ABSTRACT
The world of education presents the spectacle of a battlefield of warring parties, conflicting doctrines and alternative models. Anyone attempting to analyse the educational system and to assess what education is trying to do, is immediately faced with a whole series of dilemmas which defy solution. Educational plans and policies have to be implemented by individuals who occupy positions in networks of social relationships in organisational settings. Beyond this, organisations themselves exist in particular political, economic and ideational frameworks. In English society during the Middle Ages, the church had the greatest influence over education. A number of pressure groups have developed within the teaching profession designed to promote specific educational goals. The Council for Educational Advance is an umbrella organisation which was successful in making education an important issue in the 1964 general election, and also fought the cuts in educational spending in 1968.
