ABSTRACT
This chapter summarises three important reports which have been issued on the subject of secondary education. The Crowther Report deals with the education of boys and girls between the ages of 15 and 18. It pointed out that in 1958 only about 12 per cent of the pupils in maintained secondary schools were aged 15 and over, and it urged very strongly that this was insufficient for the growing need for educated people to run the country in the future. The Beloe Report showed the considerable extent to which secondary modern schools were already taking external examinations. The Newsom Report speaks of the need for ‘a change of thinking and even more a change of heart’ in the attitude of educationists and the general public towards the children. The Newsom Committee stressed the need for raising the school-leaving age to 16, and this has been accepted as official policy, to take effect in 1970.
