ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an overview of the evolution of secondary education in England and Wales. It is concerned with higher education, and discusses the role of further education as a complement to higher education in Great Britain. The chapter presents a brief summary of the very complicated British system of educational credentials. It summarizes the features of British education, highlights those which affect the analysis in the later chapters, and describes some issues of classification and measurement. The British educational system was much more homogeneous across the nation than was the US system. Much more financial support was provided and control exercised by the central government there than in the United States. The strong classical academic commitments of the regular British educational system discouraged interest in technical programs. One of the sharpest differences between secondary education in Great Britain and the United States was the lack of anything in Great Britain comparable to high school graduation in the United States.
