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Chapter 1
Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall
1
Performance Management, 3/E 3rd
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Chapter 1—Performance Management and Reward Systems in Context
Learning Objectives
1.1 Explain the concept of performance management.
1.2 Distinguish performance management from performance appraisal.
1.3 Recognize the multiple negative consequences that can arise from the poor design
and implementation of a performance management system. These negative
consequences affect all the parties involved: employees, supervisors, and the
organization as a whole.
1.4 Understand the concept of a reward system and its relationship to a performance
management system.
1.5 Distinguish among the various types of employee rewards including
compensation, benefits, and relational returns.
1.6 Describe the multiple purposes of a performance management system including
strategic, administrative, informational, developmental, organizational
maintenance, and documentation purposes.
1.7 Describe and explain the key features of an ideal performance management
system.
1.8 Create a presentation providing persuasive arguments in support of why an
organization should implement a performance management system, including the
purposes that performance management systems serve and the dangers of a poorly
implemented system.
1.9 Note the relationship and links between a performance management system and
other HR functions including recruitment and selection, training and
development, workforce planning, and compensation.
1.10 Describe and explain contextual and cultural factors that affect the
implementation of performance management systems around the world.
Part I: Strategic and General Considerations___________________________________________________
Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall
2
Chapter Outline
Overview
1. Definition of Performance Management (PM)
2. The Performance Management Contribution
3. Disadvantages/Dangers of Poorly Implemented PM Systems
4. Definition of Reward Systems
5. Aims and Role of PM Systems
6. Characteristics of an Ideal PM System
7. Integration with Other Human Resources and Development Activities
8. Performance Management Around the World
1. Definition of Performance Management (PM)
Continuous process of
Identifying performance of individuals and teams
Measuring performance of individuals and teams
Developing performance of individuals and teams
Aligning performance with the strategic goals of the organization
 How did Sally’s behavior fit this description?
 Let’s take a survey here. Raise your hand if your company’s performance
review system actually helps you improve your performance. How does our
class compare with the Watson Wyatt finding that 30 percent of employees
believe their company’s performance review system actually helps employees
improve performance?
PM is NOT performance appraisal.
• PM
o Strategic business considerations
o Ongoing feedback
o So employee can improve performance
o Driven by line manager
• Performance appraisal
o Assesses employee
• Strengths
• Weaknesses
o Once a year
o Lacks ongoing feedback
o Driven by HR
2. The Performance Management Contribution
For Employees
Clarify definition of job and success criteria
Increase motivation to perform
Increase self-esteem
Enhance self-insight and development
For Managers
Supervisors communicate views of performance more clearly
Chapter 1
Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall
3
Managers gain insight about subordinates
There is better, more timely, identification of good and poor performance
Employee performance improves
For Organization/HR Function
Clarify organizational goals
Facilitate organizational change
Administrative actions are more fair and appropriate
There is better protection from lawsuits
 How did PM help IBM switch to a customer service focus in the 1980s?
3. Disadvantages/Dangers of Poorly-implemented PM Systems
For Employees
Lowered self-esteem
Employee burnout and job dissatisfaction
Damaged relationships
Use of misleading information
For Managers
Increased turnover
Decreased motivation to perform
Unjustified demands on managerial resources
Varying and unfair standards and ratings
For Organization
Wasted time and money
Derivation of ratings is a mystery.
Biases can replace standards.
Risk of litigation increases.
 From the reading so far, give at least two examples of ways in which poorly
implemented PM systems can hurt the organization.
4. Definition of Reward Systems
Set of mechanisms for distributing
o Tangible returns
 Cash compensation
 Benefits
o Intangible or relational returns
 As part of an employment relationship
o Tangible returns
 Cash compensation
 Base pay
 Cost-of-living and contingent pay
 Incentives (short- and long-term)
 Benefits such as
 Income protection
 Allowances
 Work/life focus
Part I: Strategic and General Considerations___________________________________________________
Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall
4
Which of these reward systems are more likely to be based on seniority than on
performance?
What kind of returns did Delta Petroleum offer to its top executives? How
might these returns affect performance?
o Intangible or relational returns
 Recognition and status
 Employment security
 Challenging work
 Learning opportunities
What kinds of intangible returns does Sun Microsystems provide to its employees?
How would such intangible returns improve performance?
Returns and Their Degree of Dependency on the Performance Management System
Return (Degree of Dependency)
 Cost of Living Adjustment (Low)
 Income Protection (Low)
 Work/Life Focus (Moderate)
 Allowances (Moderate)
 Relational Returns (Moderate)
 Base Pay (Moderate)
 Contingent Pay (High)
 Short-term Incentives (High)
 Long-term Incentives (High)
 Consider the returns at an employer you know about; how do they relate to the PM
system?
5. Aims and Role of PM Systems
Purposes of PM Systems (Overview)
 Strategic
 Administrative
 Informational
 Developmental
 Organizational maintenance
 Documentation
Strategic Purpose
o Link individual goals with organization’s goals
o Communicate most crucial business strategic initiatives
Administrative Purpose
o Provide information for making decisions in reference to:
 Salary adjustments
Chapter 1
Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall
5
 Promotions
 Retention or termination
 Recognition of individual performance
 Merit increases
 Identification of poor performers
 Layoffs
Informational Purpose
o Communicate to Employees
 Expectations
 Organization
 Supervisor
 What is important
 How they are doing
 How to improve
Developmental Purpose
o Performance feedback/coaching
o Identification of individual strengths and weaknesses
o Identification of causes of performance deficiencies
o Tailor development of individual career path
Organizational Maintenance Purpose
o Plan effective workforce
 Anticipate/respond to future needs
 Determine priorities and allocate resources
 Perform talent inventory
o Assess future training needs
o Evaluate performance at organizational level
o Evaluate effectiveness of HR interventions
Documentation Purpose
o Validate selection instruments
o Document administrative decisions
o Help meet legal requirements
Purposes of PM Systems (Summary)
 Strategic
 Administrative
 Informational
 Developmental
 Organizational maintenance
 Documentation
 How well does the PM system at SELCO Credit Union meet these purposes? What
about a system you are familiar with?
6. Characteristics of an Ideal PM System
Part I: Strategic and General Considerations___________________________________________________
Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall
6
Overview
 Congruent with organizational strategy
 Thorough
 Practical
 Meaningful
 Specific
 Identifies effective and ineffective performance
 Reliable
 Valid
 Acceptable and Fair
 Inclusive
 Open
 Correctable
 Standardized
 Ethical
Strategically Congruent
o Consistent with organization’s strategy
o Aligned with unit and organizational goals
Contextually Congruent
o Congruent with the organization’s culture as well as the broader cultural
context of the region or country
 Example: A 360-degree-feedback is not effective where
communication is not fluid and hierarchies are rigid.
Thorough
o All employees are evaluated.
o All major job responsibilities are evaluated.
o Evaluations cover performance for the entire review period.
o Feedback is given on both positive and negative performance.
Practical
o Available
o Easy to use
o Acceptable to decision makers
o Benefits outweigh costs
Meaningful
o Standards are important and relevant.
o System measures ONLY what employee can control.
o Results have consequences (used for important administrative decisions).
o Evaluations occur regularly and at appropriate times.
o System provides for continuing skill development of evaluators.
Specific
o Concrete and detailed guidance to employees
Chapter 1
Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall
7
 What’s expected
 How to meet the expectations
Identifies effective and ineffective performance
o Distinguish between effective and ineffective
 Behaviors
 Results
o Provide ability to identify employees with various levels of performance
Reliable
o Consistent
o Free of error
o Inter-rater reliability
Valid
o Relevant (i.e., measures what is important)
o Not deficient (i.e., doesn’t measure unimportant facets of job)
o Not contaminated (i.e., only measures what the employee can control)
Acceptable and Fair
o Perception of Distributive Justice
 Work performed  evaluation received  reward
o Perception of Procedural Justice
 Fairness of procedures used to
 Determine ratings
 Link ratings to rewards
How can different cultures challenge this requirement in international
companies?
Inclusive
o Represents concerns of all involved
 When system is created, employees should help with deciding
 What should be measured
 How it should be measured
 Employee should provide input on performance prior to evaluation
meeting.
Open (No Secrets)
o Frequent, ongoing evaluations and feedback
o Two-way communications in appraisal meeting
o Clear standards and ongoing communication
o Communications are factual, open, and honest
Correctable
o Recognizes that human judgment is fallible
o Appeals process provided
Part I: Strategic and General Considerations___________________________________________________
Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall
8
Standardized
o Ongoing training of managers to provide consistent evaluations across
 People
 Time
Ethical
o Supervisor suppresses self-interest.
o Supervisor rates only where he or she has sufficient information about the
performance dimension.
o Supervisor respects employee privacy.
 What did the Mercer study show could be the payoff if an ideal PM system were
implemented?
 When you think about PM systems you have observed, what characteristics of an ideal
system are most common?
 What characteristics of an ideal PM system seem most likely to be absent in systems
you have observed?
7. Integration with Other Human Resources and Development Activities
PM provides information for:
o Development of training to meet organizational needs
o Workforce planning
o Recruitment and hiring decisions
o Development of compensation systems
8. Performance Management Around the World
o PM is used in a number of countries including the United States, Mexico,
Turkey, India, Australia, China, South Korea, Japan, U.K., Germany, Bulgaria,
Romania, and France.
o The needs to 1) align individual and organizational goals and 2) enhance the
performance of individuals and groups are common across countries.
o Yet, different countries emphasize different components of PM.
 Example 1: PMs in Japan tend to emphasize behaviors to the
detriment of results.
 Example 2: The current challenge among many organizations in
South Korea is how to reconcile a merit-based approach with more
traditional cultural values.
Performance Management (PM) in Context: Summary
1. Definition of Performance Management (PM)
2. The Performance Management Contribution
3. Disadvantages/Dangers of Poorly Implemented PM Systems
4. Definition of Reward Systems
5. Aims and Role of PM Systems
6. Characteristics of an Ideal PM system
7. Integration with Other Human Resources and Development Activities
8. Performance Management Around the World
Chapter 1
Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall
9
Review Learning Objectives
Worked Solutions for End-of-Chapter Cases
Case Study 1.2: Performance Management at Network Solutions, Inc.
1. Overall, the performance management system at Network Solutions fits the
characteristics of an ideal system nicely.
(Suggested points: 3, [1.8])
2. It has strategic congruence; it encourages a thorough and continuous evaluation
process; the results will be used to make important decisions; expectations of
employees are clearly communicated; the plan discriminates among high,
average, and low performers; employee input is gathered before the meeting; and
it encourages ongoing communication between manager and employee. However,
there is not enough information presented to know if the standards that employees
are rated on are relevant and under the employee’s control, or if there is an
appeals process in place. Furthermore, reliability and validity information of the
system will need to be assessed. Finally, data will be needed (possibly collected
by the HR function) to assess whether employees see the system as fair, whether
it is being used ethically, and whether the benefits of the system outweigh its
costs.
(Suggested points: 5, [1.8])
3. Advantages/positive outcomes of successfully implementing this system include:
a. Raising the bar of performance and aggressively managing performance
b. Cascading organizational goals to individual contributors, setting
objectives to meet these goals, and planning development activities to
ensure that objectives are met
c. Ability to track talent profile and compare it to business performance
d. Enhanced communication around employee development
e. Improved employee satisfaction and loyalty
f. Increased risk taking for innovation and technology breakthroughs
g. Increased trust between manager and employee
h. Increased collaboration
(Suggested points: 3, [1.3])
4. Disadvantages of implementing this system include:
a. Poor performers may be retained to meet the 10 percent quota
b. Increased risk of discrimination litigation
c. Hiring mediocre talent to satisfy the bottom 10 percent quota
d. Promote internal competition, undermining team collaboration
e. May drive unethical behavior, as employees do whatever it takes to
compete
f. Everyone takes a turn being a “token 3”
g. The forced distribution may not reflect actual performance, and there may
be penalization of (a) good performers in high performing teams and (b)
good managers who hire well and manage all performers actively
Part I: Strategic and General Considerations___________________________________________________
Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall
10
(Suggested points: 3, [1.3])
Case Study 1.3: Distinguishing Performance Management Systems from
Performance Appraisal Systems
A performance management system is a multidimensional concept. Performance
management is a 1) continuous process of 2) identifying, 3) measuring, 4) setting goals,
and 5) developing/coaching the performance of individuals and teams. At the same time,
a performance management system involves the 6) alignment of performance with the
strategic goals of the organization. In short, a performance management system broadly
consists of the six elements just mentioned.
In contrast, a performance appraisal system consists of only two of the elements of a
performance management system (i.e., the identification and measurement of individual
and team performance). In other words, a performance appraisal system is a non-
continuous (e.g., once-a-year) systematic description of an employee’s strengths and
weaknesses. It does not include any ongoing effort to provide goal-setting,
development/coaching, or strategic alignment of employees’ performance with
organizational goals. Therefore, a performance appraisal system is a component of a
performance management system.
Clarifying the distinction between a performance appraisal system and a performance
management system reveals three types of criticisms against a performance-related
system. First, recall that two elements, a) the identification and b) measurement of
individual/team performance, are included in both a performance appraisal system and a
performance management system. However, four other elements, c) continuous process;
d) goal-setting; e) development/coaching; and f) strategic alignment, are included in a
performance management system but not in a performance appraisal system. Given that
these latter four elements can be translated to benefits if managed appropriately, it
follows that a performance management system has four more potential benefits than
does a performance appraisal system. Because a performance management system has a
greater number of potential benefits than does a performance appraisal system, a person
can criticize a performance appraisal system for offering a smaller number of potential
benefits to an organization. Similarly, one can criticize a performance appraisal system
on the basis that the system does not have a particular element that a performance
management has, given that there are a total of four elements that a performance
management system has but that a performance appraisal system does not. Either way,
this type of criticism is directed against performance appraisal systems but not against
performance management systems.
Second, note that a person can criticize the poor execution or management of an element
that is included in a performance management system but not in a performance appraisal
system. In this case, the criticism is directed against a performance management system
but not a performance appraisal system.
Third, a person can criticize the poor execution or management of an element that is
included in both a performance management system and a performance appraisal system.
Chapter 1
Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall
11
Accordingly, this criticism is directed against both a performance management system
and a performance appraisal system.
Therefore, the following patterns of X’s are observed in the table below.
(Suggested points: 8, [1.2])
Additional Cases and Worked Solutions
Case Study: CRB, Inc.
A very small car restoration business (CRB, Inc.) is interviewing you for a position as its
human resources manager on a part-time basis, working 20 hours per week, while you
complete your degree. You would be the first HR manager they have ever been able to
afford to hire, and the husband and wife owners (Al and Mary Brown) have been
operating the business for 10 years. In addition to you, they recently hired a part-time
janitor. This brought the paid staff to six full-time employees: a foreman who is
responsible for scheduling and overseeing the work, two auto body repair workers, a
Criticisms Directed against
performance
appraisal systems
Directed against both
performance appraisal
and management
systems
Directed against
performance
management systems
1 x
2 x
3 x
4 x
5 x
6 x
7 x
8 x
9 x
10 x
11 x
Part I: Strategic and General Considerations___________________________________________________
Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall
12
person who disassembles and reassembles cars, a painter, and a detail person who assists
the painter with getting the car ready to paint and sanding and waxing it afterward. Al
Brown handles sales and estimating prices, runs errands and chases down parts, and
envisions the future. Mary has been doing the bookkeeping and general paperwork. The
owners and employees are very proud of CRB’s reputation for doing high quality work in
the restoration of old cars made as far back as the 1930s.
CRB pays its employees based on “flagged hours” which are the number of paid hours
that were estimated to complete the work. (For example, the estimate may say that it will
take three hours to straighten a fender and prepare it for painting. When the auto body
repair worker has completed straightening the fender, he would “flag” completion of
three hours, whether it took him two hours or six hours to actually complete the work. It
is to his benefit to be very fast and very good at what he does.) CRB pays the workers 40
percent of what it charges the customer for the flagged hours; the other funds are used to
pay the employer’s share of the taxes and overhead, with a small margin for profit. The
foreman, who does some “flagged hours” auto body repair himself, is also paid a 5
percent commission on all the labor hours of the other employees, after the car is
accepted as complete by the customer and the customer pays for the completed work.
Employees are given feedback by Al, the foreman, and by customers on an infrequent
basis. Right now, everything is going well and the employees are working as a team. In
the past, the situation was less certain and some employees had to be fired for poor work.
When an employee filed for government paid unemployment compensation saying that
he was out of work through no fault of his own, CRB challenged the filing and usually
was able to prove that Al had given a memo to the employee requesting improvements in
quality or quantity of work. There has never been a formal planning or appraisal process
at CRB.
Mary Brown has read an article about performance management and is wondering
whether CRB should implement such a system. Please answer her questions based on
your understanding of this small business.
1. Critically assess whether a performance management system would work for such
a small business.
(Suggested points: 10, [1.1])
2. Discuss benefits that such a system would provide for us as owners and for our
employees.
(Suggested points: 5, [1.3])
3. Explain any dangers our company faces if we don’t have a performance
management system. What could be a problem if we go with a poorly
implemented system?
(Suggested points: 5, [1.4])
4. What 10 characteristics, at a minimum, should we include in a performance
management system? Explain your answer with one to three sentences for each
characteristic you recommend.
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
elementary education is the principal part of the education there
given.’ Since the great mass of children do not go beyond the fifth
standard, it is convenient in large towns to draw into a single school
all who propose to continue their education, and by a systematic
course of further study to encourage them to stay on as long as
possible. Thus a secondary school has grown up so naturally and
quietly on the top of the elementary, that many persons are hardly
aware of its existence.
This sudden addition of a four years’ advanced course would
obviously be impossible without funds, and the Education
Department is officially unaware of the existence of any pupils
beyond the seventh standard. The good fairy who steps in here is
none other than that much abused South Kensington Department of
Science and Art. This department, which, justly or unjustly, has
come to be regarded as a red-tape-bound machine for examining
and conferring grants by a sort of automatic process, has only of late
years been brought into connection with day-schools. Though its
grants began as early as 1837, their object was chiefly to encourage
evening classes, and make cheap instruction possible for those men
and women whose occupation or income shut them out from the
ordinary means of education. An examination which could be used
for the purpose of earning income naturally became popular; and in
spite of protests from many quarters, in particular from some artists,
who regarded the system of drawing-teaching as mechanical and
cramping, there has been little diminution in its popularity as a
money-producing agency. The establishment of technical institutes
gave it a fresh impulse, since the adoption by these of the South
Kensington examinations gave a welcome addition to the institute’s
funds; and as the money for this purpose is supplied by annual votes
in the Estimates, and not by a rate, it provokes none of that
opposition which a local rate for any object, no matter how
desirable, is sure to encounter.
The connection between South Kensington and the day-schools
has grown little by little. The grants were originally meant for
evening-schools, but there appeared no reason why day-schools
should not also earn it, provided they were willing to send in their
pupils for the evening examinations, which for some years were the
only ones held. As early as 1872, the department had devised a
regular scheme of instruction for schools that systematically followed
its courses. Under certain conditions, schools under local
management, approved by the department, might be registered as
‘Organised Science Schools.’ A certain class stamp was given them
by requiring that the pupils should as a whole belong to the
‘industrial classes,’ the £400 income limit being used to define the
term. Payments were made for success in examination: for Science,
£2 for a pass in an elementary subject; £2, 10s. and £5, respectively,
for a second or first-class in an advanced stage; and £4 and £8 for a
second and first in honours. Extra grants were made for certain
subjects. No payment was made unless at least twenty-eight lessons
had been given to the class, or unless at least twenty had been
attended by the individual pupil. Payments on similar principles were
made for Art. The Organised Science School could also claim an
attendance grant, which made it a more profitable undertaking. In
return, a school was bound to allot fifteen hours a week to subjects
taken under the department. As a matter of fact most schools gave
more. There was money in Science, Mathematics and Drawing.
Geography, History, Languages and Literature were unremunerative.
They must go to the wall.
Such was the course which, originally designed for evening
students, was gradually gaining favour in day-schools. A child who
passed beyond the standards must still earn money for his school,
and this could only be done by means of these South Kensington
grants. Hence the wide diffusion of the Organised Science School, in
spite of its too early specialisation, and the undue stress laid on
grant-earning.
This arrangement marked the triumph of red-tape and apotheosis
of the examination system. The narrowness of the curriculum made
it unsuitable for many boys, and almost all girls. As attempts were
made to adopt it more generally for the sake of the grant,
condemnation became frequent. The obligatory fifteen hours’
Science were complained of; in 1895 new regulations reduced them
to thirteen, and introduced a general viva voce inspection, which
was to take cognisance of literary subjects as well. Grants are still
given only for Science and Art, but the other side is not wholly
neglected. Ten hours must nominally be given to literary subjects,
though this is held to include manual instruction for boys and
cookery or needlework for girls. Less stress is laid on examination. In
the elementary course, payments are made wholly on the results of
inspection, and in the advanced course partly on inspection and
partly on examination. The arrangements are extremely complicated,
but they amount to—(1) an attendance grant on all students who
have attended a minimum number of times; (2) a variable grant on
each student; (3) grants for practical work; (4) payments on
examination results in the case of advanced students of Science and
Art; (5) payments for manual instruction, cookery, needlework, etc.
Such are the means of financing a Science School (the term now
adopted), and schools of this description are often found serving the
purpose of continuation departments to elementary schools. Since
1897 examinations have also been held in the day-time.
A higher grade school which systematically organises its upper
department is divided into upper and lower school, the former under
the cognisance of South Kensington, and the latter of the Education
Department. A four years’ course in the upper school usually leads to
matriculation. But although they are in a sense two distinct schools,
they fit into each other as the primary and grammar schools do in
America. The methods are the same in both, the organisation similar,
and children pass from one to the other without that breach of
continuity which makes the transition from the elementary to the
high school so sudden, and often so unprofitable. It is this continuity
which conduces so largely to the success of the higher grade
schools, and accounts for the extraordinary rapidity of their growth.
As many as seven or eight hundred pupils have been known to enter
one of these schools on the opening day; three hundred of these
had free places, the rest paid small fees.
There are at present in England 169 Schools of Science, with an
attendance of 20,879. What proportion of these are girls it is
impossible to ascertain. A large proportion of these science
departments are in higher grade schools. Although a higher grade
school is not necessarily a science school, while science schools are
sometimes found as departments of grammar schools or other
institutions, the two are found in such frequent combination that the
terms Higher Grade and Science School are not infrequently used as
synonymous.
Of these schools the best known is probably the one at Leeds so
ably directed by Dr. Forsyth. It is established in a huge block of
buildings, and has two divisions—one for boys and one for girls—
with a central double staircase opening into long corridors,
separated from class-rooms by glass partitions. Its class-rooms are
large and airy; it is admirably equipped with apparatus, etc., and has
a good playground for the boys, though the girls are restricted to the
use of the roof. With its chemical laboratory for 120 students, its
physical laboratory, large lecture-room, workshop, gymnasium, etc.,
its large staff, and 1800 pupils, of whom about half are in or over
Standard VII., it testifies with all the eloquence of material fact to
the vigorous development of this new educational force. The nature
of the work done in these propitious surroundings is best described
in the Principal’s own words:—‘On a basis of elementary education it
is intended to superadd a system of higher education which, at a
moderate charge, will train pupils for industrial, manufacturing, and
professional pursuits. This system of instruction will have its
beginnings in the elementary school, but will be practically carried
out in a three years’ course beyond the standards. It will embrace
such courses as:—
1. The Classical (or Professional), in which Latin, Mathematics,
Science, and Drawing form the chief subjects.
2. The Modern (or Mercantile), in which French or German,
Commercial Geography, Mathematics, Science, and Drawing will
receive most attention.
3. The Scientific (or Technical), in which Mathematics, Science,
and Drawing form the leading subjects.
A school of this size can, of course, be broken up into a number of
separate departments, since these numbers would, in any case,
necessitate parallel classes, and the work of the upper school is
greatly facilitated by carrying down such subjects as Latin, French,
and Elementary Science as low as the fifth standard. This school
takes pupils from the second standard. The fee throughout is 9d. a
week. It contains a very important Organised Science department,
but this only represents part of the work of the school. The
curriculum of the girls differs but slightly from that of the boys. They
take cookery and similar subjects instead of manual instruction, and
calisthenics instead of gymnastics. At one time they were allowed to
substitute botany for some of the mathematics, apparently with
excellent results.
Similar schools, though not quite so large, are in existence at
Manchester, Cardiff, Gateshead, etc.—in fact, almost every large
town in England now has, at least, one school of this kind. At Leeds
boys and girls are separated in the standards, but work together in
the upper school, where the proportion of girls is very small. At
Cardiff the two schools are distinct and under different heads, but
the highest (matriculation) class is mixed. The plan of putting boys
and girls together under the headmaster in the upper school appears
to be gaining ground. This seems a mistake, since in schools of this
kind the needs of boys and girls are of necessity very different. As
far as boys are concerned, the continuation school of the working
classes is bound, in fulfilment of its twofold function, ‘to carry on
education beyond the elementary stage without breach of continuity,
and to fit children for their future occupation’; to lay the chief stress
on science, mechanical drawing, and similar subjects, which may
help the future artisan to take a higher place in his trade. For girls
the position is different. In fact, science schools were never meant
for them, but they gradually gained admittance for want of a
corresponding school of their own. Some persons think it a good
course for intending teachers; for the general run of girls it cannot
be considered suitable. The most crying need for them just now
seems complete separation from the boys’ department, and some
other scheme than that of science examinations for purposes of
financing. A girls’ continuation school can hardly be a place for
specialising. With due allowance for all possible outlets for feminine
energy, it still remains a fact that the great mass of women are likely
to lead a more or less domestic life, and the special training for what
has been called the trade of ‘home-making’ does not necessitate a
four years’ course of arduous study. A girl’s future, too, is harder to
anticipate. She may marry and keep house, or she may work for her
living, or she may do both, either successively or simultaneously.
What she needs is good all-round training; if along with this she can
get some good practical and theoretical instruction in domestic
economy so much the better. But cooking and washing must not
absorb as much time as boys give to chemistry and physics, else we
run the risk of disgusting our girls for ever with household work. It is
absurd to confound a domestic art with a theoretical and practical
science, for it can only to a very limited degree replace mental
training. This a girl can get from a variety of studies. The more
general her curriculum, the better will she be prepared for the very
miscellaneous demands of her after life. A certain number will
doubtless pass through the intermediate school to the university
college, but this may be done without excessive specialisation, and
the number who remain long enough to make use of such
opportunities is likely to be much smaller in the case of girls than
boys. If a fair proportion stay for two years after the seventh
standard, we should be well satisfied. If the parents have made
sacrifices in order to keep them at school till fifteen, it is time for the
majority at any rate to be apprenticed for their future work, or make
a place for themselves in their own homes. A girl’s preparation for
life is not entirely to be sought at school; matriculation is not an end
in itself, and a girl who has not sufficient ability to win a scholarship
to a secondary school, or a special aptitude for teaching, will do
better to turn her attention to more lucrative fields of manual or
commercial work. The school that, failing to recognise this,
endeavours to drive all its pupils through the same examination mill
is neglecting part of its duty, and taking too narrow a view of
education. A two years’ course is what the majority of girls need to
fill the interval between the seventh standard and the age of
apprenticeship. If we could give this to all, and something more to
the few, the State would not be neglecting its daughters.
Since under present circumstances these schools cannot be
worked without some help from South Kensington, various
experiments are being tried in organisation, to enable a school to
earn some grant and yet pay more regard to the needs of girls than
is usually done in higher grade schools. Some adopt the plan of
Science Classes instead of Science Schools, registering for
examination purposes the classes in science, drawing, etc., without
offering up the thirteen obligatory hours on the altar of money
earning. Unfortunately this plan is less advantageous from the
pecuniary standpoint, and many a schoolmistress will declare with a
sigh that there is nothing for it but to resort to the Science School. It
is not so good for the girls, but it pays better.
Some day, before too long, a Secondary Education Act may enable
us to change all that. Meantime we must give to South Kensington
the honour of stepping in when education was languishing for want
of funds, and helping us to build the upper story for our board
school boys and girls. This department, like the county councils
which administer the Technical Instruction Acts, has no power to
subsidise subjects outside its own lawful purlieus, nor can it, while
we lack a recognised educational authority, award its money grants
by other means than inspection and examination. Thus the
intermediate school is being forced through the mill of ‘payment by
results,’ from which the elementary school has at last escaped.
Perhaps this was a necessary stage for both to pass through; and
though some victims fell by the way and there was some injustice
done, yet it served to establish the general standard of efficiency
which has made the institution of more liberal methods in board
schools possible. Similarly the stern South Kensington Department
may help to establish a better system of science teaching through its
careful inspection and insistence on practical work, and it may
certainly claim to have ‘succeeded in doing what no other system
could have done, carrying science instruction all over the country
without ever raising any sectarian difficulty of any kind.’[18]
The
county councils and the Science and Art Department have become
our most important educational authorities, for the very simple
reason that they alone have money at their disposal. Both are
limited in their operations in a manner that forces them to be unjust
to some most important branches of study. Legislation can and must
alter this in the immediate future. Meantime the result is to
emphasise a class distinction between literary and scientific schools.
In making science the distinctive mark of the lower-class school, the
Department has brought about the somewhat anomalous result of
degrading in the public estimation those very studies which it
designed to elevate. An attempt is now being made to improve the
prestige of the science school by raising the income limit to £500, in
accordance with the new income-tax regulations, and including
among schools acknowledged by the Department those ‘managed by
a public company in the articles of association of which provision is
made that no dividend shall be paid exceeding five per cent.’ Under
this heading come the greater part of our best girls’ schools, and this
regulation would place it in the power of the governors of these to
turn a part of their school into a Science School, or to register
separate classes with a view to examination and grant-earning. It
would be a convenient way of adding to their income, but whether it
is desirable to complicate the harmonious working of a high school
by a plan of dual control and a very exacting system of outside
inspection and examination seems very doubtful. Should it ever be
largely adopted the chief gainers would probably be the private
schools, which would alone be left free to take a wide view of the
present and future needs of their pupils. There would be a curious
irony in such an outcome of all the efforts to improve girls’ education
by making it a public concern; but as long as there is no compulsion
beyond the elementary stage, we may always reckon on a healthy
reaction and a revolt against excessive red-tape. Britons never will
be slaves, not even to a Department which helps them to educate
their children more cheaply.
While the higher grade school is designed to give more advanced
instruction to those children from the elementary schools who can
afford to postpone their working life till fifteen or later, it has also
become necessary to do something for those whose occupations will
not allow of continued day-time instruction. The Evening
Continuation schools are intended to supply this want. The original
night-school of olden time was one where the unlettered rustic or
mechanic came to spell out his primer and laboriously manufacture
his pot-hooks. Though election statistics show that the absolutely
illiterate voter is gradually vanishing from the scenes, his complete
extinction cannot be far off, and in catering for after-instruction the
amount of schooling represented by three standards may as a rule
be assumed. But in early days the school boards had to cater for a
very ignorant class of evening pupils, and the work of the
continuation schools was to a great extent parallel with that of the
day-schools. For many years the codes insisted that pupils in night-
schools earning grants should undergo examinations in the three
elementary subjects—reading, writing, arithmetic. As the numbers
who passed through the day-schools increased there was a
corresponding diminution in evening attendances, and it became
clear that the proper use of the evening-school was as a place of
more advanced instruction. Accordingly in the 1890 Code the clause,
that elementary education should be the principal part of the
education there given, was omitted. In 1893 Evening Continuation
schools received fresh stimulus and importance from an entirely new
Code dealing with them separately. Its declared aim was to give
‘freedom to managers in the organisation of their schools’ by
offering a wide choice of subjects with suggested syllabuses in some
subjects. The aims of these schools were now declared to be
twofold:—(1) to supply defects in early elementary instruction; (2) to
prolong the general education of the scholar, and combine with it
some form of interesting employment.
The effect of this new Code was remarkable. The total number of
scholars on evening-school registers increased from 115,000 in
1892–1893 to 266,000 in 1893–1894. No less important was the
change in the character of the work. To a great extent it has become
secondary, although primary instruction is still necessary for many
pupils, who are removed early from the day-school and have spent
the interval in purely mechanical occupations.
Evening-schools have to contend against several obstacles. Chief
among them is the diminished fitness for receiving instruction after
the fatigues of the day’s work. This seems to vary with different
persons, and to be largely a matter of temperament, sometimes of
habit. The majority of persons certainly work better in the day-time.
Another difficulty is the irregular attendance due to the absence of
compulsion and the lack of special inducements. Nothing but the
intrinsic attractiveness of the class will induce most pupils to study
any other subject than those practical ones, like shorthand,
mathematics, etc., which may help them to earn a better living. The
framers of the Code, recognising this, suggested the introduction of
popular elements in the shape of ‘lantern illustrations, music, manual
work, discussion of some book which has been read by the class,
field naturalist or sketching clubs, gymnastics or other employments
of a more or less recreative character.’ ‘For many of these purposes
grants cannot be given, but provided that the managers take care
that at least one hour at each meeting is devoted to the teaching of
the subjects mentioned in Article 2 of this Code, and that the
instruction is systematic and thorough, every arrangement for
making the school attractive should be carefully considered.’
The subjects recognised by the Code range from the elementary
ones, practically the three R’s, over languages and sciences,
commercial and miscellaneous subjects, drawing, domestic economy,
cookery, laundry work and dairy-work, and needlework. Indeed, it
would be hard to find a subject not included, always excepting
literature, that step-daughter of English schools. Even this is now
being taught under the London Board.
The scientific and technical subjects bring the schools into
competition with technical institutes, with the result that in some
towns there is an undue rivalry between the various educational
agencies. To obviate this, the Science and Art Department has drawn
up a new regulation, recognising an organisation for the promotion
of secondary education in any county or county borough in England
as the local authority for administering the Science and Art grants in
its own district. As many towns other than county boroughs have
classes working for the grants of the Department, this arrangement
is only partially helpful, and there is still much undue rivalry. Where
this prevails it usually falls to the lot of the School Board to attract
the younger and more casual students, a class that is not altogether
welcome at the more serious Institute.
Hitherto the work of the evening-school has been of necessity
more or less desultory; and of the two agencies for prolonging the
education of our working-class children, the higher grade school
seems as yet to answer best. That the other plan has possibilities is
proved by the example of Germany and the success of our own
Polytechnic classes. A definite place for the evening-school may yet
be found in our system. Meantime the school boards hold out the
opportunities and invite, though they cannot compel, the multitude
to come in. The improvement in the day-school will give a fresh
impetus to the evening-school. This much at least it is safe to
prophesy.
CHAPTER XI
THE INTERMEDIATE SCHOOLS OF WALES
A land of mountains seems to be a land of ideals. Separated by
the elementary forces of nature from many of the currents of life
that flow beyond it, thrown on itself, its own resources and its past,
it cherishes its individuality with a fervour unknown to the people of
a plain. Even ruthless modernity, with its complex train systems and
mountain-borings, serves but to invade its privacy, not to change its
character. Patriotism is stronger, national feeling more tenacious, the
practical side of life has man less firmly in its grip. The Welsh people,
with their proud claim to represent the original inhabitants of the
island, their long roll of story and legend, their ‘estranging’ language,
incomprehensible a few miles across the border, are still a race
apart. Neither Saxon nor Norman, legislation nor intercourse, has
ever been able to degrade them into a mere appanage of the English
nation.
Among the ideals long cherished here in vain by all classes, was
that of a national system of education. It would not be fair to
describe the country which produced the sweetest and best-trained
singers in the United Kingdom, and could organise and carry out
such elaborate musical and artistic competitions as those of the
Eisteddfodd, as wholly uneducated, and yet until very recently it was
undoubtedly lacking in schools and colleges. Like England, it
benefited by the Education Act of 1870, which brought instruction to
the children of the wage-earners, but it was the class above these,
the professional and commercial, whose means or whose patriotism
forbade their sending their sons and daughters to England, that felt
the deficiency most keenly. Drawn into the stir, which in England
followed on 1870, Wales began to move on her own lines; numerous
educational societies were started, conferences held, and every
effort made to fan the feeble spark till it should have strength
enough to kindle public opinion as well as private enthusiasm. The
country was too poor to supply its own needs by voluntary effort.
For that very reason it offered a useful field for experiment. Vested
interests were not numerous; there were a few grammar schools for
boys; but for girls only three endowed schools, and one proprietary,
belonging to the Girls’ Public Day-School Company. Private schools,
mostly inefficient, filled some of the gaps, the rest remained empty.
The last five years have wrought a transformation. Throughout the
length and breadth of Wales, whether in large towns or small, there
may be seen in a conspicuous spot, looking down on the place from
some hill-top hard by, a grey stone building, which a large board
informs us is the local County School. The pride with which the
inhabitants point it out recalls American enthusiasm; to many it is
the chief sight of the place. Here is the goal on which their hopes
have been set for years; these school buildings testify to attainment.
‘O fortunati quorum jam mœnia surgunt,’ we are tempted to exclaim.
This transformation has been brought about by the Welsh
Intermediate Education Act of 1889, itself the outcome of that same
departmental committee which recommended the establishment of a
Welsh university. Its financial contribution, a half-penny rate, and a
Treasury grant of corresponding amount, would in itself have been
too meagre to produce much result, but when in the following year
the Local Customs and Excise Act was passed, it contained a clause
permitting Wales to use its share of the money for purposes of
Intermediate as well as Technical instruction. In this way the public
resources, i.e. the rate, the Treasury grant, and the technical money,
could be administered in one fund, and for the general purpose of
education, with no express exclusion of literature or culture. The
tiresome restrictions, the overlapping of authorities, from which we
are still suffering in England, were never to be introduced into
Wales; its very poverty proved its salvation; there was a tabula rasa
on which no characters had been as yet inscribed. Both on account
of its own needs, and as an untried field for operation, Wales was
chosen as suitable ground for an experiment in secondary education,
at the very moment when the institution of a fresh educational
authority in England came to complicate existing conditions yet
further.
It is an accusation often brought against English education, that
we have no system which looks well on paper. This cannot be said of
Wales. The system there is perfectly simple. It applies to the whole
country, and to girls and boys alike. The money is raised from three
sources:—
1. A half-penny rate—the County contribution.
2. A Treasury grant, equal to the amount produced by the rate—
the Treasury contribution.
3. The local share of the money from the Customs and Excise Act
—the Exchequer contribution.
The educational unit is the county, and the governing body
consists partly of members of the county council, representing the
separate school districts, partly of members chosen by school
boards, university colleges, etc. A very few are co-opted. Each
school also has its own body of managers, chosen in somewhat
similar fashion from local bodies, while the county council appoints
one of the members sent up to it from each district to be its own
representative on that particular governing body. The duties of the
managers are chiefly confined to carrying out the provisions of
schemes, and promoting healthy local interest in the school, for they
have little power of initiative, and not always even the choice of a
headmaster. All matters of essential importance, e.g. whether the
schools shall be separate for boys and girls, or mixed, the subjects
of instruction, the salary of the headmaster, the limits within which
fees may be charged, and the proportion of scholarships to be
awarded, are laid down in advance in the county scheme, which can
only be altered by appeal to the Charity Commissioners. The action
of both county and district bodies is therefore confined within very
narrow limits, too narrow, in fact, considering the experimental stage
of the schools, and the unwisdom of crystallising initial mistakes into
permanent form.
These schemes were drawn up, subject to the approval of the
Charity Commissioners, by the Joint Education Committees, which
received their authority directly from the Act. They consisted in each
case of five persons, three nominees of the county council, and two
persons ‘well acquainted with the condition of Wales and the wants
of the people.’ Though the interests of girls as well as boys had to be
considered, few if any women seem to have been on these
committees, and it is difficult not to connect this omission with the
injustice with which they have, in many cases, been treated. This
was hardly intentional, but it should have been possible to negative
at the outset every proposal for making a girls’ school a mere
subordinate department of the boys.’ These committees were only
temporary, to exist until the schemes could be floated, and the
control handed over to the county governing bodies. But they led to
the formation of a permanent board, not contemplated by the Act.
Frequent meetings between groups of these committees, with a
view to promoting uniformity of action, led to a series of general
conferences at Shrewsbury, which, though not in Wales, is the most
conveniently accessible point from north and south. At a series of
meetings held here, it was decided to establish a central body, and
call upon the Treasury to acknowledge it as the central authority for
inspection and examination, and for the payment of the Government
grant to the various counties. After the usual negotiations and
delays, a scheme establishing the Board was approved by the
Charity Commissioners, and became law in 1895. In this informal
manner originated what has practically become the secondary
education authority for Wales.
The Board consists of eighty members, representative of various
local and educational bodies: the Principals of the three Welsh
colleges, twenty-one representatives of county councils, twenty-six
of county governing bodies, five of headmasters and mistresses of
intermediate schools, five of certificated teachers in public
elementary schools, three of councils of university colleges, three of
the senates, two of Jesus College, Oxford, six of the court of the
University of Wales, and six co-optative members, three of whom
must be women. The bulk of the work devolves on the executive
committee of fifteen.
The establishment of this Central Board marks the completion of
the Welsh secondary system. It furnishes a link between all the
counties and schools, and exercises over these that general
supervision which, in the initial stages, had devolved on the Charity
Commissioners. Since the subjects to be taught had been prescribed
by the Act generally, and by the schemes specially, the duties of the
Central Board were not so much to lay down a scheme of studies, as
to see that the course already prescribed was duly followed, that
each school was in a state of general and educational efficiency, and
that the provisions of the schemes were observed. For these
purposes they arranged a system of inspection and examination.
The Act had defined intermediate education as ‘a course of
education which does not consist chiefly of elementary instruction in
reading, writing, and arithmetic, but which includes instruction in
Latin, Greek, the Welsh and English language and literature, modern
languages, mathematics, natural and applied science, or in some of
such studies, and generally in the higher branches of knowledge,’
and the schemes fixed more precisely which of these were to be in
each case compulsory. The Glamorgan scheme, which is in many
respects typical, prescribes geography, history, English grammar,
composition, and literature, drawing, mathematics, Latin, at least
one modern language, natural science, vocal music, drill or other
physical exercise, and such other scientific or technical subjects,
including shorthand, as the school managers may determine.
Scripture is not obligatory, but if included, it must be taught by a
member of the staff. Some manual instruction must also be offered
the boys, and a little cookery to the girls, but, as is inevitable, where
the programme is already overloaded, this side of the work takes a
very subordinate place. In all schools Welsh must be taught as an
optional subject; in a stated few Greek may be introduced. But even
without these additions, the compulsory curriculum is a very heavy
one, when it is borne in mind that a large proportion of pupils come
from the elementary schools, where the girls, at any rate, have been
hitherto confined to reading, writing, arithmetic, and needlework,
with possibly a little French and domestic economy. Even English
history and geography are unfamiliar ground.
The aim of the Welsh Intermediate, as of the English High
Schools, is to give a liberal education cheaply in day-schools; but
there is one essential difference between them. While the high
school is an organised whole, leading the pupils by gentle gradations
from the primary department to the lower school, and thence on to
the upper, the intermediate school receives no pupils below the age
of ten. Since the majority are between twelve and sixteen, they
break up naturally into two classes, according as they have received
their preliminary training at a public elementary school or elsewhere.
This division is by no means so sharply defined in Wales as in
England. Wales is both poor and democratic, and inclines to the
doctrine, familiar in the United States, that no stigma should attach
to attendance at a school supported out of the rates, since the
parents do in fact contribute towards the expenses, though
indirectly. Hence we find a mixture of class in both elementary and
intermediate schools, which in England would be neither possible nor
desirable. The omission of the primary department in the new
schools is in fact deliberate. There is already one kind of school
assisted out of public funds and accessible to all, and it is therefore
not thought necessary to subsidise primary instruction in another set
of institutions. The intermediate school is so constituted as to fit
straight on to the elementary, and in each school a certain
proportion of scholarships must fall to elementary pupils. In
accordance with the opinion of many authorities that the
transplanting from an elementary to a secondary school, always a
difficult process, should not take place too late, the admission age
and requirements are put low, and the intermediate school is
supposed to branch off from the elementary at about the fifth
standard. In Wales, where poverty and dearth of educational
opportunities have induced many persons of middle rank to make
use of the free public schools, the difference between the two sets
of pupils is by no means so strongly marked as it would be in
England, but even here schools have two different characters,
according as one or the other of these elements predominates. In a
district where the population is largely industrial, the lowest possible
tuition fee is chosen, and the largest possible amount of scholarships
given to elementary pupils. Thus one scheme requires that not less
than ten per cent. and not more than thirty per cent. of the pupils in
each school, shall hold scholarships, and at least half of the number
awarded shall go to pupils from public elementary schools, but there
is nothing to prevent the whole number from being so given. In fact,
several schools have more scholarships than candidates for them.
According, therefore, to the interpretation of the clause adopted, the
elementary scholars in a school of a hundred may vary from five—
the minimum, to thirty—the maximum. In the latter class of school,
the fees are usually low enough to attract paying pupils from the
elementary schools; hence these furnish a majority of the pupils,
and the school becomes a continuation, often a finishing-school for
elementary pupils, many of whom stay one year, sometimes only a
term or two, to get what prestige they can from attendance at a
school of a higher grade than the one to which they have been
accustomed. Those that remain for two years or longer usually do
well, if their health is strong enough to bear the severe strain.
The other classification into separate and mixed schools is apt to
coincide with this distinction. Of the eighty-four schools now in
existence, there are twenty for boys and twenty for girls, while the
remaining forty-four are mixed. This wholesale adoption of a
principle popular in the United States, but regarded hitherto askance
by England, in common with other European countries, is due, as in
Scotland, to the force of necessity. It is not as a counsel of
perfection, but as a means of economy, that the plan has been
adopted in Wales. In a country intersected by mountains, and
inadequately supplied with means of locomotion, where distances
should, as in Switzerland, be counted by hours and not by miles,
access to places that look near enough on the map is often
exceedingly difficult; and it is useless to plant a large school-building
in a central district in the hope of drawing in pupils from a radius of
a few miles. The alternative lay between frequent small day-schools
and a liberal sprinkling of boarding-schools. The former carried the
day, on the ground that they were more equitable to ratepayers, and
more democratic. In almost every county, the committee adopted
the more expensive and troublesome plan of establishing and
maintaining a large number of small schools, and most of the
difficulties with which Welsh intermediate education has to contend
are due to that decision. In some places there are schools of forty,
or even less, difficult to finance and to organise. These might work
for a year or two, but as pupils stayed on and began to range from
the Fifth Standard scholar at one end to the Matriculation student at
the other, with all the varying intermediate grades, failure became
inevitable. One remedy in the case of those small schools which
were not rich enough to provide a liberal staff for small classes, was
to arrange from the first to mix the boys and girls, thus facilitating
the grading by increasing the numbers in each class. In this way
better results could be obtained with small means, at any rate as far
as class lists and examination statistics were concerned.
Owing to the difficulties of grading, this system is being gradually
introduced in many places where it was not originally contemplated;
but the typical Welsh school, according to the first plan, was the
dual. This was to consist of two distinct schools, one for boys and
one for girls, built side by side, in such a way that they might have
assembly hall, gymnasium, laboratory, etc., in common, and by the
economy thus effected in site, buildings, apparatus, etc., it was
hoped that the efficiency of small schools would be maintained.
Unfortunately, the advocates of this system went a step further, and
arranged to complete their economies by appointing a single head
for both schools, to take the superintendence of both boys and girls.
Obviously this head must be a man. Though some schemes contain
the words ‘headmaster or head-mistress,’ it is at once explained to
feminine applicants that the words are a mere matter of form.
Indeed, it would be far better to omit them. The most ardent
advocates of women’s equality would hardly propose to give a
mistress full authority over boys of twelve to seventeen. However
excellent feminine influence may be in a boys’ school, no one wants
to see it supreme there. Though paramount masculine influence in a
girls’ school is anything but desirable, it seemed the lesser of two
evils; and both custom and convenience pointed to the selection of a
master. This initial injustice paved the way for many others. Though
most schools appoint a senior mistress, who is supposed to have a
general control over the girls, it is out of the managers’ power, when
once they have made the headmaster supreme, to make her position
one of any authority. Like all the rest, she is appointed by the
headmaster; she has no place in the scheme, nor status in the
school, except what may be given her by courtesy. She has no voice
in choosing her assistants, nor in making the time-table; her position
is often inferior to that of a second mistress in an English high
school. This kind of dual school was a new experiment, and it cannot
be pronounced a successful one. Where the two departments were
kept distinct, except for an occasional interchange of teachers, the
real difficulties of classification were not obviated; and one set of
managers after another took the final step, availing themselves of
the permission accorded in most schemes, to ‘make arrangements
for boys and girls being taught together in all or any of the classes.’
The forms are then mixed throughout, and assigned in turn to men
and women teachers. Here the senior mistress loses even her
semblance of authority, and the school is under the supreme and
undisturbed sway of the headmaster. What number of schools have
already taken this final step is nowhere definitely stated, but, as far
as can be ascertained, it appears to be a majority. It is in fact the
logical outcome of the dual plan, and since the tendency of the
change is to diminish the proportion of girls, we may look upon
these schools as organised for boys, but admitting girls as well.
The whole question of co-education is so exceedingly difficult that
it is unfortunate that Welsh educationalists should have been
compelled to add it to the number of complex problems with which
they had already to deal. The small schools have necessitated this
among other problems. Its warmest advocates do not deny that it
makes discipline more difficult: constant supervision becomes
necessary; boys and girls have to be kept apart out of class, and an
attempt, usually doomed to failure, is made in some schools to
control the walk home. The freer intercourse, the element of trust,
and the bright out-of-school life, which in England have come to be
considered as important a part of a secondary school as the
Mathematics or Latin taught there, have little chance of development
in the mixed school. That valuable moral impetus given by the direct
and constant intercourse between the master and boys, mistress
and girls, is missing. Thus they lose what is often the best effect of
school life upon our boys and girls: the schools become places of
mere instruction, not education; they are but elementary schools
with advanced subjects in the curriculum; rivals, and not always
successful ones, of the higher grade. Of course this is not solely due
to the co-education scheme, but it has tended further to emphasise
the social difference between the two classes of schools, and also to
put women at a disadvantage in Welsh education, which could
hardly have been contemplated by the original promoters. Yet now
that this arrangement has been fixed by scheme and made fast by
yards of red-tape, it must remain as it is, until some energetic band
of reformers shall arise determined to end it. But that cannot be as
yet.
The second class, the distinct schools for boys and girls, resemble
our English high schools; in fact Swansea, one of the most
successful, was actually founded by the Girls’ Public Day-School
Company, and taken over by the Intermediate Board. The money
supplied by the county grant makes up for the diminution of the
fees, and the work proceeds with little change. Cardiff is also
organised on the lines of a high school, with the chief intellectual
work in the morning, considerable attention to games and physical
training, and a liberal allowance of teachers. In these separate
schools the fees range from about £5 to £9, being slightly lower than
those of the corresponding schools in England. The allowance of
mistresses to pupils is adequate, the elementary scholars are a small
proportion, not enough to set the whole tone of the school. In the
mixed or dual school the fees are usually low, sometimes even as
little as £2 per annum, scholarships are more numerous, and the
sprinkling of scholars from other than elementary schools is very
small. Both kinds of schools doubtless have their use, though their
aims are very different.
With all these varieties of organisation and character, the schools
have a unifying influence in the general control of the Central Board,
since all are subject to its examination and inspection. The latter is
undertaken by the Chief Inspector, who visits each school in the
course of the year, and reports specially on the following heads—
1. Character, suitability, and capacity of school premises.
2. School furniture and apparatus.
3. Facilities for recreation and physical training.
4. The relation between the administration of schools and the
schemes under which they are established.
5. The organisation of classes.
6. The school discipline.
7. Courses of instruction.
If a school prove deficient in any of these respects, the managers
receive a warning from the Board that future negligence will entail a
diminution of the grant. This is a useful check, and a form of
payment by result which can only do good, for it counteracts that
uneconomical form of economy, which declines to spend on proper
building and apparatus and salaries. An element of control which
requires more careful exercise is the threat of a diminished grant,
should a school fail to do well in the annual examination. This, which
is conducted by the Central Board, was in the first place inspectional,
and was meant to give the schools the necessary outside impulse. In
order to carry out the principle of letting the examination follow the
teaching instead of the teaching the examination, each school was
invited to send up its own syllabus of work done, but this led to so
much needless expense, since there were as many as fifty-three
Latin papers set in one year, that some kind of uniformity became
indispensable. The present regulations prescribe that only pupils
who have been a full year in a school shall be presented for the
written examination, and in at least five subjects. Forms which do
not take papers are examined orally in one or other of the subjects
studied during the school year. The scheme bears some resemblance
to the school examinations of the Joint Board, but a new feature is
the test in languages of ‘ability to read fluently, intelligently, and
correctly, passages chosen from prepared and unprepared texts.’ The
papers set are of varying grades of difficulty, and the schools choose
which they will take. Thus in Latin there were seven papers set in
1898, of which the fourth is supposed to be equivalent to the
standard of the Welsh Matriculation. Not many pupils are likely to go
beyond this, since the schools are distinctly preparatory to the
university colleges, which a matriculated pupil can enter. If this
standard should in a few years be reached by a fair proportion of
pupils in each school, the intermediate system can claim to be
successful, for it will be accomplishing its avowed purpose, to carry
its pupils from the Fifth Standard to the Constituent College of the
University of Wales. For pupils who aim at the Welsh Matriculation
these annual tests should be sufficient, but experience shows that
there is a tendency to aim at results earlier in the school career; and
the chaos of external examinations, from which many English
schools are not yet completely emancipated, should be a warning to
Wales to be wise in time, and from the beginning concentrate efforts
on the same lines. This seems to be best effected by following the
example of the Joint Board, and combining school examinations with
the awarding of certificates. A scheme on these lines is now in
course of preparation, and will probably come into operation in
1899. The subjects of the general examination are to be arranged in
groups: A. Scripture and English; B. Mathematics; C. Languages; D.
Science; E. Practical subjects. Within certain limits a choice is
allowed from these five groups. Junior and senior certificates are to
be awarded on papers of different grades of difficulty. The senior
standard is to be carefully approximated to that of Welsh
Matriculation, in the hope that the University may be willing to
accept it as an equivalent. There should not be much difficulty about
this, since the University Court is represented on the Central Board,
and the Board in its turn on the Court, so that very close and
sympathetic relations are maintained between the two bodies that
have charge of the educational interests of the country. The next
step would be to win acknowledgment for it as a substitute for the
Medical and other preliminaries, and a further stage would be an
Honours grade that might replace the higher certificate of the Joint
Board as an admission examination to English colleges, and a
substitute for the Previous and Responsions. Even this might in time
be attained, and the Welsh Board would then have fulfilled its
mission of making one school stage lead harmoniously and naturally
to the next.
Such is the scheme as it presents itself to the minds of the
promoters, who look far away beyond the present troubles of small
schools, irregular attendance, and inadequate funds, and see in the
distant future the glorious fabric of their dreams: one system of
schools for both boys and girls, leading them on step by step till they
are ready to enter their own colleges, and thence, if more
adventurously inclined, cross the border and ask the hospitality of
the ancient English universities. The ladder in its widest acceptation
is to be set up in Wales, so close to the home of every boy and girl
that none may plead inaccessibility as an excuse for the failure to
mount. And this system is to be worked by popular bodies, touching
at one end the local schoolboard, at the other the university
colleges, so that its foundations may be firm and lasting, ‘broad-
based upon the people’s will.’
Such is the ideal; how far is it reflected by the reality? Of actual
results it is too soon to speak, since the oldest school is not yet five
years old, and the numbers in them are so small that the whole
eighty-four now in existence, including boys and girls, have not
together as many pupils as the thirty-four schools of the Girls’ Public
Day-School Company. There were many difficulties to be met. The
ground was new and unbroken, the meaning of secondary
education, except in so far as it was expressed by a higher grade
school, was hardly understood by the mass of the people. Some
schools won a too hasty popularity, owing to the impression that
they were ‘finishing’ institutions for elementary scholars, hence the
one-year or one-term pupils of whom so much has been heard. This
mistaken notion will be but slowly dispelled, and it is not impossible
that in a few years’ time, should the Central Board prove successful
in its attempts to ‘level up,’ the number of schools may prove too
large for the demand. Many boys and girls who must begin to
prepare for their life work at fourteen or fifteen would be better off
in a higher grade school than struggling to find their depth in these
new waters. The elimination of these would prove no serious loss,
and it would clear the ground for a fairer treatment of those pupils,
whether from elementary or other schools, who are really able to
profit by secondary education. The Welsh system cannot be
considered complete while so many of the well-to-do and educated
classes hold aloof, helping, it is true, with money and sympathy, but
sending their children to be educated across the border. Who shall
blame them for not offering up their own boys and girls as corpora
vilia? Yet, until the schools can offer something to such pupils as
well, they must remain one-sided.
Still, with all its flaws, and they are not a few, the system has
something to teach England. The love of knowledge, noted even in
the days of darkness, the willingness to make sacrifices, evinced by
gifts of land and money to new schools, the keen interest in their
welfare felt by all grades of the community, and the absence of that
class jealousy which tends to check the spread of popular education
in England—all these we should do well to note, and copy if we can.
Then we may be prepared to thank Wales for teaching us both what
to do and what to avoid.
CHAPTER XII
1898
Such is in brief the story of the last half-century, 1848 to 1898.
Looking back on what is in the main a line of progress, there seems
now and then a check, here and there a retrograde movement under
the guise of a new discovery. All this is inevitable, since we are but
human. But taking the period as a whole, none can doubt that it
marks a very real advance; and this end of a century seems a fitting
time to pause and rest on our oars, while we survey the breakers
through which we have passed; then once more set forth on our
onward path, assured that there can be nothing worse before us
than what is already behind.
It is not only for girls’ education that the revival has come. A
general awakening has passed over the country: men and women,
boys and girls, rich and poor, the lady of leisure and the hard-
working mechanic, all have had something brought within their
reach that formerly belonged only to the few. Three years ago these
gains were summarised in convenient form by the Royal Commission
on Secondary Education, appointed ‘to consider what are the best
methods of establishing a well-organised system of secondary
education in England, taking into account existing deficiencies, and
having regard to such local sources of revenue from endowments or
otherwise as are available, or may be made available, for this
purpose.’ Even now the country is waiting for legislation on the
findings of that Commission. When we remember that we have
really been waiting ever since 1867, we do not feel over-sanguine of
results; but happily events have since then moved in many
directions, and the Commission, before proceeding to
recommendations for the future, was able to draw up a long list of
reforms that had already come about and changed the whole face of
education in England in less than thirty years.
First in order of time stands the Endowed Schools Act, which did
so much for boys, and rescued something from the spoils for the
benefit of girls. Next came the Elementary Education Act, which
brought primary instruction within the reach of every boy and girl in
the land, and set a new machinery in motion destined to change the
whole face of the country. In 1888 the institution of county councils
provided that local authority which was to make a system of
decentralisation in education possible, while the Technical Instruction
Acts of 1889 and 1891 and the Local Customs and Taxation Act of
1890 at once brought these new powers into play, and originated a
fresh set of educational institutions in the Polytechnics and other
similar colleges. Lastly, the Welsh Intermediate schools, established
by the Act of 1889, were providing an object-lesson in the
organisation of secondary education.
Besides this public work, the Commission had to take cognisance
of the enormous changes in the education of girls, due to the wide
diffusion of High Schools and the admission of women to the
Universities. ‘There has probably been more change in the condition
of the secondary education of girls than in any other department of
education,’[19]
say the Commissioners, and they also note that ‘the
idea that a girl, like a boy, may be fitted by education to earn a
livelihood, or, at any rate, to be a more useful member of society,
has become more widely diffused.’ Various other changes came
under their cognisance: the gradual rise of Higher Grade schools,
evolving themselves through inherent necessity with no impulse and
little encouragement from without; the many attempts at what has
been called Continuative education by means of evening classes; the
help afforded to large numbers by University Extension; the
improved status of the teachers; the various colleges established for
their training, and the many educational societies which have grown
into powerful forces during the last twenty years. After taking due
note of all this, they declare that the time has come to weld these
various organisms into one consistent whole. They anticipate no
easy task. ‘The ground of secondary education is already almost
covered with buildings so substantial that the loss to be incurred in
clearing it for the erection of a new and symmetrical pile cannot be
contemplated. Yet these existing buildings are so ill-arranged, so ill-
connected, and so inconvenient, that some scheme of reconstruction
seems unavoidable.’[20]
This touches the key of the situation. The reconstruction must at
any rate begin with adaptation, then the gaps may be filled with new
and convenient edifices. However much such a plan offends our
notions of order and logic, we do well to remember that every one
of these structures, jerry-built though they may be, has grown up
out of some real need; and before we propose to fit all their tenants
into neat little model dwellings, it behoves us to be quite sure that
such a plan would be as satisfactory in the working as it looks on
paper. The mere fact that of the girls receiving secondary education
in England seventy per cent., and of the boys thirty-eight per cent.,
are in private schools, often in towns where there are grammar and
high schools with plenty of empty places, should make the advocates
of ruthless innovation pause and stay their hand. The public must in
the last resort determine what it wants, and though demand
sometimes follows supply, the opposite process is a constant one.
However much theorists may inveigh, according to their special
prejudices, against higher grade or ‘private adventure’ or any other
kind of school, the fact of their successful existence, even in the face
of rivals, shows that they do supply a want; and the only prudent
course is to find them a place in our system.
This has been fully recognised by the Commissioners, who wisely
suggest proceeding on lines similar to those on which elementary
education was at first organised. The local authority proposed in
1867 can now be easily constituted, since we have the county
councils to supply a nucleus to which educational experts can be
added, as is already done on some technical instruction committees
and in the Welsh county governing bodies. The local authority would
proceed ‘to inquire how far the schools within its area provide
secondary instruction adequate in quantity and quality to the needs
of each part of that area.’ In doing this, regard is to be had to
proprietary and private as well as endowed and other public schools,
and the report adds the following significant comment: ‘We are far
from desiring to see secondary education pass wholly under public
control, and into the hands of those who are practically public
servants, as elementary education has done, and we believe that
where proprietary or private schools are found to be doing good
work, it would be foolish as well as unfair to try to drive them out of
the field.’[21]
Where the supply of secondary education is deficient in
any part of the area, the local authority should have power to
establish new schools.
The functions of these authorities are therefore to fall under four
heads—
1. The securing a due provision of secondary instruction.
2. The remodelling, where necessary, and supervision of the
working of endowed (other than non-local) schools and other
educational endowments.
3. A watchful survey of the field of secondary education, with the
object of bringing proprietary and private schools into the general
educational system, and of endeavouring to encourage and facilitate,
so far as this can be done by stimulus, by persuasion, and by the
offer of privileges and advice, any improvements they may be
inclined to introduce.
4. The administration of such sums, either arising from rates
levied within the area, or paid over from the National Exchequer, as
may be at its disposal for the promotion of education.
In this way these local authorities would receive large powers of
supervision, but comparatively little coercive control, since ‘it is not
so much by superseding as by aiding and focussing voluntary effort
that real progress may be made.’
The general guidance and direction of secondary education should
be committed to a central authority, to include the various
departments of Government now concerned with it.
Further recommendations are: the consolidation of existing
sources of revenue into one fund; and a generous scheme of
scholarships for the poor, in preference to a general lowering of
school fees.
These main recommendations, as well as other subordinate ones,
seem wise and moderate, fair to all classes, and consistent with their
professed aim, ‘to draw the outlines of a system which shall combine
the maximum of simplicity with the minimum disturbance of existing
arrangements.’ A bill drawn up on these lines would probably meet
with very general acceptation from all classes, except those persons,
probably few, who are ready to subordinate the general good to
their own private fads. Unfortunately Parliament has hitherto proved
unwilling to give time for such a bill. The ill-fated Education Bill of
1896 dealt with secondary education as a sort of accessory to
primary; and as, unlike the latter, it has not yet become a subject for
party divisions and acrimonious controversy, it is not at present
sufficiently interesting to the general run of politicians to call forth
any special exertions on their part. The private bill brought in last
session by Colonel Lockwood expressed the wishes of a large section
of the teaching profession. It proposed to form one central
educational authority under the Committee of the Privy Council on
Education, by consolidating powers relating to secondary education
possessed by the Charity Commissioners, the Science and Art
Department, and the present Education Department, and to
establish local secondary education authorities, to consist partly of
members of the county council and partly of other persons with
special educational experience. It also proposes registers of efficient
schools and of persons qualified to teach in them. The ministerial bill
introduced by the Duke of Devonshire into the House of Lords at the
fag-end of the session merely proposed to bring together in one
office the two departments of Science and Art and Education, under
the control of one permanent secretary, and to create a Board of
Education on the model of the Board of Trade. To this new
department the supervision of endowed schools, under schemes
framed by the Charity Commissioners, was to be transferred. The
thorny questions of constitution of local authorities, raising of rates,
etc., were left untouched. It was not proposed to carry the measure,
merely to show the country before the vacation the lines on which
the Ministry were inclined to proceed. Thorny as are many of the
points under discussion, such as central and local authority,
amalgamation of existing departments, etc., they are as nothing to
the real difficulties that must follow when these matters of
administrative machinery are settled. The inspection and grading of
schools, the due consideration that must be shown to secondary
education proper and to that part commonly known as technical, the
proper respect for existing schools that are good and the ruthless
elimination of such as are bad—in these lies the true crux of the
situation, and under all circumstances some part of this work will
probably fall to the local authorities. An enormous amount of
responsibility must devolve on those who first take up the arduous
task.
One burning question, which ought to be settled for the whole
country alike, is the relation between the grammar and high schools
on the one hand, and the elementary schools on the other. Are we
to have one upper department for both, or two? Some time ago the
consensus of opinion seemed to be in favour of one; that was on the
assumption that the proportion of children passing beyond the
standards would be a small one. Some such idea seems to have
been in the mind of the Duke of Devonshire when he spoke of ‘a
sound system of secondary schools which will be open alike to the
most promising children of the elementary schools and to the middle
classes generally.’ But this view rests on the assumption that the
primary departments of both sets of schools are very similar in their
curriculum and methods. This is very far from being the case. ‘The
elementary schools are not, under the present conditions in England,
the common basis of secondary education, nor, though an increasing
number of pupils proceed from them to secondary schools, are the
public elementary schools the sole, nor, indeed, the chief channels
through which pupils proceed in this country to day or boarding-
schools of the secondary grades.’[22]
The changes that would be
necessary in the elementary schools would be so numerous and far-
reaching, and the expense so enormous before they would be able
to attract the great mass of the middle classes, that no one could
seriously propose to abolish the primary departments in secondary
schools, as long as parents are able and willing to pay the school
fees. They are a necessity, and would have to be supplied by private
adventure, as is done at Cardiff and other large Welsh towns, if a
public system declined to acknowledge them. In the interest of what
we might call the ‘secondary party,’ the primary department of the
secondary school must be maintained. On the other hand, the
teachers in Government schools seem equally unanimous in the view
that their own special continuation schools are better suited to the
mass of elementary pupils than the grammar or high school. Neither
party seems anxious for the fusion, and so long as a liberal scheme
of scholarships is maintained, it is possible to do full justice to those
elementary scholars who can look forward to a school life sufficiently
long to enable them to reach the highest classes of their new school.
To allow pupils to enter upon an extensive and liberal curriculum,
who are likely to be removed before its real meaning and unity has
dawned upon them, is a thing we should never even contemplate,
were our notions of curricula and grades of schools a little less hazy
than they are at present in England. The board school child, who is
sent at the age of thirteen by her proud parents to have a year’s
finishing at a high school, is typical of the present confusion. There
is really no more urgent problem before us than a scientific
differentiation of schools.
Still, whatever course legislation may take on this and other
problems, whether funds are raised by fresh rate or merely by
adding together existing sources of income, no matter what are the
constitution and functions of the local authority, this, at least, we
may rely on—the interests of girls will not be forgotten. For that we
have to thank that little band of men and women who have laboured
during this last half century in the face of prejudice, opposition, and
indifference to remove the neglect with which England treated one
half of her children. This much, at least, is established: no future
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  • 1. Solution Manual for Performance Management, 3/E 3rd Edition : 0132556383 download http://testbankbell.com/product/solution-manual-for-performance- management-3-e-3rd-edition-0132556383/ Visit testbankbell.com today to download the complete set of test bank or solution manual
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  • 5. Chapter 1 Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall 1 Performance Management, 3/E 3rd Full chapter download at: https://testbankbell.com/product/solution-manual-for- performance-management-3-e-3rd-edition-0132556383/ Chapter 1—Performance Management and Reward Systems in Context Learning Objectives 1.1 Explain the concept of performance management. 1.2 Distinguish performance management from performance appraisal. 1.3 Recognize the multiple negative consequences that can arise from the poor design and implementation of a performance management system. These negative consequences affect all the parties involved: employees, supervisors, and the organization as a whole. 1.4 Understand the concept of a reward system and its relationship to a performance management system. 1.5 Distinguish among the various types of employee rewards including compensation, benefits, and relational returns. 1.6 Describe the multiple purposes of a performance management system including strategic, administrative, informational, developmental, organizational maintenance, and documentation purposes. 1.7 Describe and explain the key features of an ideal performance management system. 1.8 Create a presentation providing persuasive arguments in support of why an organization should implement a performance management system, including the purposes that performance management systems serve and the dangers of a poorly implemented system. 1.9 Note the relationship and links between a performance management system and other HR functions including recruitment and selection, training and development, workforce planning, and compensation. 1.10 Describe and explain contextual and cultural factors that affect the implementation of performance management systems around the world.
  • 6. Part I: Strategic and General Considerations___________________________________________________ Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall 2 Chapter Outline Overview 1. Definition of Performance Management (PM) 2. The Performance Management Contribution 3. Disadvantages/Dangers of Poorly Implemented PM Systems 4. Definition of Reward Systems 5. Aims and Role of PM Systems 6. Characteristics of an Ideal PM System 7. Integration with Other Human Resources and Development Activities 8. Performance Management Around the World 1. Definition of Performance Management (PM) Continuous process of Identifying performance of individuals and teams Measuring performance of individuals and teams Developing performance of individuals and teams Aligning performance with the strategic goals of the organization  How did Sally’s behavior fit this description?  Let’s take a survey here. Raise your hand if your company’s performance review system actually helps you improve your performance. How does our class compare with the Watson Wyatt finding that 30 percent of employees believe their company’s performance review system actually helps employees improve performance? PM is NOT performance appraisal. • PM o Strategic business considerations o Ongoing feedback o So employee can improve performance o Driven by line manager • Performance appraisal o Assesses employee • Strengths • Weaknesses o Once a year o Lacks ongoing feedback o Driven by HR 2. The Performance Management Contribution For Employees Clarify definition of job and success criteria Increase motivation to perform Increase self-esteem Enhance self-insight and development For Managers Supervisors communicate views of performance more clearly
  • 7. Chapter 1 Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall 3 Managers gain insight about subordinates There is better, more timely, identification of good and poor performance Employee performance improves For Organization/HR Function Clarify organizational goals Facilitate organizational change Administrative actions are more fair and appropriate There is better protection from lawsuits  How did PM help IBM switch to a customer service focus in the 1980s? 3. Disadvantages/Dangers of Poorly-implemented PM Systems For Employees Lowered self-esteem Employee burnout and job dissatisfaction Damaged relationships Use of misleading information For Managers Increased turnover Decreased motivation to perform Unjustified demands on managerial resources Varying and unfair standards and ratings For Organization Wasted time and money Derivation of ratings is a mystery. Biases can replace standards. Risk of litigation increases.  From the reading so far, give at least two examples of ways in which poorly implemented PM systems can hurt the organization. 4. Definition of Reward Systems Set of mechanisms for distributing o Tangible returns  Cash compensation  Benefits o Intangible or relational returns  As part of an employment relationship o Tangible returns  Cash compensation  Base pay  Cost-of-living and contingent pay  Incentives (short- and long-term)  Benefits such as  Income protection  Allowances  Work/life focus
  • 8. Part I: Strategic and General Considerations___________________________________________________ Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall 4 Which of these reward systems are more likely to be based on seniority than on performance? What kind of returns did Delta Petroleum offer to its top executives? How might these returns affect performance? o Intangible or relational returns  Recognition and status  Employment security  Challenging work  Learning opportunities What kinds of intangible returns does Sun Microsystems provide to its employees? How would such intangible returns improve performance? Returns and Their Degree of Dependency on the Performance Management System Return (Degree of Dependency)  Cost of Living Adjustment (Low)  Income Protection (Low)  Work/Life Focus (Moderate)  Allowances (Moderate)  Relational Returns (Moderate)  Base Pay (Moderate)  Contingent Pay (High)  Short-term Incentives (High)  Long-term Incentives (High)  Consider the returns at an employer you know about; how do they relate to the PM system? 5. Aims and Role of PM Systems Purposes of PM Systems (Overview)  Strategic  Administrative  Informational  Developmental  Organizational maintenance  Documentation Strategic Purpose o Link individual goals with organization’s goals o Communicate most crucial business strategic initiatives Administrative Purpose o Provide information for making decisions in reference to:  Salary adjustments
  • 9. Chapter 1 Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall 5  Promotions  Retention or termination  Recognition of individual performance  Merit increases  Identification of poor performers  Layoffs Informational Purpose o Communicate to Employees  Expectations  Organization  Supervisor  What is important  How they are doing  How to improve Developmental Purpose o Performance feedback/coaching o Identification of individual strengths and weaknesses o Identification of causes of performance deficiencies o Tailor development of individual career path Organizational Maintenance Purpose o Plan effective workforce  Anticipate/respond to future needs  Determine priorities and allocate resources  Perform talent inventory o Assess future training needs o Evaluate performance at organizational level o Evaluate effectiveness of HR interventions Documentation Purpose o Validate selection instruments o Document administrative decisions o Help meet legal requirements Purposes of PM Systems (Summary)  Strategic  Administrative  Informational  Developmental  Organizational maintenance  Documentation  How well does the PM system at SELCO Credit Union meet these purposes? What about a system you are familiar with? 6. Characteristics of an Ideal PM System
  • 10. Part I: Strategic and General Considerations___________________________________________________ Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall 6 Overview  Congruent with organizational strategy  Thorough  Practical  Meaningful  Specific  Identifies effective and ineffective performance  Reliable  Valid  Acceptable and Fair  Inclusive  Open  Correctable  Standardized  Ethical Strategically Congruent o Consistent with organization’s strategy o Aligned with unit and organizational goals Contextually Congruent o Congruent with the organization’s culture as well as the broader cultural context of the region or country  Example: A 360-degree-feedback is not effective where communication is not fluid and hierarchies are rigid. Thorough o All employees are evaluated. o All major job responsibilities are evaluated. o Evaluations cover performance for the entire review period. o Feedback is given on both positive and negative performance. Practical o Available o Easy to use o Acceptable to decision makers o Benefits outweigh costs Meaningful o Standards are important and relevant. o System measures ONLY what employee can control. o Results have consequences (used for important administrative decisions). o Evaluations occur regularly and at appropriate times. o System provides for continuing skill development of evaluators. Specific o Concrete and detailed guidance to employees
  • 11. Chapter 1 Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall 7  What’s expected  How to meet the expectations Identifies effective and ineffective performance o Distinguish between effective and ineffective  Behaviors  Results o Provide ability to identify employees with various levels of performance Reliable o Consistent o Free of error o Inter-rater reliability Valid o Relevant (i.e., measures what is important) o Not deficient (i.e., doesn’t measure unimportant facets of job) o Not contaminated (i.e., only measures what the employee can control) Acceptable and Fair o Perception of Distributive Justice  Work performed  evaluation received  reward o Perception of Procedural Justice  Fairness of procedures used to  Determine ratings  Link ratings to rewards How can different cultures challenge this requirement in international companies? Inclusive o Represents concerns of all involved  When system is created, employees should help with deciding  What should be measured  How it should be measured  Employee should provide input on performance prior to evaluation meeting. Open (No Secrets) o Frequent, ongoing evaluations and feedback o Two-way communications in appraisal meeting o Clear standards and ongoing communication o Communications are factual, open, and honest Correctable o Recognizes that human judgment is fallible o Appeals process provided
  • 12. Part I: Strategic and General Considerations___________________________________________________ Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall 8 Standardized o Ongoing training of managers to provide consistent evaluations across  People  Time Ethical o Supervisor suppresses self-interest. o Supervisor rates only where he or she has sufficient information about the performance dimension. o Supervisor respects employee privacy.  What did the Mercer study show could be the payoff if an ideal PM system were implemented?  When you think about PM systems you have observed, what characteristics of an ideal system are most common?  What characteristics of an ideal PM system seem most likely to be absent in systems you have observed? 7. Integration with Other Human Resources and Development Activities PM provides information for: o Development of training to meet organizational needs o Workforce planning o Recruitment and hiring decisions o Development of compensation systems 8. Performance Management Around the World o PM is used in a number of countries including the United States, Mexico, Turkey, India, Australia, China, South Korea, Japan, U.K., Germany, Bulgaria, Romania, and France. o The needs to 1) align individual and organizational goals and 2) enhance the performance of individuals and groups are common across countries. o Yet, different countries emphasize different components of PM.  Example 1: PMs in Japan tend to emphasize behaviors to the detriment of results.  Example 2: The current challenge among many organizations in South Korea is how to reconcile a merit-based approach with more traditional cultural values. Performance Management (PM) in Context: Summary 1. Definition of Performance Management (PM) 2. The Performance Management Contribution 3. Disadvantages/Dangers of Poorly Implemented PM Systems 4. Definition of Reward Systems 5. Aims and Role of PM Systems 6. Characteristics of an Ideal PM system 7. Integration with Other Human Resources and Development Activities 8. Performance Management Around the World
  • 13. Chapter 1 Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall 9 Review Learning Objectives Worked Solutions for End-of-Chapter Cases Case Study 1.2: Performance Management at Network Solutions, Inc. 1. Overall, the performance management system at Network Solutions fits the characteristics of an ideal system nicely. (Suggested points: 3, [1.8]) 2. It has strategic congruence; it encourages a thorough and continuous evaluation process; the results will be used to make important decisions; expectations of employees are clearly communicated; the plan discriminates among high, average, and low performers; employee input is gathered before the meeting; and it encourages ongoing communication between manager and employee. However, there is not enough information presented to know if the standards that employees are rated on are relevant and under the employee’s control, or if there is an appeals process in place. Furthermore, reliability and validity information of the system will need to be assessed. Finally, data will be needed (possibly collected by the HR function) to assess whether employees see the system as fair, whether it is being used ethically, and whether the benefits of the system outweigh its costs. (Suggested points: 5, [1.8]) 3. Advantages/positive outcomes of successfully implementing this system include: a. Raising the bar of performance and aggressively managing performance b. Cascading organizational goals to individual contributors, setting objectives to meet these goals, and planning development activities to ensure that objectives are met c. Ability to track talent profile and compare it to business performance d. Enhanced communication around employee development e. Improved employee satisfaction and loyalty f. Increased risk taking for innovation and technology breakthroughs g. Increased trust between manager and employee h. Increased collaboration (Suggested points: 3, [1.3]) 4. Disadvantages of implementing this system include: a. Poor performers may be retained to meet the 10 percent quota b. Increased risk of discrimination litigation c. Hiring mediocre talent to satisfy the bottom 10 percent quota d. Promote internal competition, undermining team collaboration e. May drive unethical behavior, as employees do whatever it takes to compete f. Everyone takes a turn being a “token 3” g. The forced distribution may not reflect actual performance, and there may be penalization of (a) good performers in high performing teams and (b) good managers who hire well and manage all performers actively
  • 14. Part I: Strategic and General Considerations___________________________________________________ Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall 10 (Suggested points: 3, [1.3]) Case Study 1.3: Distinguishing Performance Management Systems from Performance Appraisal Systems A performance management system is a multidimensional concept. Performance management is a 1) continuous process of 2) identifying, 3) measuring, 4) setting goals, and 5) developing/coaching the performance of individuals and teams. At the same time, a performance management system involves the 6) alignment of performance with the strategic goals of the organization. In short, a performance management system broadly consists of the six elements just mentioned. In contrast, a performance appraisal system consists of only two of the elements of a performance management system (i.e., the identification and measurement of individual and team performance). In other words, a performance appraisal system is a non- continuous (e.g., once-a-year) systematic description of an employee’s strengths and weaknesses. It does not include any ongoing effort to provide goal-setting, development/coaching, or strategic alignment of employees’ performance with organizational goals. Therefore, a performance appraisal system is a component of a performance management system. Clarifying the distinction between a performance appraisal system and a performance management system reveals three types of criticisms against a performance-related system. First, recall that two elements, a) the identification and b) measurement of individual/team performance, are included in both a performance appraisal system and a performance management system. However, four other elements, c) continuous process; d) goal-setting; e) development/coaching; and f) strategic alignment, are included in a performance management system but not in a performance appraisal system. Given that these latter four elements can be translated to benefits if managed appropriately, it follows that a performance management system has four more potential benefits than does a performance appraisal system. Because a performance management system has a greater number of potential benefits than does a performance appraisal system, a person can criticize a performance appraisal system for offering a smaller number of potential benefits to an organization. Similarly, one can criticize a performance appraisal system on the basis that the system does not have a particular element that a performance management has, given that there are a total of four elements that a performance management system has but that a performance appraisal system does not. Either way, this type of criticism is directed against performance appraisal systems but not against performance management systems. Second, note that a person can criticize the poor execution or management of an element that is included in a performance management system but not in a performance appraisal system. In this case, the criticism is directed against a performance management system but not a performance appraisal system. Third, a person can criticize the poor execution or management of an element that is included in both a performance management system and a performance appraisal system.
  • 15. Chapter 1 Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall 11 Accordingly, this criticism is directed against both a performance management system and a performance appraisal system. Therefore, the following patterns of X’s are observed in the table below. (Suggested points: 8, [1.2]) Additional Cases and Worked Solutions Case Study: CRB, Inc. A very small car restoration business (CRB, Inc.) is interviewing you for a position as its human resources manager on a part-time basis, working 20 hours per week, while you complete your degree. You would be the first HR manager they have ever been able to afford to hire, and the husband and wife owners (Al and Mary Brown) have been operating the business for 10 years. In addition to you, they recently hired a part-time janitor. This brought the paid staff to six full-time employees: a foreman who is responsible for scheduling and overseeing the work, two auto body repair workers, a Criticisms Directed against performance appraisal systems Directed against both performance appraisal and management systems Directed against performance management systems 1 x 2 x 3 x 4 x 5 x 6 x 7 x 8 x 9 x 10 x 11 x
  • 16. Part I: Strategic and General Considerations___________________________________________________ Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall 12 person who disassembles and reassembles cars, a painter, and a detail person who assists the painter with getting the car ready to paint and sanding and waxing it afterward. Al Brown handles sales and estimating prices, runs errands and chases down parts, and envisions the future. Mary has been doing the bookkeeping and general paperwork. The owners and employees are very proud of CRB’s reputation for doing high quality work in the restoration of old cars made as far back as the 1930s. CRB pays its employees based on “flagged hours” which are the number of paid hours that were estimated to complete the work. (For example, the estimate may say that it will take three hours to straighten a fender and prepare it for painting. When the auto body repair worker has completed straightening the fender, he would “flag” completion of three hours, whether it took him two hours or six hours to actually complete the work. It is to his benefit to be very fast and very good at what he does.) CRB pays the workers 40 percent of what it charges the customer for the flagged hours; the other funds are used to pay the employer’s share of the taxes and overhead, with a small margin for profit. The foreman, who does some “flagged hours” auto body repair himself, is also paid a 5 percent commission on all the labor hours of the other employees, after the car is accepted as complete by the customer and the customer pays for the completed work. Employees are given feedback by Al, the foreman, and by customers on an infrequent basis. Right now, everything is going well and the employees are working as a team. In the past, the situation was less certain and some employees had to be fired for poor work. When an employee filed for government paid unemployment compensation saying that he was out of work through no fault of his own, CRB challenged the filing and usually was able to prove that Al had given a memo to the employee requesting improvements in quality or quantity of work. There has never been a formal planning or appraisal process at CRB. Mary Brown has read an article about performance management and is wondering whether CRB should implement such a system. Please answer her questions based on your understanding of this small business. 1. Critically assess whether a performance management system would work for such a small business. (Suggested points: 10, [1.1]) 2. Discuss benefits that such a system would provide for us as owners and for our employees. (Suggested points: 5, [1.3]) 3. Explain any dangers our company faces if we don’t have a performance management system. What could be a problem if we go with a poorly implemented system? (Suggested points: 5, [1.4]) 4. What 10 characteristics, at a minimum, should we include in a performance management system? Explain your answer with one to three sentences for each characteristic you recommend.
  • 17. Exploring the Variety of Random Documents with Different Content
  • 18. elementary education is the principal part of the education there given.’ Since the great mass of children do not go beyond the fifth standard, it is convenient in large towns to draw into a single school all who propose to continue their education, and by a systematic course of further study to encourage them to stay on as long as possible. Thus a secondary school has grown up so naturally and quietly on the top of the elementary, that many persons are hardly aware of its existence. This sudden addition of a four years’ advanced course would obviously be impossible without funds, and the Education Department is officially unaware of the existence of any pupils beyond the seventh standard. The good fairy who steps in here is none other than that much abused South Kensington Department of Science and Art. This department, which, justly or unjustly, has come to be regarded as a red-tape-bound machine for examining and conferring grants by a sort of automatic process, has only of late years been brought into connection with day-schools. Though its grants began as early as 1837, their object was chiefly to encourage evening classes, and make cheap instruction possible for those men and women whose occupation or income shut them out from the ordinary means of education. An examination which could be used for the purpose of earning income naturally became popular; and in spite of protests from many quarters, in particular from some artists, who regarded the system of drawing-teaching as mechanical and cramping, there has been little diminution in its popularity as a money-producing agency. The establishment of technical institutes gave it a fresh impulse, since the adoption by these of the South Kensington examinations gave a welcome addition to the institute’s funds; and as the money for this purpose is supplied by annual votes in the Estimates, and not by a rate, it provokes none of that opposition which a local rate for any object, no matter how desirable, is sure to encounter. The connection between South Kensington and the day-schools has grown little by little. The grants were originally meant for evening-schools, but there appeared no reason why day-schools
  • 19. should not also earn it, provided they were willing to send in their pupils for the evening examinations, which for some years were the only ones held. As early as 1872, the department had devised a regular scheme of instruction for schools that systematically followed its courses. Under certain conditions, schools under local management, approved by the department, might be registered as ‘Organised Science Schools.’ A certain class stamp was given them by requiring that the pupils should as a whole belong to the ‘industrial classes,’ the £400 income limit being used to define the term. Payments were made for success in examination: for Science, £2 for a pass in an elementary subject; £2, 10s. and £5, respectively, for a second or first-class in an advanced stage; and £4 and £8 for a second and first in honours. Extra grants were made for certain subjects. No payment was made unless at least twenty-eight lessons had been given to the class, or unless at least twenty had been attended by the individual pupil. Payments on similar principles were made for Art. The Organised Science School could also claim an attendance grant, which made it a more profitable undertaking. In return, a school was bound to allot fifteen hours a week to subjects taken under the department. As a matter of fact most schools gave more. There was money in Science, Mathematics and Drawing. Geography, History, Languages and Literature were unremunerative. They must go to the wall. Such was the course which, originally designed for evening students, was gradually gaining favour in day-schools. A child who passed beyond the standards must still earn money for his school, and this could only be done by means of these South Kensington grants. Hence the wide diffusion of the Organised Science School, in spite of its too early specialisation, and the undue stress laid on grant-earning. This arrangement marked the triumph of red-tape and apotheosis of the examination system. The narrowness of the curriculum made it unsuitable for many boys, and almost all girls. As attempts were made to adopt it more generally for the sake of the grant, condemnation became frequent. The obligatory fifteen hours’
  • 20. Science were complained of; in 1895 new regulations reduced them to thirteen, and introduced a general viva voce inspection, which was to take cognisance of literary subjects as well. Grants are still given only for Science and Art, but the other side is not wholly neglected. Ten hours must nominally be given to literary subjects, though this is held to include manual instruction for boys and cookery or needlework for girls. Less stress is laid on examination. In the elementary course, payments are made wholly on the results of inspection, and in the advanced course partly on inspection and partly on examination. The arrangements are extremely complicated, but they amount to—(1) an attendance grant on all students who have attended a minimum number of times; (2) a variable grant on each student; (3) grants for practical work; (4) payments on examination results in the case of advanced students of Science and Art; (5) payments for manual instruction, cookery, needlework, etc. Such are the means of financing a Science School (the term now adopted), and schools of this description are often found serving the purpose of continuation departments to elementary schools. Since 1897 examinations have also been held in the day-time. A higher grade school which systematically organises its upper department is divided into upper and lower school, the former under the cognisance of South Kensington, and the latter of the Education Department. A four years’ course in the upper school usually leads to matriculation. But although they are in a sense two distinct schools, they fit into each other as the primary and grammar schools do in America. The methods are the same in both, the organisation similar, and children pass from one to the other without that breach of continuity which makes the transition from the elementary to the high school so sudden, and often so unprofitable. It is this continuity which conduces so largely to the success of the higher grade schools, and accounts for the extraordinary rapidity of their growth. As many as seven or eight hundred pupils have been known to enter one of these schools on the opening day; three hundred of these had free places, the rest paid small fees.
  • 21. There are at present in England 169 Schools of Science, with an attendance of 20,879. What proportion of these are girls it is impossible to ascertain. A large proportion of these science departments are in higher grade schools. Although a higher grade school is not necessarily a science school, while science schools are sometimes found as departments of grammar schools or other institutions, the two are found in such frequent combination that the terms Higher Grade and Science School are not infrequently used as synonymous. Of these schools the best known is probably the one at Leeds so ably directed by Dr. Forsyth. It is established in a huge block of buildings, and has two divisions—one for boys and one for girls— with a central double staircase opening into long corridors, separated from class-rooms by glass partitions. Its class-rooms are large and airy; it is admirably equipped with apparatus, etc., and has a good playground for the boys, though the girls are restricted to the use of the roof. With its chemical laboratory for 120 students, its physical laboratory, large lecture-room, workshop, gymnasium, etc., its large staff, and 1800 pupils, of whom about half are in or over Standard VII., it testifies with all the eloquence of material fact to the vigorous development of this new educational force. The nature of the work done in these propitious surroundings is best described in the Principal’s own words:—‘On a basis of elementary education it is intended to superadd a system of higher education which, at a moderate charge, will train pupils for industrial, manufacturing, and professional pursuits. This system of instruction will have its beginnings in the elementary school, but will be practically carried out in a three years’ course beyond the standards. It will embrace such courses as:— 1. The Classical (or Professional), in which Latin, Mathematics, Science, and Drawing form the chief subjects. 2. The Modern (or Mercantile), in which French or German, Commercial Geography, Mathematics, Science, and Drawing will receive most attention.
  • 22. 3. The Scientific (or Technical), in which Mathematics, Science, and Drawing form the leading subjects. A school of this size can, of course, be broken up into a number of separate departments, since these numbers would, in any case, necessitate parallel classes, and the work of the upper school is greatly facilitated by carrying down such subjects as Latin, French, and Elementary Science as low as the fifth standard. This school takes pupils from the second standard. The fee throughout is 9d. a week. It contains a very important Organised Science department, but this only represents part of the work of the school. The curriculum of the girls differs but slightly from that of the boys. They take cookery and similar subjects instead of manual instruction, and calisthenics instead of gymnastics. At one time they were allowed to substitute botany for some of the mathematics, apparently with excellent results. Similar schools, though not quite so large, are in existence at Manchester, Cardiff, Gateshead, etc.—in fact, almost every large town in England now has, at least, one school of this kind. At Leeds boys and girls are separated in the standards, but work together in the upper school, where the proportion of girls is very small. At Cardiff the two schools are distinct and under different heads, but the highest (matriculation) class is mixed. The plan of putting boys and girls together under the headmaster in the upper school appears to be gaining ground. This seems a mistake, since in schools of this kind the needs of boys and girls are of necessity very different. As far as boys are concerned, the continuation school of the working classes is bound, in fulfilment of its twofold function, ‘to carry on education beyond the elementary stage without breach of continuity, and to fit children for their future occupation’; to lay the chief stress on science, mechanical drawing, and similar subjects, which may help the future artisan to take a higher place in his trade. For girls the position is different. In fact, science schools were never meant for them, but they gradually gained admittance for want of a corresponding school of their own. Some persons think it a good course for intending teachers; for the general run of girls it cannot
  • 23. be considered suitable. The most crying need for them just now seems complete separation from the boys’ department, and some other scheme than that of science examinations for purposes of financing. A girls’ continuation school can hardly be a place for specialising. With due allowance for all possible outlets for feminine energy, it still remains a fact that the great mass of women are likely to lead a more or less domestic life, and the special training for what has been called the trade of ‘home-making’ does not necessitate a four years’ course of arduous study. A girl’s future, too, is harder to anticipate. She may marry and keep house, or she may work for her living, or she may do both, either successively or simultaneously. What she needs is good all-round training; if along with this she can get some good practical and theoretical instruction in domestic economy so much the better. But cooking and washing must not absorb as much time as boys give to chemistry and physics, else we run the risk of disgusting our girls for ever with household work. It is absurd to confound a domestic art with a theoretical and practical science, for it can only to a very limited degree replace mental training. This a girl can get from a variety of studies. The more general her curriculum, the better will she be prepared for the very miscellaneous demands of her after life. A certain number will doubtless pass through the intermediate school to the university college, but this may be done without excessive specialisation, and the number who remain long enough to make use of such opportunities is likely to be much smaller in the case of girls than boys. If a fair proportion stay for two years after the seventh standard, we should be well satisfied. If the parents have made sacrifices in order to keep them at school till fifteen, it is time for the majority at any rate to be apprenticed for their future work, or make a place for themselves in their own homes. A girl’s preparation for life is not entirely to be sought at school; matriculation is not an end in itself, and a girl who has not sufficient ability to win a scholarship to a secondary school, or a special aptitude for teaching, will do better to turn her attention to more lucrative fields of manual or commercial work. The school that, failing to recognise this, endeavours to drive all its pupils through the same examination mill
  • 24. is neglecting part of its duty, and taking too narrow a view of education. A two years’ course is what the majority of girls need to fill the interval between the seventh standard and the age of apprenticeship. If we could give this to all, and something more to the few, the State would not be neglecting its daughters. Since under present circumstances these schools cannot be worked without some help from South Kensington, various experiments are being tried in organisation, to enable a school to earn some grant and yet pay more regard to the needs of girls than is usually done in higher grade schools. Some adopt the plan of Science Classes instead of Science Schools, registering for examination purposes the classes in science, drawing, etc., without offering up the thirteen obligatory hours on the altar of money earning. Unfortunately this plan is less advantageous from the pecuniary standpoint, and many a schoolmistress will declare with a sigh that there is nothing for it but to resort to the Science School. It is not so good for the girls, but it pays better. Some day, before too long, a Secondary Education Act may enable us to change all that. Meantime we must give to South Kensington the honour of stepping in when education was languishing for want of funds, and helping us to build the upper story for our board school boys and girls. This department, like the county councils which administer the Technical Instruction Acts, has no power to subsidise subjects outside its own lawful purlieus, nor can it, while we lack a recognised educational authority, award its money grants by other means than inspection and examination. Thus the intermediate school is being forced through the mill of ‘payment by results,’ from which the elementary school has at last escaped. Perhaps this was a necessary stage for both to pass through; and though some victims fell by the way and there was some injustice done, yet it served to establish the general standard of efficiency which has made the institution of more liberal methods in board schools possible. Similarly the stern South Kensington Department may help to establish a better system of science teaching through its careful inspection and insistence on practical work, and it may
  • 25. certainly claim to have ‘succeeded in doing what no other system could have done, carrying science instruction all over the country without ever raising any sectarian difficulty of any kind.’[18] The county councils and the Science and Art Department have become our most important educational authorities, for the very simple reason that they alone have money at their disposal. Both are limited in their operations in a manner that forces them to be unjust to some most important branches of study. Legislation can and must alter this in the immediate future. Meantime the result is to emphasise a class distinction between literary and scientific schools. In making science the distinctive mark of the lower-class school, the Department has brought about the somewhat anomalous result of degrading in the public estimation those very studies which it designed to elevate. An attempt is now being made to improve the prestige of the science school by raising the income limit to £500, in accordance with the new income-tax regulations, and including among schools acknowledged by the Department those ‘managed by a public company in the articles of association of which provision is made that no dividend shall be paid exceeding five per cent.’ Under this heading come the greater part of our best girls’ schools, and this regulation would place it in the power of the governors of these to turn a part of their school into a Science School, or to register separate classes with a view to examination and grant-earning. It would be a convenient way of adding to their income, but whether it is desirable to complicate the harmonious working of a high school by a plan of dual control and a very exacting system of outside inspection and examination seems very doubtful. Should it ever be largely adopted the chief gainers would probably be the private schools, which would alone be left free to take a wide view of the present and future needs of their pupils. There would be a curious irony in such an outcome of all the efforts to improve girls’ education by making it a public concern; but as long as there is no compulsion beyond the elementary stage, we may always reckon on a healthy reaction and a revolt against excessive red-tape. Britons never will be slaves, not even to a Department which helps them to educate their children more cheaply.
  • 26. While the higher grade school is designed to give more advanced instruction to those children from the elementary schools who can afford to postpone their working life till fifteen or later, it has also become necessary to do something for those whose occupations will not allow of continued day-time instruction. The Evening Continuation schools are intended to supply this want. The original night-school of olden time was one where the unlettered rustic or mechanic came to spell out his primer and laboriously manufacture his pot-hooks. Though election statistics show that the absolutely illiterate voter is gradually vanishing from the scenes, his complete extinction cannot be far off, and in catering for after-instruction the amount of schooling represented by three standards may as a rule be assumed. But in early days the school boards had to cater for a very ignorant class of evening pupils, and the work of the continuation schools was to a great extent parallel with that of the day-schools. For many years the codes insisted that pupils in night- schools earning grants should undergo examinations in the three elementary subjects—reading, writing, arithmetic. As the numbers who passed through the day-schools increased there was a corresponding diminution in evening attendances, and it became clear that the proper use of the evening-school was as a place of more advanced instruction. Accordingly in the 1890 Code the clause, that elementary education should be the principal part of the education there given, was omitted. In 1893 Evening Continuation schools received fresh stimulus and importance from an entirely new Code dealing with them separately. Its declared aim was to give ‘freedom to managers in the organisation of their schools’ by offering a wide choice of subjects with suggested syllabuses in some subjects. The aims of these schools were now declared to be twofold:—(1) to supply defects in early elementary instruction; (2) to prolong the general education of the scholar, and combine with it some form of interesting employment. The effect of this new Code was remarkable. The total number of scholars on evening-school registers increased from 115,000 in 1892–1893 to 266,000 in 1893–1894. No less important was the
  • 27. change in the character of the work. To a great extent it has become secondary, although primary instruction is still necessary for many pupils, who are removed early from the day-school and have spent the interval in purely mechanical occupations. Evening-schools have to contend against several obstacles. Chief among them is the diminished fitness for receiving instruction after the fatigues of the day’s work. This seems to vary with different persons, and to be largely a matter of temperament, sometimes of habit. The majority of persons certainly work better in the day-time. Another difficulty is the irregular attendance due to the absence of compulsion and the lack of special inducements. Nothing but the intrinsic attractiveness of the class will induce most pupils to study any other subject than those practical ones, like shorthand, mathematics, etc., which may help them to earn a better living. The framers of the Code, recognising this, suggested the introduction of popular elements in the shape of ‘lantern illustrations, music, manual work, discussion of some book which has been read by the class, field naturalist or sketching clubs, gymnastics or other employments of a more or less recreative character.’ ‘For many of these purposes grants cannot be given, but provided that the managers take care that at least one hour at each meeting is devoted to the teaching of the subjects mentioned in Article 2 of this Code, and that the instruction is systematic and thorough, every arrangement for making the school attractive should be carefully considered.’ The subjects recognised by the Code range from the elementary ones, practically the three R’s, over languages and sciences, commercial and miscellaneous subjects, drawing, domestic economy, cookery, laundry work and dairy-work, and needlework. Indeed, it would be hard to find a subject not included, always excepting literature, that step-daughter of English schools. Even this is now being taught under the London Board. The scientific and technical subjects bring the schools into competition with technical institutes, with the result that in some towns there is an undue rivalry between the various educational agencies. To obviate this, the Science and Art Department has drawn
  • 28. up a new regulation, recognising an organisation for the promotion of secondary education in any county or county borough in England as the local authority for administering the Science and Art grants in its own district. As many towns other than county boroughs have classes working for the grants of the Department, this arrangement is only partially helpful, and there is still much undue rivalry. Where this prevails it usually falls to the lot of the School Board to attract the younger and more casual students, a class that is not altogether welcome at the more serious Institute. Hitherto the work of the evening-school has been of necessity more or less desultory; and of the two agencies for prolonging the education of our working-class children, the higher grade school seems as yet to answer best. That the other plan has possibilities is proved by the example of Germany and the success of our own Polytechnic classes. A definite place for the evening-school may yet be found in our system. Meantime the school boards hold out the opportunities and invite, though they cannot compel, the multitude to come in. The improvement in the day-school will give a fresh impetus to the evening-school. This much at least it is safe to prophesy.
  • 29. CHAPTER XI THE INTERMEDIATE SCHOOLS OF WALES A land of mountains seems to be a land of ideals. Separated by the elementary forces of nature from many of the currents of life that flow beyond it, thrown on itself, its own resources and its past, it cherishes its individuality with a fervour unknown to the people of a plain. Even ruthless modernity, with its complex train systems and mountain-borings, serves but to invade its privacy, not to change its character. Patriotism is stronger, national feeling more tenacious, the practical side of life has man less firmly in its grip. The Welsh people, with their proud claim to represent the original inhabitants of the island, their long roll of story and legend, their ‘estranging’ language, incomprehensible a few miles across the border, are still a race apart. Neither Saxon nor Norman, legislation nor intercourse, has ever been able to degrade them into a mere appanage of the English nation. Among the ideals long cherished here in vain by all classes, was that of a national system of education. It would not be fair to describe the country which produced the sweetest and best-trained singers in the United Kingdom, and could organise and carry out such elaborate musical and artistic competitions as those of the Eisteddfodd, as wholly uneducated, and yet until very recently it was undoubtedly lacking in schools and colleges. Like England, it benefited by the Education Act of 1870, which brought instruction to the children of the wage-earners, but it was the class above these, the professional and commercial, whose means or whose patriotism forbade their sending their sons and daughters to England, that felt the deficiency most keenly. Drawn into the stir, which in England
  • 30. followed on 1870, Wales began to move on her own lines; numerous educational societies were started, conferences held, and every effort made to fan the feeble spark till it should have strength enough to kindle public opinion as well as private enthusiasm. The country was too poor to supply its own needs by voluntary effort. For that very reason it offered a useful field for experiment. Vested interests were not numerous; there were a few grammar schools for boys; but for girls only three endowed schools, and one proprietary, belonging to the Girls’ Public Day-School Company. Private schools, mostly inefficient, filled some of the gaps, the rest remained empty. The last five years have wrought a transformation. Throughout the length and breadth of Wales, whether in large towns or small, there may be seen in a conspicuous spot, looking down on the place from some hill-top hard by, a grey stone building, which a large board informs us is the local County School. The pride with which the inhabitants point it out recalls American enthusiasm; to many it is the chief sight of the place. Here is the goal on which their hopes have been set for years; these school buildings testify to attainment. ‘O fortunati quorum jam mœnia surgunt,’ we are tempted to exclaim. This transformation has been brought about by the Welsh Intermediate Education Act of 1889, itself the outcome of that same departmental committee which recommended the establishment of a Welsh university. Its financial contribution, a half-penny rate, and a Treasury grant of corresponding amount, would in itself have been too meagre to produce much result, but when in the following year the Local Customs and Excise Act was passed, it contained a clause permitting Wales to use its share of the money for purposes of Intermediate as well as Technical instruction. In this way the public resources, i.e. the rate, the Treasury grant, and the technical money, could be administered in one fund, and for the general purpose of education, with no express exclusion of literature or culture. The tiresome restrictions, the overlapping of authorities, from which we are still suffering in England, were never to be introduced into Wales; its very poverty proved its salvation; there was a tabula rasa on which no characters had been as yet inscribed. Both on account
  • 31. of its own needs, and as an untried field for operation, Wales was chosen as suitable ground for an experiment in secondary education, at the very moment when the institution of a fresh educational authority in England came to complicate existing conditions yet further. It is an accusation often brought against English education, that we have no system which looks well on paper. This cannot be said of Wales. The system there is perfectly simple. It applies to the whole country, and to girls and boys alike. The money is raised from three sources:— 1. A half-penny rate—the County contribution. 2. A Treasury grant, equal to the amount produced by the rate— the Treasury contribution. 3. The local share of the money from the Customs and Excise Act —the Exchequer contribution. The educational unit is the county, and the governing body consists partly of members of the county council, representing the separate school districts, partly of members chosen by school boards, university colleges, etc. A very few are co-opted. Each school also has its own body of managers, chosen in somewhat similar fashion from local bodies, while the county council appoints one of the members sent up to it from each district to be its own representative on that particular governing body. The duties of the managers are chiefly confined to carrying out the provisions of schemes, and promoting healthy local interest in the school, for they have little power of initiative, and not always even the choice of a headmaster. All matters of essential importance, e.g. whether the schools shall be separate for boys and girls, or mixed, the subjects of instruction, the salary of the headmaster, the limits within which fees may be charged, and the proportion of scholarships to be awarded, are laid down in advance in the county scheme, which can only be altered by appeal to the Charity Commissioners. The action of both county and district bodies is therefore confined within very narrow limits, too narrow, in fact, considering the experimental stage
  • 32. of the schools, and the unwisdom of crystallising initial mistakes into permanent form. These schemes were drawn up, subject to the approval of the Charity Commissioners, by the Joint Education Committees, which received their authority directly from the Act. They consisted in each case of five persons, three nominees of the county council, and two persons ‘well acquainted with the condition of Wales and the wants of the people.’ Though the interests of girls as well as boys had to be considered, few if any women seem to have been on these committees, and it is difficult not to connect this omission with the injustice with which they have, in many cases, been treated. This was hardly intentional, but it should have been possible to negative at the outset every proposal for making a girls’ school a mere subordinate department of the boys.’ These committees were only temporary, to exist until the schemes could be floated, and the control handed over to the county governing bodies. But they led to the formation of a permanent board, not contemplated by the Act. Frequent meetings between groups of these committees, with a view to promoting uniformity of action, led to a series of general conferences at Shrewsbury, which, though not in Wales, is the most conveniently accessible point from north and south. At a series of meetings held here, it was decided to establish a central body, and call upon the Treasury to acknowledge it as the central authority for inspection and examination, and for the payment of the Government grant to the various counties. After the usual negotiations and delays, a scheme establishing the Board was approved by the Charity Commissioners, and became law in 1895. In this informal manner originated what has practically become the secondary education authority for Wales. The Board consists of eighty members, representative of various local and educational bodies: the Principals of the three Welsh colleges, twenty-one representatives of county councils, twenty-six of county governing bodies, five of headmasters and mistresses of intermediate schools, five of certificated teachers in public elementary schools, three of councils of university colleges, three of
  • 33. the senates, two of Jesus College, Oxford, six of the court of the University of Wales, and six co-optative members, three of whom must be women. The bulk of the work devolves on the executive committee of fifteen. The establishment of this Central Board marks the completion of the Welsh secondary system. It furnishes a link between all the counties and schools, and exercises over these that general supervision which, in the initial stages, had devolved on the Charity Commissioners. Since the subjects to be taught had been prescribed by the Act generally, and by the schemes specially, the duties of the Central Board were not so much to lay down a scheme of studies, as to see that the course already prescribed was duly followed, that each school was in a state of general and educational efficiency, and that the provisions of the schemes were observed. For these purposes they arranged a system of inspection and examination. The Act had defined intermediate education as ‘a course of education which does not consist chiefly of elementary instruction in reading, writing, and arithmetic, but which includes instruction in Latin, Greek, the Welsh and English language and literature, modern languages, mathematics, natural and applied science, or in some of such studies, and generally in the higher branches of knowledge,’ and the schemes fixed more precisely which of these were to be in each case compulsory. The Glamorgan scheme, which is in many respects typical, prescribes geography, history, English grammar, composition, and literature, drawing, mathematics, Latin, at least one modern language, natural science, vocal music, drill or other physical exercise, and such other scientific or technical subjects, including shorthand, as the school managers may determine. Scripture is not obligatory, but if included, it must be taught by a member of the staff. Some manual instruction must also be offered the boys, and a little cookery to the girls, but, as is inevitable, where the programme is already overloaded, this side of the work takes a very subordinate place. In all schools Welsh must be taught as an optional subject; in a stated few Greek may be introduced. But even without these additions, the compulsory curriculum is a very heavy
  • 34. one, when it is borne in mind that a large proportion of pupils come from the elementary schools, where the girls, at any rate, have been hitherto confined to reading, writing, arithmetic, and needlework, with possibly a little French and domestic economy. Even English history and geography are unfamiliar ground. The aim of the Welsh Intermediate, as of the English High Schools, is to give a liberal education cheaply in day-schools; but there is one essential difference between them. While the high school is an organised whole, leading the pupils by gentle gradations from the primary department to the lower school, and thence on to the upper, the intermediate school receives no pupils below the age of ten. Since the majority are between twelve and sixteen, they break up naturally into two classes, according as they have received their preliminary training at a public elementary school or elsewhere. This division is by no means so sharply defined in Wales as in England. Wales is both poor and democratic, and inclines to the doctrine, familiar in the United States, that no stigma should attach to attendance at a school supported out of the rates, since the parents do in fact contribute towards the expenses, though indirectly. Hence we find a mixture of class in both elementary and intermediate schools, which in England would be neither possible nor desirable. The omission of the primary department in the new schools is in fact deliberate. There is already one kind of school assisted out of public funds and accessible to all, and it is therefore not thought necessary to subsidise primary instruction in another set of institutions. The intermediate school is so constituted as to fit straight on to the elementary, and in each school a certain proportion of scholarships must fall to elementary pupils. In accordance with the opinion of many authorities that the transplanting from an elementary to a secondary school, always a difficult process, should not take place too late, the admission age and requirements are put low, and the intermediate school is supposed to branch off from the elementary at about the fifth standard. In Wales, where poverty and dearth of educational opportunities have induced many persons of middle rank to make
  • 35. use of the free public schools, the difference between the two sets of pupils is by no means so strongly marked as it would be in England, but even here schools have two different characters, according as one or the other of these elements predominates. In a district where the population is largely industrial, the lowest possible tuition fee is chosen, and the largest possible amount of scholarships given to elementary pupils. Thus one scheme requires that not less than ten per cent. and not more than thirty per cent. of the pupils in each school, shall hold scholarships, and at least half of the number awarded shall go to pupils from public elementary schools, but there is nothing to prevent the whole number from being so given. In fact, several schools have more scholarships than candidates for them. According, therefore, to the interpretation of the clause adopted, the elementary scholars in a school of a hundred may vary from five— the minimum, to thirty—the maximum. In the latter class of school, the fees are usually low enough to attract paying pupils from the elementary schools; hence these furnish a majority of the pupils, and the school becomes a continuation, often a finishing-school for elementary pupils, many of whom stay one year, sometimes only a term or two, to get what prestige they can from attendance at a school of a higher grade than the one to which they have been accustomed. Those that remain for two years or longer usually do well, if their health is strong enough to bear the severe strain. The other classification into separate and mixed schools is apt to coincide with this distinction. Of the eighty-four schools now in existence, there are twenty for boys and twenty for girls, while the remaining forty-four are mixed. This wholesale adoption of a principle popular in the United States, but regarded hitherto askance by England, in common with other European countries, is due, as in Scotland, to the force of necessity. It is not as a counsel of perfection, but as a means of economy, that the plan has been adopted in Wales. In a country intersected by mountains, and inadequately supplied with means of locomotion, where distances should, as in Switzerland, be counted by hours and not by miles, access to places that look near enough on the map is often
  • 36. exceedingly difficult; and it is useless to plant a large school-building in a central district in the hope of drawing in pupils from a radius of a few miles. The alternative lay between frequent small day-schools and a liberal sprinkling of boarding-schools. The former carried the day, on the ground that they were more equitable to ratepayers, and more democratic. In almost every county, the committee adopted the more expensive and troublesome plan of establishing and maintaining a large number of small schools, and most of the difficulties with which Welsh intermediate education has to contend are due to that decision. In some places there are schools of forty, or even less, difficult to finance and to organise. These might work for a year or two, but as pupils stayed on and began to range from the Fifth Standard scholar at one end to the Matriculation student at the other, with all the varying intermediate grades, failure became inevitable. One remedy in the case of those small schools which were not rich enough to provide a liberal staff for small classes, was to arrange from the first to mix the boys and girls, thus facilitating the grading by increasing the numbers in each class. In this way better results could be obtained with small means, at any rate as far as class lists and examination statistics were concerned. Owing to the difficulties of grading, this system is being gradually introduced in many places where it was not originally contemplated; but the typical Welsh school, according to the first plan, was the dual. This was to consist of two distinct schools, one for boys and one for girls, built side by side, in such a way that they might have assembly hall, gymnasium, laboratory, etc., in common, and by the economy thus effected in site, buildings, apparatus, etc., it was hoped that the efficiency of small schools would be maintained. Unfortunately, the advocates of this system went a step further, and arranged to complete their economies by appointing a single head for both schools, to take the superintendence of both boys and girls. Obviously this head must be a man. Though some schemes contain the words ‘headmaster or head-mistress,’ it is at once explained to feminine applicants that the words are a mere matter of form. Indeed, it would be far better to omit them. The most ardent
  • 37. advocates of women’s equality would hardly propose to give a mistress full authority over boys of twelve to seventeen. However excellent feminine influence may be in a boys’ school, no one wants to see it supreme there. Though paramount masculine influence in a girls’ school is anything but desirable, it seemed the lesser of two evils; and both custom and convenience pointed to the selection of a master. This initial injustice paved the way for many others. Though most schools appoint a senior mistress, who is supposed to have a general control over the girls, it is out of the managers’ power, when once they have made the headmaster supreme, to make her position one of any authority. Like all the rest, she is appointed by the headmaster; she has no place in the scheme, nor status in the school, except what may be given her by courtesy. She has no voice in choosing her assistants, nor in making the time-table; her position is often inferior to that of a second mistress in an English high school. This kind of dual school was a new experiment, and it cannot be pronounced a successful one. Where the two departments were kept distinct, except for an occasional interchange of teachers, the real difficulties of classification were not obviated; and one set of managers after another took the final step, availing themselves of the permission accorded in most schemes, to ‘make arrangements for boys and girls being taught together in all or any of the classes.’ The forms are then mixed throughout, and assigned in turn to men and women teachers. Here the senior mistress loses even her semblance of authority, and the school is under the supreme and undisturbed sway of the headmaster. What number of schools have already taken this final step is nowhere definitely stated, but, as far as can be ascertained, it appears to be a majority. It is in fact the logical outcome of the dual plan, and since the tendency of the change is to diminish the proportion of girls, we may look upon these schools as organised for boys, but admitting girls as well. The whole question of co-education is so exceedingly difficult that it is unfortunate that Welsh educationalists should have been compelled to add it to the number of complex problems with which they had already to deal. The small schools have necessitated this
  • 38. among other problems. Its warmest advocates do not deny that it makes discipline more difficult: constant supervision becomes necessary; boys and girls have to be kept apart out of class, and an attempt, usually doomed to failure, is made in some schools to control the walk home. The freer intercourse, the element of trust, and the bright out-of-school life, which in England have come to be considered as important a part of a secondary school as the Mathematics or Latin taught there, have little chance of development in the mixed school. That valuable moral impetus given by the direct and constant intercourse between the master and boys, mistress and girls, is missing. Thus they lose what is often the best effect of school life upon our boys and girls: the schools become places of mere instruction, not education; they are but elementary schools with advanced subjects in the curriculum; rivals, and not always successful ones, of the higher grade. Of course this is not solely due to the co-education scheme, but it has tended further to emphasise the social difference between the two classes of schools, and also to put women at a disadvantage in Welsh education, which could hardly have been contemplated by the original promoters. Yet now that this arrangement has been fixed by scheme and made fast by yards of red-tape, it must remain as it is, until some energetic band of reformers shall arise determined to end it. But that cannot be as yet. The second class, the distinct schools for boys and girls, resemble our English high schools; in fact Swansea, one of the most successful, was actually founded by the Girls’ Public Day-School Company, and taken over by the Intermediate Board. The money supplied by the county grant makes up for the diminution of the fees, and the work proceeds with little change. Cardiff is also organised on the lines of a high school, with the chief intellectual work in the morning, considerable attention to games and physical training, and a liberal allowance of teachers. In these separate schools the fees range from about £5 to £9, being slightly lower than those of the corresponding schools in England. The allowance of mistresses to pupils is adequate, the elementary scholars are a small
  • 39. proportion, not enough to set the whole tone of the school. In the mixed or dual school the fees are usually low, sometimes even as little as £2 per annum, scholarships are more numerous, and the sprinkling of scholars from other than elementary schools is very small. Both kinds of schools doubtless have their use, though their aims are very different. With all these varieties of organisation and character, the schools have a unifying influence in the general control of the Central Board, since all are subject to its examination and inspection. The latter is undertaken by the Chief Inspector, who visits each school in the course of the year, and reports specially on the following heads— 1. Character, suitability, and capacity of school premises. 2. School furniture and apparatus. 3. Facilities for recreation and physical training. 4. The relation between the administration of schools and the schemes under which they are established. 5. The organisation of classes. 6. The school discipline. 7. Courses of instruction. If a school prove deficient in any of these respects, the managers receive a warning from the Board that future negligence will entail a diminution of the grant. This is a useful check, and a form of payment by result which can only do good, for it counteracts that uneconomical form of economy, which declines to spend on proper building and apparatus and salaries. An element of control which requires more careful exercise is the threat of a diminished grant, should a school fail to do well in the annual examination. This, which is conducted by the Central Board, was in the first place inspectional, and was meant to give the schools the necessary outside impulse. In order to carry out the principle of letting the examination follow the teaching instead of the teaching the examination, each school was invited to send up its own syllabus of work done, but this led to so much needless expense, since there were as many as fifty-three Latin papers set in one year, that some kind of uniformity became
  • 40. indispensable. The present regulations prescribe that only pupils who have been a full year in a school shall be presented for the written examination, and in at least five subjects. Forms which do not take papers are examined orally in one or other of the subjects studied during the school year. The scheme bears some resemblance to the school examinations of the Joint Board, but a new feature is the test in languages of ‘ability to read fluently, intelligently, and correctly, passages chosen from prepared and unprepared texts.’ The papers set are of varying grades of difficulty, and the schools choose which they will take. Thus in Latin there were seven papers set in 1898, of which the fourth is supposed to be equivalent to the standard of the Welsh Matriculation. Not many pupils are likely to go beyond this, since the schools are distinctly preparatory to the university colleges, which a matriculated pupil can enter. If this standard should in a few years be reached by a fair proportion of pupils in each school, the intermediate system can claim to be successful, for it will be accomplishing its avowed purpose, to carry its pupils from the Fifth Standard to the Constituent College of the University of Wales. For pupils who aim at the Welsh Matriculation these annual tests should be sufficient, but experience shows that there is a tendency to aim at results earlier in the school career; and the chaos of external examinations, from which many English schools are not yet completely emancipated, should be a warning to Wales to be wise in time, and from the beginning concentrate efforts on the same lines. This seems to be best effected by following the example of the Joint Board, and combining school examinations with the awarding of certificates. A scheme on these lines is now in course of preparation, and will probably come into operation in 1899. The subjects of the general examination are to be arranged in groups: A. Scripture and English; B. Mathematics; C. Languages; D. Science; E. Practical subjects. Within certain limits a choice is allowed from these five groups. Junior and senior certificates are to be awarded on papers of different grades of difficulty. The senior standard is to be carefully approximated to that of Welsh Matriculation, in the hope that the University may be willing to accept it as an equivalent. There should not be much difficulty about
  • 41. this, since the University Court is represented on the Central Board, and the Board in its turn on the Court, so that very close and sympathetic relations are maintained between the two bodies that have charge of the educational interests of the country. The next step would be to win acknowledgment for it as a substitute for the Medical and other preliminaries, and a further stage would be an Honours grade that might replace the higher certificate of the Joint Board as an admission examination to English colleges, and a substitute for the Previous and Responsions. Even this might in time be attained, and the Welsh Board would then have fulfilled its mission of making one school stage lead harmoniously and naturally to the next. Such is the scheme as it presents itself to the minds of the promoters, who look far away beyond the present troubles of small schools, irregular attendance, and inadequate funds, and see in the distant future the glorious fabric of their dreams: one system of schools for both boys and girls, leading them on step by step till they are ready to enter their own colleges, and thence, if more adventurously inclined, cross the border and ask the hospitality of the ancient English universities. The ladder in its widest acceptation is to be set up in Wales, so close to the home of every boy and girl that none may plead inaccessibility as an excuse for the failure to mount. And this system is to be worked by popular bodies, touching at one end the local schoolboard, at the other the university colleges, so that its foundations may be firm and lasting, ‘broad- based upon the people’s will.’ Such is the ideal; how far is it reflected by the reality? Of actual results it is too soon to speak, since the oldest school is not yet five years old, and the numbers in them are so small that the whole eighty-four now in existence, including boys and girls, have not together as many pupils as the thirty-four schools of the Girls’ Public Day-School Company. There were many difficulties to be met. The ground was new and unbroken, the meaning of secondary education, except in so far as it was expressed by a higher grade school, was hardly understood by the mass of the people. Some
  • 42. schools won a too hasty popularity, owing to the impression that they were ‘finishing’ institutions for elementary scholars, hence the one-year or one-term pupils of whom so much has been heard. This mistaken notion will be but slowly dispelled, and it is not impossible that in a few years’ time, should the Central Board prove successful in its attempts to ‘level up,’ the number of schools may prove too large for the demand. Many boys and girls who must begin to prepare for their life work at fourteen or fifteen would be better off in a higher grade school than struggling to find their depth in these new waters. The elimination of these would prove no serious loss, and it would clear the ground for a fairer treatment of those pupils, whether from elementary or other schools, who are really able to profit by secondary education. The Welsh system cannot be considered complete while so many of the well-to-do and educated classes hold aloof, helping, it is true, with money and sympathy, but sending their children to be educated across the border. Who shall blame them for not offering up their own boys and girls as corpora vilia? Yet, until the schools can offer something to such pupils as well, they must remain one-sided. Still, with all its flaws, and they are not a few, the system has something to teach England. The love of knowledge, noted even in the days of darkness, the willingness to make sacrifices, evinced by gifts of land and money to new schools, the keen interest in their welfare felt by all grades of the community, and the absence of that class jealousy which tends to check the spread of popular education in England—all these we should do well to note, and copy if we can. Then we may be prepared to thank Wales for teaching us both what to do and what to avoid.
  • 43. CHAPTER XII 1898 Such is in brief the story of the last half-century, 1848 to 1898. Looking back on what is in the main a line of progress, there seems now and then a check, here and there a retrograde movement under the guise of a new discovery. All this is inevitable, since we are but human. But taking the period as a whole, none can doubt that it marks a very real advance; and this end of a century seems a fitting time to pause and rest on our oars, while we survey the breakers through which we have passed; then once more set forth on our onward path, assured that there can be nothing worse before us than what is already behind. It is not only for girls’ education that the revival has come. A general awakening has passed over the country: men and women, boys and girls, rich and poor, the lady of leisure and the hard- working mechanic, all have had something brought within their reach that formerly belonged only to the few. Three years ago these gains were summarised in convenient form by the Royal Commission on Secondary Education, appointed ‘to consider what are the best methods of establishing a well-organised system of secondary education in England, taking into account existing deficiencies, and having regard to such local sources of revenue from endowments or otherwise as are available, or may be made available, for this purpose.’ Even now the country is waiting for legislation on the findings of that Commission. When we remember that we have really been waiting ever since 1867, we do not feel over-sanguine of results; but happily events have since then moved in many directions, and the Commission, before proceeding to
  • 44. recommendations for the future, was able to draw up a long list of reforms that had already come about and changed the whole face of education in England in less than thirty years. First in order of time stands the Endowed Schools Act, which did so much for boys, and rescued something from the spoils for the benefit of girls. Next came the Elementary Education Act, which brought primary instruction within the reach of every boy and girl in the land, and set a new machinery in motion destined to change the whole face of the country. In 1888 the institution of county councils provided that local authority which was to make a system of decentralisation in education possible, while the Technical Instruction Acts of 1889 and 1891 and the Local Customs and Taxation Act of 1890 at once brought these new powers into play, and originated a fresh set of educational institutions in the Polytechnics and other similar colleges. Lastly, the Welsh Intermediate schools, established by the Act of 1889, were providing an object-lesson in the organisation of secondary education. Besides this public work, the Commission had to take cognisance of the enormous changes in the education of girls, due to the wide diffusion of High Schools and the admission of women to the Universities. ‘There has probably been more change in the condition of the secondary education of girls than in any other department of education,’[19] say the Commissioners, and they also note that ‘the idea that a girl, like a boy, may be fitted by education to earn a livelihood, or, at any rate, to be a more useful member of society, has become more widely diffused.’ Various other changes came under their cognisance: the gradual rise of Higher Grade schools, evolving themselves through inherent necessity with no impulse and little encouragement from without; the many attempts at what has been called Continuative education by means of evening classes; the help afforded to large numbers by University Extension; the improved status of the teachers; the various colleges established for their training, and the many educational societies which have grown into powerful forces during the last twenty years. After taking due note of all this, they declare that the time has come to weld these
  • 45. various organisms into one consistent whole. They anticipate no easy task. ‘The ground of secondary education is already almost covered with buildings so substantial that the loss to be incurred in clearing it for the erection of a new and symmetrical pile cannot be contemplated. Yet these existing buildings are so ill-arranged, so ill- connected, and so inconvenient, that some scheme of reconstruction seems unavoidable.’[20] This touches the key of the situation. The reconstruction must at any rate begin with adaptation, then the gaps may be filled with new and convenient edifices. However much such a plan offends our notions of order and logic, we do well to remember that every one of these structures, jerry-built though they may be, has grown up out of some real need; and before we propose to fit all their tenants into neat little model dwellings, it behoves us to be quite sure that such a plan would be as satisfactory in the working as it looks on paper. The mere fact that of the girls receiving secondary education in England seventy per cent., and of the boys thirty-eight per cent., are in private schools, often in towns where there are grammar and high schools with plenty of empty places, should make the advocates of ruthless innovation pause and stay their hand. The public must in the last resort determine what it wants, and though demand sometimes follows supply, the opposite process is a constant one. However much theorists may inveigh, according to their special prejudices, against higher grade or ‘private adventure’ or any other kind of school, the fact of their successful existence, even in the face of rivals, shows that they do supply a want; and the only prudent course is to find them a place in our system. This has been fully recognised by the Commissioners, who wisely suggest proceeding on lines similar to those on which elementary education was at first organised. The local authority proposed in 1867 can now be easily constituted, since we have the county councils to supply a nucleus to which educational experts can be added, as is already done on some technical instruction committees and in the Welsh county governing bodies. The local authority would proceed ‘to inquire how far the schools within its area provide
  • 46. secondary instruction adequate in quantity and quality to the needs of each part of that area.’ In doing this, regard is to be had to proprietary and private as well as endowed and other public schools, and the report adds the following significant comment: ‘We are far from desiring to see secondary education pass wholly under public control, and into the hands of those who are practically public servants, as elementary education has done, and we believe that where proprietary or private schools are found to be doing good work, it would be foolish as well as unfair to try to drive them out of the field.’[21] Where the supply of secondary education is deficient in any part of the area, the local authority should have power to establish new schools. The functions of these authorities are therefore to fall under four heads— 1. The securing a due provision of secondary instruction. 2. The remodelling, where necessary, and supervision of the working of endowed (other than non-local) schools and other educational endowments. 3. A watchful survey of the field of secondary education, with the object of bringing proprietary and private schools into the general educational system, and of endeavouring to encourage and facilitate, so far as this can be done by stimulus, by persuasion, and by the offer of privileges and advice, any improvements they may be inclined to introduce. 4. The administration of such sums, either arising from rates levied within the area, or paid over from the National Exchequer, as may be at its disposal for the promotion of education. In this way these local authorities would receive large powers of supervision, but comparatively little coercive control, since ‘it is not so much by superseding as by aiding and focussing voluntary effort that real progress may be made.’ The general guidance and direction of secondary education should be committed to a central authority, to include the various departments of Government now concerned with it.
  • 47. Further recommendations are: the consolidation of existing sources of revenue into one fund; and a generous scheme of scholarships for the poor, in preference to a general lowering of school fees. These main recommendations, as well as other subordinate ones, seem wise and moderate, fair to all classes, and consistent with their professed aim, ‘to draw the outlines of a system which shall combine the maximum of simplicity with the minimum disturbance of existing arrangements.’ A bill drawn up on these lines would probably meet with very general acceptation from all classes, except those persons, probably few, who are ready to subordinate the general good to their own private fads. Unfortunately Parliament has hitherto proved unwilling to give time for such a bill. The ill-fated Education Bill of 1896 dealt with secondary education as a sort of accessory to primary; and as, unlike the latter, it has not yet become a subject for party divisions and acrimonious controversy, it is not at present sufficiently interesting to the general run of politicians to call forth any special exertions on their part. The private bill brought in last session by Colonel Lockwood expressed the wishes of a large section of the teaching profession. It proposed to form one central educational authority under the Committee of the Privy Council on Education, by consolidating powers relating to secondary education possessed by the Charity Commissioners, the Science and Art Department, and the present Education Department, and to establish local secondary education authorities, to consist partly of members of the county council and partly of other persons with special educational experience. It also proposes registers of efficient schools and of persons qualified to teach in them. The ministerial bill introduced by the Duke of Devonshire into the House of Lords at the fag-end of the session merely proposed to bring together in one office the two departments of Science and Art and Education, under the control of one permanent secretary, and to create a Board of Education on the model of the Board of Trade. To this new department the supervision of endowed schools, under schemes framed by the Charity Commissioners, was to be transferred. The
  • 48. thorny questions of constitution of local authorities, raising of rates, etc., were left untouched. It was not proposed to carry the measure, merely to show the country before the vacation the lines on which the Ministry were inclined to proceed. Thorny as are many of the points under discussion, such as central and local authority, amalgamation of existing departments, etc., they are as nothing to the real difficulties that must follow when these matters of administrative machinery are settled. The inspection and grading of schools, the due consideration that must be shown to secondary education proper and to that part commonly known as technical, the proper respect for existing schools that are good and the ruthless elimination of such as are bad—in these lies the true crux of the situation, and under all circumstances some part of this work will probably fall to the local authorities. An enormous amount of responsibility must devolve on those who first take up the arduous task. One burning question, which ought to be settled for the whole country alike, is the relation between the grammar and high schools on the one hand, and the elementary schools on the other. Are we to have one upper department for both, or two? Some time ago the consensus of opinion seemed to be in favour of one; that was on the assumption that the proportion of children passing beyond the standards would be a small one. Some such idea seems to have been in the mind of the Duke of Devonshire when he spoke of ‘a sound system of secondary schools which will be open alike to the most promising children of the elementary schools and to the middle classes generally.’ But this view rests on the assumption that the primary departments of both sets of schools are very similar in their curriculum and methods. This is very far from being the case. ‘The elementary schools are not, under the present conditions in England, the common basis of secondary education, nor, though an increasing number of pupils proceed from them to secondary schools, are the public elementary schools the sole, nor, indeed, the chief channels through which pupils proceed in this country to day or boarding- schools of the secondary grades.’[22] The changes that would be
  • 49. necessary in the elementary schools would be so numerous and far- reaching, and the expense so enormous before they would be able to attract the great mass of the middle classes, that no one could seriously propose to abolish the primary departments in secondary schools, as long as parents are able and willing to pay the school fees. They are a necessity, and would have to be supplied by private adventure, as is done at Cardiff and other large Welsh towns, if a public system declined to acknowledge them. In the interest of what we might call the ‘secondary party,’ the primary department of the secondary school must be maintained. On the other hand, the teachers in Government schools seem equally unanimous in the view that their own special continuation schools are better suited to the mass of elementary pupils than the grammar or high school. Neither party seems anxious for the fusion, and so long as a liberal scheme of scholarships is maintained, it is possible to do full justice to those elementary scholars who can look forward to a school life sufficiently long to enable them to reach the highest classes of their new school. To allow pupils to enter upon an extensive and liberal curriculum, who are likely to be removed before its real meaning and unity has dawned upon them, is a thing we should never even contemplate, were our notions of curricula and grades of schools a little less hazy than they are at present in England. The board school child, who is sent at the age of thirteen by her proud parents to have a year’s finishing at a high school, is typical of the present confusion. There is really no more urgent problem before us than a scientific differentiation of schools. Still, whatever course legislation may take on this and other problems, whether funds are raised by fresh rate or merely by adding together existing sources of income, no matter what are the constitution and functions of the local authority, this, at least, we may rely on—the interests of girls will not be forgotten. For that we have to thank that little band of men and women who have laboured during this last half century in the face of prejudice, opposition, and indifference to remove the neglect with which England treated one half of her children. This much, at least, is established: no future
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