ABSTRACT
The English education system has been labelled 'elitist'. In its simplest form this means that the leaders of English society have been drawn from a small group of people who have used the education system to help maintain their position at the top. The theory behind the notion was, as previously stated, that an IQ of a certain level was needed to benefit from a particular kind of education. In other words, to use the concept of 'compensatory education' is to distract attention from the deficiencies in the school and in the education process and instead to focus attention on deficiencies within the community, family and child. However, in so far as such compensatory education schemes usually involve changes in the organization and immediate goals of the school, such criticism is not well-founded. Many idealists claim that what is happening now is the replacement of 'equal opportunity' by 'egalitarianism' an aim in education.
