ABSTRACT
The idea that children should be selected for different kinds of education can be found in Plato’s Republic (1970b: bk 3). Plato believed that children should be selected for their intelligence and this view has persisted in some countries up to the present (e.g. Cooper 1980). There are obvious difficulties in selecting for intelligence, not least the difficulties involved in saying what it is or in assessing it accurately. If children are selected for the best education because of their high intelligence then one may wonder what kind of education is appropriate for those who do not possess it. Plato’s answer was to provide vocational education for those less well endowed. Modern selectors have often advocated the same kind of education as that provided for the highly intelligent, but of an inferior kind (e.g. Bantock 1965; Cooper 1980). Another approach is to select according to ability. The idea is that
different children have different potentials and that, at an appropriate age, they should be selected for the type of school that is most likely to fulfil their potential (Burt 1973). This approach avoids the need to define and to test intelligence and leads to the need to carefully devise ways of exploring the developing interests and abilities of a child. Arguably, the German secondary system is of this type, while the UK system up until the 1960s was of the former kind. Selection will always arouse strong opposition so long as it is thought to be inequitable, and therefore must be fair if it is to command confidence.
