Abstract
For more than a century the state has prohibited children from obtaining full-time employment and it has assumed increasing control over the conditions awaiting school leavers in the labour market. This book traces these developments from the introduction of compulsory schooling to the creation of the two-year Youth Training Scheme (YTS). It describes the ways in which the experiences and possibilities of minimum age school leavers have been actively transformed as successive governments have attempted to structure the transition into work.
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Notes
Empirical research has concluded, time and again, that despite internal and external changes in British schooling, class inequalities have persisted. From the purchased privilege of private education (Tapper and Salter, 1981, Chapter 8), to the failure of comprehensive reform, the educational chances of young people are still dominated by their class of origin (Halsey et al., 1980). Moving beyond the white, male focus of traditional mobility studies other research has shown the extent to which educational outcomes are determined by gender (Deem, 1978), and by race (Eggleston et al., 1985).
In 1893 the minimum leaving age was increased to eleven years of age, and this had a marked impact on the number of half-timers employed, who had become concentrated in the textile mills of Lancashire and the farms of East Anglia. From over 200,000 in 1876, the number of half-timers had fallen to 175,437 by 1890, 52 per cent of whom were in Lancashire, and to 110,654 by 1897, 54 per cent in Lancashire (Simon, 1974, p. 290). When the school leaving age was subsequently raised to twelve without exemption in 1899 and School Boards were permitted to raise the upper leaving age in their areas from thirteen to fourteen, all such by-laws had to contain some provision for either total or partial exemption. Having satisfied minimum attendance requirements, children between twelve and fourteen years of age could work in textile factories for up to 27.75 hours per week, and in other factories for 30 hours per week (Gollan, 1937, p. 17). Consequently, while more children were compelled to attend school for longer periods, it had the effect of increasing the number of half-timers, who grew from just over 47,000 in 1906 to over 84,000 in 1907 (Simon 1974, p. 290). Even in 1922, after the Fisher Act of 1918 had called for the end of exemptions, there were still about 70,000 half-timers.
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© 1987 Dan Finn
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Finn, D. (1987). Introduction: New Deals and Broken Promises. In: Training Without Jobs: New Deals and Broken Promises. Youth Questions. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-18631-0_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-18631-0_1
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