Reflections on the prospects of the evolution of the structure of education systems

Abstract

In 1965, Raymond Poignant published in Paris, on the initiative of the European Institute of University Studies, a work entitledEnseignement dans les Pays du Marché Commun. This work, which was subsequently translated and published in English and German has become a classic of its kind. The initial idea was to compare the structures and relative degrees of development of the educational systems in the European Economic Community (EEC) countries, the United States of America, the United Kingdom and the U.S.S.R., in order to see how school and university systems in the EEC countries were adapting to the most pressing human, social, democratic and economic requirements of the modern world. This idea originated in the apprehension that, because of the strength of their long educational traditions, the EEC countries might find it more difficult than others to make the necessary adjustments. The conclusions of this initial work in many respects confirmed this apprehension and contributed, at the time, to the development taking place in European educational systems.

Under an agreement between IIEP and the European Cultural Foundation, Raymond Poignant is to publish a new work entitledL'Enseignement dans les Pays Industrialisés (Education in the Industrialized Countries), which to some extent carries on from the first but is motivated by other preoccupations.

In this second work, which is set in the general context of the studies undertaken by the European Cultural Foundation on European education in the year 2000, the point is not so much to emphasize the quantitative and qualitative differences still encountered in the educational systems of the eleven countries under consideration—Japan and Sweden having been added to the original sample—as to show up some of the most characteristic trends common to their development during the last two decades or the trends of development in the most ‘advanced’ countries, trends which, by the year 2000, a date so distant and yet so close at hand, may or should develop more rapidly or indeed become general.

The author takes the changes noted since 1950 in the eleven countries considered, which he sees as being of some indicative value for the future, and outlines, in conclusion, the directions in which he feels they should continue in the three decades between now and the year 2000. He points out the forces of resistance of every kind which, in the short term, slow down the transformation of educational structures in the various European countries. He also emphasizes the decisive influence which the trend towards a levelling-out in the attitudes of different social groups towards secondary and higher education is likely to have on the dynamics of the development of European educational systems, of which he describes both the uncertainties and the most likely prospects.

The European Cultural Foundation and the Nijhoff Publishing House have kindly given their permission for publication in the reviewProspects of a long extract from the conclusions of this work, which concerns future changes in the structure of European educational systems.