EDUCATION AND TRAINING DURING AN ERA OF TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGE

INTRODUCTION
Since the beginning of the industrial revolution in Britain, an era has continued in which science and technology have grown and changed much faster than before. In the light of present developments such as environmental change including global warming and the need to sustain the diversity of nature, this era is likely to continue as long as human beings can continue to exist on earth. Accordingly, it is extremely important for every state in which there is a general predisposition towards democracy to try continuously to adapt education and training to society’s needs. But, especially since the end of the Second World War in 1945, Britain needs to do this to a far greater extent than do some other now large advanced countries whose people generally wish to live in a democratic state such as the USA, France, Germany and South Korea .
This article concentrates on the need for most people- and most especially those people who are leaders or have the desire to become leaders – such as politicians in democratic societies and economies to understand technological change because science and technology are now so closely linked to each other that the educational requirements for understanding modern science and modern technology are generally closely related to each other.

This article considers the history of the British Industrial Training Act as a case study of education and training policy failure. This case study is designed to help in the development of better policies in future.

Since the middle of the nineteenth century, several individuals and official bodies tried but failed to convince British governments that education and training were vital to the country’s prosperity. (Maclure.1985)
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In 1868 a House of Commons Select Committee on Scientific Instruction ‘reported in detail on how professional and technical ignorance was already beginning to rot British industrial supremacy at its roots’. Barnett(1986) attributed the historic British lack of an education system worthy of a leading industrial power to “The cult of the ‘practical man’; romantic idealism; and the profound British dislike of coherent organisation, especially if centrally administered, especially if under the aegis of state and especially if a charge on public funds…… There was also “horror at the thought that education might actually prepare the young for a working life and the gaining of an income rather than pursue other, nobler purposes…” While Germany was educating engineers to run German industry, Britain was training clergymen, public schoolmasters ,Oxbridge dons and public servants. In Britain ”Between 1870 and 1900,grammar schools were following public schools’ in adopting a classical curriculum which had been designed originally to meet the established needs to be accepted to study at Oxford and Cambridge Universities: top priority was assigned to provision of an academic education. This meant that every pupil taught within the secondary education system received such teaching whatever their inclinations or abilities and at whatever age they left school. This has not been an effective substitute for provision of education for pupils about topics which were likely to be useful and/or interesting to them.

THE CASE STUDY: INDUSTRIAL TRAINING POLICY IN BRITAIN

In Britain, one significant national training policy was initiated to attempt to deal with one aspect of this enormous problem. This was the Industrial Training Act passed into law in 1964.But the policies which this legislation initiated were abandoned after only a few years of operation. This article suggests that no effective state policies have yet been put in their place.

During the nineteenth century, two political parties, Conservatives and Liberal dominated the UK government. Although a constitutional monarchy continues to survive even today, during the twentieth century and up to the present , most governments in this country were controlled to a great extent by a frequently elected Conservative Party.

It was observed in2024 that between the end of the Second World War in 1945 and during the first quarter of the 21st century up 2024: “Labour was in office for just 33years and had only six prime ministers since 1945.Only Clement Attlee Harold Wilson and Tony Blair have won general elections . The Conservatives held office for 67 out of the last 100 years and produced 14 prime ministers in that time”.(Labour in power, Leader, The New Statesman 26 January-1 February 2024,p3)

After the Second World War which had ended in 1945, trades unions mainly representing skilled craftsmen wanted to consolidate the long-established apprenticeship system so as to control entry to skilled trades. By the early 1960s most British politicians believed that economic growth was too slow and that something should be done about it. They generally agreed that the solution needed to involve government stimulating the supply of the necessary appropriate skilled labour. In a mainly privately owned economy, they believed that it would be necessary to secure agreement between the principal economic actors involved ‘to hammer out a common approach to which they would then be committed’. (Marquand,1988)

MacLure (1988) suggested that since the end of the Second World War discussion about needs for reform of education and training has mainly based on the assumption that publicly provided child-centred education could somehow meet society’s essential needs. He attributed the chaos in the education system to swings in the political pendulum which produced ‘alternating periods of activity and paralysis, legislation, and the repeal of legislation’ .This chaos has continued up to the present. MacLure (1985)had pointed out that it was even more damaging to society and the economy that there were numerous very important contradictions within the system which arose from the defence of a hugely selective academically elitist university system alongside a nascent system of comprehensive secondary education.

British society and economy have continued to be denied adequate quantities of high quality engineering and managerial skills ever since the nineteenth century and vocational education has been neglected ,except for during a short period starting in 1964 when Industrial Training Boards were active.

Nevertheless there have been a few positive changes made in British education and training policy since the middle of the nineteenth century but these changes have been totally inadequate. There has been significant progress in mass education and substantial growth in science education while education in classical education in relation to the ancient Latin and Greek languages and the history of those who spoke them play a much smaller role in present school and university curricula.

BRITAIN’S CONTINUING FAILURE TO DEVELOP AN EFFECTIVE EDUCATION AND TRAINING SYSTEM

Barnett attributes the British failure to build up a coherent system of education and training to the following factors which contrasted with the situations in other European monarchies such as France since as early as the seventeenth century :In Britain:
1. State action in relation to education and training was perceived as just one of many manifestations of European tyranny.
2 The education of the great majority of the population was inadequate
3. Only a tiny proportion of the population were educated to a reasonable standard for participating in industrial work.
4. British employers failed to invest sufficiently in training employees after they had recruited them.(Barnett,1986).

MacLure (1988) suggested that since the end of the Second World War discussion about needs for reform of education has mainly been based on assuming that publicly provided child-centred education could somehow meet society’s essential needs. He attributed the chaos in the education system to swings in the political pendulum which produced ‘alternating periods of activity and paralysis, legislation, and the repeal of legislation’ .This chaos has continued up to the present. MacLure (1985) pointed out that it was even more damaging to society and the economy that there were numerous very important contradictions within the system which arose from the defence of a hugely selective academically elitist university system alongside a nascent system of comprehensive secondary education.

In the early 1960s, there was increasing realization that skills shortages slowed the growth of industry. that the British economy was performing badly in comparison with overseas competitors industry’s hostility to government intervention was less than previously because it was increasingly recognized that economic planning and income policies might be preferable for industry than ‘stop-go’ economic policies (Sheldrake and Vickerstaff, 1987).

Accordingly, in 1964,the Conservative administration passed the Industrial Training Act despite that party’s belief that industry should be left to its own devices. This legislation was fully supported by the opposition Labour Party. The principal policy established as a consequence was the establishment of Industrial Training Boards (ITBs) which implemented some useful policies. But the great majority of the ITBs were abolished only a few years of operation, and most of the policies which they had initiated were abandoned. Moreover, the principal aim of the ITBs set up under the Act was mainly confined to tackling only one of the four problem areas outlined above-the failure of employers to provide adequate training for the workers they employ. Even within their narrow remit, the ITBs only addressed the training of employees up to the level of technicians, and the other problem areas listed above have remained largely neglected up to the time this article was written in 2024.

The hastily devised and implemented educational reforms of Governments led by Margaret Thatcher between 1983 and 1988 can reasonably be regarded as a more or less complete failures. A large proportion of 16-19 year olds quitted full-time education, some to go into paid employment, some to enter the Youth Training Scheme initiated by the Government which gave them very little training.

THE CASE STUDY-INDUSTRIAL TRAINING BOARDS (ITBs)

INDUSTRIAL TRAINING BOARDS’ AIMS
The Construction Industry Training Board and the Engineering Industry Training Board were the two largest Industrial Training Boards (ITBs). The Engineering Industry Training Boards aims and objectives which follow were fairly typical for ITBs:

1. Securing key aspects of the training situation in the industry: in particular securing the standards and supply of craftsmen, technicians and technologists on whose skills the engineering industry relies;
2. Helping companies to plan and make the most effective provision for other training to achieve their aims;
3. Helping to bring about improvement in the deployment and utilization of manpower in the industry as a whole;
4 Providing training facilities and information best supplied for the industry as a whole rather than by individual companies. (EITB Annual Report,1973/1974, p.4.)
The Industrial Training Act envisaged that ITBs would derive most of their revenues from levies.

THE FRAGILITY OF INDUSTRIAL TRAINING BOARDS

ITBs were controlled by a tripartite group of employers, trades unions and educational representatives. Employer and trade union members of their Boards were appointed by a Government minister. Educational Board members were appointed in consultation with the Government. It was logical to have such a tripartite structure of interested parties in training in control, but it created fragility in ITB’s which made them very vulnerable to political attack.

Significant political opposition to Industrial Training Boards began to build up in the late 1960s,only a very short time after their establishment. There was criticism from small firms, from academic economists and from the right of the Conservative Party , including Enoch Powell. who claimed that the Industrial Training Act had ‘ignited a prairie fire of bureaucracy and profligate spending’.(Ziderman,1978).The Election Manifesto of the Conservative administration led by Edward Heath which came into power in June 1970 committed the Government to ‘closely examine the work of the Industrial Training Boards and the levy/grant system so as to root out unnecessary bureaucracy’. Since the summer of 1971 some large firms had been urging that the levy/grant system should be dropped, and there was growing resentment in many firms for needing to secure the approval of ITBs for their training an also some concern that levy/grant had now outlived its usefulness. But it was generally agreed that important functions still needed to be developed:

!.Standard setting
2.Advising firms which wanted help to improve their training
3. Giving financial help for training
4.Encouraging training in management
But it was not generally considered that these functions could be well served by a large number of ITBs each acting independently.
One senior civil servant was very influential. He considered that the whole rationale for the 1964 Industrial Training legislation was that some engineering firms did all the training but other firms than took them away. He did not think that this was a serious problem and that the whole effort was about skilled engineering workers but had been expanded inappropriately.

This was one of the reasons for a Government review of the 1964 Industrial Training Act which included the whole financial foundations of its operation –the levy/grant system from which ITBs derived most of their revenue. Within the Government, there was still a significant body of opinion which persisted in believing that there was still a lack general lack of training compared with Germany and Scandinavia and an ambition to remould training to the German pattern There were those within Government who believed that the ITB system did not provide Britain with the essential features of the German system. The ITB system might have been suitable for the engineering industry But the ITBs took a system that might have been suitable for the engineering industry and applied it to a whole range of industries where it did not work It was generally recognised that ITBs devoted insufficient attention needed to the provision of training to meet the skills needed in an environment of rapid technological change (Senker,1992 pp40 and 134).

MARGARET THATCHER’S REFORMS

The hastily devised and implemented educational reforms of Governments led by Margaret Thatcher between 1983 and 1988 can reasonably be regarded as a more or less complete failure. A large proportion of 16-19 year olds quitted full-time education, some to go into paid employment, some to enter the Youth Training Scheme initiated by the Government which gave them very little training.(Senker,1992 pp,56,154-157 and 168-171)

CONCLUSIONS

This book which was published in 1992 (Senker,P.,1992,p170) concluded that “British machinery of government cannot cope with the task of devising and implementing competent policies in areas such as industrial training where the costs are immediate but the benefits long term. ….Evidence of the need for radical reform of the way in which government operates in Britain is accumulating”.

In 2024,over 30 years later, this article has considered the principal changes that have occurred since then which have generally been inadequate.

REFERENCES
Labour in power, leader, The New Statesman 26 January-1 February 2024,p3
MacLure,S.,(1988) Education Re-formed, Hodder and Stoughton, London
Maclure,S.(1985) ‘The responsiveness of the Education System to Change, in Worswick, G.(ed.) Education and Economic Performance, Gower,Aldershot,UK,p115
Barnett, C. (1986)The Audit of War: The illusion and Reality of Britain as a Great Nation, Macmillan, London pp201-233.
Sheldrake , J., and Vickerstaff, S.1987. The History of Industrial Training in Britain, Avebury, Aldershot, UK\, p34
Marquand, D.,(1988) The Unprincipled Society, London,p45.
EITB Annual Report,1973/1974, p.4.
Ziderman, A.,(1978)Manpower Training and Policy, Macmillan ,London, p.42/
Senker, P.,(1992) Industrial Training in a Cold Climate: An assessment of Britain’s training policies, Avebury,UK,pp39-45