Word: schoolings
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...drab British factory towns dominated so long by "dark, Satanic mills" have a striking new landmark: the government-maintained school. More than 4,000 new buildings have risen in the last decade. They are telling symptoms of a quiet revolution wrought by the historic Education Act of 1944. Under the act, British schooling ceased to be an upper-class privilege. Today any child mentally able to make the grade is entitled to a free secondary and university education, a situation unthinkable in caste-bound Britain before World...
...Britons still ends his formal schooling at 15, when compulsory attendance stops. But so many more are staying on that university enrollment has doubled since 1939, with a 19% rise since 1954 alone. "At least 20% of my students have some real ambition for a profession," says a London primary school headmistress. "Before the war, hardly a single one would have presumed to think so far above his station." Says a London milkman: "If I'd 'ad chances wot my son 'as, I wouldn't be just a milkman, not bleedin' likely...
Eleven Plus. But the lofty dream is still far from perfection. Last week, as 7,000,000 children trooped back to classes, flaws in the system loomed as a talking point in Britain's impending election. Both Conservatives and Laborites promise to build more schools, provide more teachers; the Conservatives talk in terms of a $960 million program. The school system can use that much and more. One out of ten rural schools in England is still lit by gas lamps; science facilities are woefully inadequate. After 15 years of work, teachers get a maximum salary...
...Pattern. With discontent so widespread, many a community has set up comprehensive schools that lump grammar, technical and secondary modern schools under one roof with as many as 1,000 students. The new schools (about 90 so far) remodeled on a familiar U.S. pattern: the big, inclusive high school. They have headaches also familiar to Americans, including Teddy boys who carry flick knives to class, smash windows, abuse masters. But they do solve the basic problem: how to give late starters a chance to switch from one track to another. Says Headmaster George Rogers of London's Walworth Secondary...
Britain's famed public schools are flourishing as before. The class-conscious Englishman still feels compelled to give his children a distinctive U (upper-class) accent, recoils in horror from the non-U patois prevalent in many state schools. Yet public schools are also so costly ($1,200 yearly at Harrow) that many U parents are switching over to state schools, particularly at the primary level. At one brand-new school near London's fashionable South Kensington, the curb is lined with Bentleys, Jaguars and nannies when classes let out each afternoon. Says one U mother...