cheap” continues to have a strong attraction for the spokesmen of capitalism.

The Murray Committee represents a new development in the approach to education, but it needs to be enormously expanded both as to further enquiry and in increasing many times over the financial provision, if high quality education at all levels is to be safeguarded and intended to meet national need.