Welsh Journals

5. WHAT ARE SCHOOLS IN WALES FOR? WALES AND THE EDUCATION REFORM ACTi Gareth Elwyn Jones CURRENT ISSUES As part of its 'great' Educational Reform the government is to introduce a National Curriculum into all state primary and secondary schools in England and Wales. This will be linked to a system of assessment/testing of pupils at the ages of seven, 11, 14 and 16. Established 'testing' at ages 16 and 18 will continue. The National Curriculum is to include History. Public utterances of the Secretary of State for Education indicate that he believes in the study of History, particularly as a vehicle for transmitting to young people knowledge of the signal episodes, values and heritage of the society in which they live. It may be hoped that the Secretary of State for Wales shares this belief in the enlightenment which results from a study of the past, since it is he who is responsible for implementing all educational legislation and policy in the country, apart from that which deals with the University. The implementation of a National Curriculum matters greatly. In the light of some aspects of the history of Welsh schools this century, parents, and all who profess some loyalty to Wales, must be concerned. And this concern should not be only for the language. It is often claimed that the origins of current government policies lie with the then Prime Minister, James Callaghan's Ruskin College speech of 1976, though it would be more accurate to trace it back further, to the debate over comprehensivization and the Black Papers of the late 1960s and early 1970s (Cox and Dyson, 1969). The common thread has ostensibly been anxiety over educational standards and their implications for the economic well-being of Britain. In fact, the debate, like all attempts at fundamental reorientation in education, has been about social engineering. This is the problem for Wales. A