The tripartite system

The tripartite system was introduced by The 1944 Education Act. This Act was aimed to give everybody equal chance. But after evaluating the effectiveness of this act, it was strongly criticized. All pupils at the age 11 had to pass a national test; according to its results, pupils were being allocated into three different types of secondary school. First type was grammar schools which was considered to be the most prestigious and aimed to the brightest students. Second type is technical school which “provided a general education with special emphasis on technical subjects.” And the most popular school was secondary modern for mostly working class students. As we can see there weren’t equal opportunities for everyone. Also it became clear that it is impossible to say about person’s educational future at the age of 11, as he is too small and his attainment might change over time. And if somebody, for example, was located into the secondary modern school, he had fewer opportunities to get a well paid job and achieve more than others even if he had abilities.