ABSTRACT
As the evolution of the primary and secondary school systems shows, education begins by being thought of as a privilege for the few and ends as a necessity which is taken for granted by all. A similar development is now in the process of repeating itself at the tertiary stage. The fact that it is still very far from completion, and the concomitant tendency to look upon full-time study beyond the schoolleaving age as necessary and beneficial only for an intellectually gifted minority, should not blind us to the inevitability of the process. In the same way, and for the same reasons, that the selective grammar school has ceased to be an appropriate model for policymaking at the secondary stage, so the pre-eminence and splendid isolation of universities must expect to meet with challenges from up-and-coming contenders in the widening field of higher education. As it is, we have a so-called binary system which reflects all the inequalities that have bedevilled our secondary schools in the past.
