Is an elementary application of Marxism to te that the education system of any given fiety will be a reflection of the needs of the ing class. Thus in feudal society the control ircised by the Church reflected its close relanship with the landowning class. It had a Itral function as the means by which that ss maintained the dominance of its own ology and suppressed all independent nking on the part of its "social inferiors" In the nineteenth century the emergence of English public schools was a vital part of the poth integration of the sons of the newly rich o the peculiar myth-laden traditions of glish ruling class society. On the other hand Education Act of 1870 introducing univerelementary schooling was primarily motivaby the need for a more highly-skilled rking population.
Many of its propagandists try to kid classes ipprentices that the Industrial Training Act 1963 was designed to widen for their benefit training and experience they received. In t it was introduced to assist technologically kward British capitalism to catch up on its petitors. Nor of course is the introduction :omprehensive secondary education designed evel out inequalities and privilege. The most juent arguments in its favour have always n those concerned with the elimination of "wastage of talent" under the selective :em. The "wastage" referred to is not, dless to say, the demoralisation and systemdestruction of the personalities of those demned to the lower streams of this system, the loss of resources to the "nation" (read: talist world educational institutions are 'increasingly the centres of a radicalism and dissidence which from time to time breaks into full-scale open revolt. The ferment in the universities-a long-time phenomenon in the Third World-is now a common feature in the developed capitalist countries. In Japan, France, Italy, above all in the central country of world imperialism, the USA, the student movement has leapt to the forefront, posing the ruling class with acute problems in containing its fundamental hostility to the status quo.
And it is not just the universities which are hit by the crisis. In Britain the previously conservative and quiescent teacher training colleges are on the move. The Schools movement has so far had a limited impact in Britain, but in France anu the USA it is already a major feature. There have even been rumblings of discontent within the technical colleges. Despite the instability of its organisations, the peaks and troughs of its activities, this movement is here to stay. The general tendency for a revolt from within the bourgeois educational system is without doubt going to be a perennial feature of capitalist society in the period of its final death throes.
This is because the ruling class is caught in an increasingly insoluble contradiction. In order to compete in the period of the Third Industrial Revolution, every national capitalism is bound to increase the amount of education it provides. At the same time they are of course unwilling to appropriate sufficient resources. Hence the movement towards a lowering of standards in staffing, equipment, accommodation, etc. Albeit that education is increasingly vocationnally oriented, designed to equip the people it processes with the narrow specialism required to perform a particular job, it cannot avoid as a by-product increasing their general cultural level-and thereby increasing their capacity to understand and to question the conditions under which they work and the society in which they live.
This basic contradiction which cannot tail to heighten in intensity the longer capitalism survives, has provided revolutionaries with tremendous opportunities. The world-wide phenonemon of youth increasingly alienated from all aspects of bouraeois society has found of the working class, revolutionaries have to be absolutely clear about the nature of education in our society. A merciless critique has to be made of every sector of the educational system, demonstrating how at every level it is linked to and controlled by ruling class interests. Above all students and staff throughout the system have to be organised to combat this influence.
Reformist measures which do not touch the roots of the system have to be continually exposed through the presentation of a programme of transitional demands which pose clearly the question of an educational system controlled by students and teachers as opposed to one which serves the needs of the boss classa programme which poses the question of an education relevant to the personal needs of the student. Only in this way will we be able to develop the movement in the colleges and especially in the schools and techs. It will be one of the main tasks of the Spartacus League to help to work out this programme and to lead the struggles against bourgeois education at all levels.
John Blair THE RED MOLE is a 12-page fortnightly revolutionary internationalist Marxist newspaper. To subscribe, fill in the form below. Please send me THE RED MOLE for the next 6/12 months. I enclose cheque/P.O./cash for £1/£2.
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