Showing papers on "Compulsory education published in 1975"

The Objectives and Organisation of Educational and Day Care Services for Young Children.

Abstract: families-and outside the workhouse-began in the nineteenth century. The reasons were demographic, economic and ideological. They were consequences of the growing urbanisation of industrial countries and the destruction of traditional ways of life which migration and occupational changes entailed, the changing role of women and children in the labour force with the associated harshness and cruelty of factory work, domestic service and other employment, changes in fertility and in mortality, the vast increase in wealth (despite the misery which accompanied it) that made compulsory education both possible and economically desirable, and the growth of new attitudes towards children as developing creatures who had rights and towards whom society had responsibilities. The establishment of compulsory education in the last quarter of the nineteenth century led to the formation of powerful departments of education both nationally and locally. These were, and still are, concerned largely with schooling; what happened to children outside school hours and during school holidays was no business of theirs. Even today, both at national and at local authority level, social services departments are responsible for day and residential care, for play groups and child minders; education departments are responsible for nursery schools, infant schools and classes which form part of the educational system. Provision for children of school age, before and after school hours and in school holidays, has been left very much to local initiative and voluntary effort, and though it varies greatly from area to area it is everywhere grossly inadequate.

Parental Rights and State Education.

Abstract: the philosophical presuppositions that may underlie the externals. The foUowing is only a briet summary: an attempt will be made to limit it to 'James Br:7ant Oouant, '!ration!1l A Divided World (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1948), p. • 4uenq Ehlers and Gordon Lee, grugial lSSlles i!l id!catigp (New York, HeD17 Bolt, 1959), p. 226. 'will Berberg, \"Religion, Demooracy and Public Education.\" Re!ir.0n!a Amerioa. ed. John Cogley (Jew York, Meridian Books, 1958). pp. US:1 • Also relevant in the 8Ule eolleotion are eSe&y'8 by Leo Pfeffer and Wilbur Katz. 4 2Mf'£!P£ practice and the theory it embodies; historical discussion of the evolution of American education would be relevant only insotar as it helped to orientate the prosent inquiry, or illustrate a philosophical position of the past whioh is still important today. 1'he 'ederal Government began to move in a big way into the field of education just after World War n. Four examples will be adequate to set the stage for subsequent 4isQ;lssion; these are the \"0.1. Bill\" (1944) the SChool Lunch Aot, the National Detenoe Education Aot of 1958. and the education Bill that was debated in Congress last 1eaJ.~ in February. A brief summary ot these is important, yet it is not necessary to inquire into details, for what is .aore important is the philosophy of rights behind them. The G.I. Blll wu the rosponse of Congress and a grateful. nation in trying to provide opportunities tor returning veterans to continue their education, Whioh had been interrupted by World War II. 'fuition and other financial aida to meet expenses were supplied to each veteran who could meet ordinary soholastic requirements, regardless ot the school he would oboos. to attend. The Government did not set up special ttschools tor veterans'·; it did not allocate a number ot scholarships to oertain collegea.-tor instanoe, all the state uni· versities but not privately-run universities; no 80hools were subsidized at all, and it can be arg&led that in tact the reverse was true: the schools themselves subsidized the education of these additional studenta, for whom they c48.d to struggle to find adequate facilities.6 What is more important, freedom ot 6virgil Blum, S.J •• Freedom ot Choice in Education (New York, lfaemillan Co. 1958). pp. 25-33. This principleO't dircctSubs1dy to the person bas been incorpol\"ated into a number of sjmilar bills, Blum sboW6, suoh as the War Orphans' Educational Assistance Act of 1956, the Readjustment Aot ot 19.52, and others. 5 personal ohoice--not to mention the (so-called) \"principle of separation of Church and State\"-was thus sa:fe~ded. Personal ohoice t becauso a rnan. could choose a.n.y accredited school he wanted. even if it were small, private, an

A Comparative Analysis of Compulsory Education Laws.

Abstract: Social institutions and their underlying principles, like human individuals, have their fates, unpredictable, vacillating from the heights of popular acclaim, devotion, and emulation to the abyss of vehement condemnation and contempt. Such an extreme change of fortune occurred, within less than two decades, to the principles and practice of universal compulsory education. The idea of compulsory school attendance, enjoined on all the children of a country by force of public statutes, had become widely accepted in Protestant countries since the Age of Reformation. In the course of the nineteenth century universal compulsory education was introduced de jure and implemented de facto by all developed Western nations. In the present century and particularly after the end of the Second World War, the developing countries and the new nations which had only recently achieved political independence hastened to enact ccmpulsory education, while the long-established and more developed polities evinced a general tendency to extend the age range of compulsory school attendance. Both the implementation of a legal obligation to receive formal education and the age span subject to it counted as indices of a nation's relative level of culture and development. As a final apotheosis, the principle of universal compulsory education was embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 10 December 1948: "Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory." (Article 26) But less than two decades after this declaration has conferred on compulsory education the status of a universally valid principle, that ought to guide the educational policies of all enlightened nations, the tide began to turn. There appeared a spate of radical free-schoolers and deschoolers who-in the name of the very notion of fundamental human or civil rights which only a short while ago had been invoked to vindicate compulsory schooling-demanded its abolition, and called on students, parents, teachers, and the general public to fight it in the courts and the political arena. Some of these radical opponents of obligatory schooling have gone so far as to liken schools governed by compulsory education laws to the Spanish Inquisition (Ivan Illich [1]), prisons or jails (John Holt [2]), or even concentration camps (Paul Goodman [3]). One can only wonder at this devaluation of words. Each of the terms in question has come to mean something definite and specific, and there is not much in compulsory school attendance that seems to meet their meaning criteria. Even in Nazi Germany there was all the difference in the world between being in

Compulsory Education: National and International Perspective.

Abstract: I HE ISSUE of compulsory edu cation has recently come alive as a subject of philosophical and constitutional thought. Current views on the subject range from support for legal backing of compulsory edu cation to a concern for freedom that prompts a permissive attitude toward an individual's decision to go to school or otherwise. There is a middle ground approach in which de crease in the number of years of compulsory school attendance is seen as an alternative. There are other alternatives pointed toward "functional literacy" rather than formal schooling; "contracting" on the acquisition of basic learning skills such as reading, writing, arithmetic, and others; or a focus on adult education since incentives for education are more real at that level than they are at the lower age levels. The variety in alternatives and the impending questions make the issue of compulsory schooling involved and intri cate; and further analysis of its relevant dimensions becomes necessary. Compulsory education was a compara tively early development in the American states and school attendance laws have been in effect for a long time. Each state con trols its own school system, providing pro grams for all children beginning at age 6 and continuing to age 16 in some of the states and to 18 in the remainder (3). Some state laws allow the public school system to ex empt mentally retarded children from at tending public school. It is not a denial of education for these children but a recognition of their special needs and the possible crea tion of a relevant environment conducive to their development. There are other kinds of exemptions which vary from state to state. One state, for example, provides for exemp tions of children from school attendance in the following categories:

Costing and financing education in LDCs : current issues

Abstract: This paper reviews two different issues of current concern to educational planners and policy-makers involved in the costing and financing of education. The first one highlights the financial impossibility of continuing upward trends in educational costs. It does so by presenting the theoretical case of a country affected by the problem of rapidly rising enrollments and unit costs, increasing share of public expenditure claimed by education and government's inability to devise an alternative strategy acceptable to all segments of the population. The data base corresponds to typical situations of the developing world. The second part of the paper digs into the issue of education and income distribution. It argues that, contrary to the views held by many social reformers, there is little chance that education per se is an adequate policy tool to achieve a more equitable distribution of income. The point is made that education may be conducive towards greater equity only if the policies concerning the pricing, financing and taxing of education are actually geared towards this goal. The conclusion of the paper stresses the importance of educational finance policies in a development strategy aiming at using education to promote equity.