ABSTRACT
The apparent paradox is supported by the prevailing relativism. Vocationalism is or seems value-free to those who wish to avoid a definition of education which raises troubling questions about social justice, about the needs of a democracy and, an even worse threat, about education as a good in itself, whatever its practical benefits. Vocationalism is one way of avoiding difficult choices of value, of looking seriously at the injustice which runs through the educational system. The dominant culture is a thousand educational miles away from that of the selective local grammar schools which many of them replaced. A free government cannot tolerate without extreme danger the want of education in the mass of the people. The whole enterprise was ill-conceived in educational, social and financial terms; characteristically. To save face, a much-modified plan was eventually put forward.
