Secondary technical school

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Not to be confused with technical school or vocational school.

Secondary technical schools, referred to

Tripartite System
of education. Few were built; their main interest is theoretical.

The

secondary modern schools
, the government intended there to be a series of secondary technical schools that would teach mechanical, scientific and engineering skills to serve industry and science.

History

The 1944 Act (the Butler Act) replaced all previous education law in

county colleges for school-leavers up to 18 years of age.[3]

This reasoning had been based on the 1943 Norwood Report, the experiences gained in the 1930s and the skills shortages encountered during the ongoing war.

"the various kinds of technical schools, which were not instituted to satisfy the intellectual needs of an arbitrarily assumed group of children, but to prepare boys and girls for taking up certain crafts – engineering, agriculture and the like. Nevertheless it is usual to think of the engineer or other craftsman as possessing a particular set of interests or aptitudes by virtue of which he becomes a successful engineer or whatever he may become".[4]

Local authorities were given a deal of freedom on how this was to be implemented, and while it was easy to create two branches from existing building stock, technical schools often had to be built afresh. As a result, in most

LEA areas, pupils were not selected from the 11-plus as originally proposed, but from a separate, voluntary set of examinations taken at the age of 12 or 13. Kent was one authority that embraced the changes and implemented the system according to the letter of the law.[4]
These schools were invariably single sex, and usually recruited their entrants from the lower end of the 'selective' band (as measured at the age of 11). Admission was at first at the age of 13, but later at 11. There was still a difficulty in providing suitable accommodation, and the Wilmington schools in Kent provide a case study.

Wilmington case study

Technical education could be traced back to a

A-levels in 1964 and a building programme commenced. In 1967 there was a major school reorganisation: the girls' tech moved off site in 1974, the boys' became Wilmington Grammar School for Boys and a new secondary modern school is built over the demolished Wilmington Hall. There were further status changes in 1984, proposed in 1989, in 1991, 1999 and 2004.[5]

Nationally

Whereas the other two branches of the tripartite system would be built over the decade from 1944, the technical schools barely materialised. At their peak, only 2% to 3% of children attended one.[3]

Analysis

Technical schools were a modest success, given their limited resources and lack of government attention. Their curriculum was well shaped for dealing with real world employment, and had a solid practical edge. The schools had good links with industry and commerce. In many ways, the technical school was the forerunner of the City Technology College of the 1980s and 1990s.[citation needed]

Other than a simple lack of resources, three reasons have been proposed for the failure of the technical school.[citation needed]

References

  1. ISBN 978-0-333-49157-7
    .
  2. ISBN 978-1-118-88221-4
    .
  3. ^ a b Barber 2014.
  4. ^ a b Potter 2014, p. 54.
  5. ^ Potter 2014, p. 8.
Bibliography
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