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Thatcher outlined plans for the expansion of nursery education over the next ten years, claiming that 'this will be the first systematie step since 1870, wheneducation was made compulsory at the age of five, to offer an earlier start in education'.(1)
How impressive are these new proposals? Why should the goverbment, faced with the current crisis in social expenditure - the need to 'economise" and 'rationalise' its spending on social and educational services, decide to extend nursery education now? How far does this sort of increase in provision open up new opportunities for children and women How far will it mean more state interference in people's lives?
THE PROPOSALS The government proposals aim to provide free nursery education for 50% of three year olds and 90% of four year olds within the next ten years; the majority of these places would be half-time, with allowance made for about 15% of full-time places. The proposals largely follow recommendations of the Plowden Report; they will bring provision in Britain into line with other countries in the European Economic Community. (Nursery places are provided for over 50% of three year olds and over 80% of four year olds in France, for over 80% of three year olds and over 90% of four year olds in Belgium, for over 80% of four year olds in Holland, for over 50% of three and four year olds in Italy. In Britain in 1971 less then 35% of children recieved education during even a part of their fifth year and only 5% of three year olds were in nursery schools.) Seen in this European context the government proposals hardly appear to be radical , but rather a belated attempt to catch up with the levels of provision available elsewhere. Tallowance made for building costs (30 million) - with rooms for nursery classes to be tacked onto existing primary schools, and for running costs (23 million per year) indicate that what is in fact being offered is half-time nursery educationon the cheap. Thus the government presumably hopes to buy off the campaigners for free nursery education, as the Labour government's equal pay act wass intended to buy off the campaigners for equal pay.
NURSERY EDUCATION - AT THE EXPENSE OF OTHER EDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT?
The propsals for nursery education should also be considered in relation to the other plans for school and higher education contained in the white paper. Looking at the proposals as a whole, it is clear that they involve a re-ordering of priorities within education, and not any overall scheme for the expansion of education. Indeed the only part of the paper which may be seen as at all progressive is that referring to nursery education. The rest is fairly clearly concerned with re-structuring the education system so that it may more closely meet the requirements of contemporary capitalism.
However, besides this, the expansion of nursery education can be understood as yet another attempt to obscure the problem of unequal educational opportunity in a class society. The debate about the wastage of potential ability (always in some sense hypocritical in a society which is organised so that most people's potential ability will remain underdeveloped and underused) has shifted somewhat in the last few years from concer with selection for or during secondary education, to the significance of the processes of learning in the pre-school period. The Plowden Report argued that an earlier start to education could help to "compensate' poorer working class children for the to "lit' more easily into school by the age of five; this view is echoed in the section of the white paper outlining objectives of nursery education. But of course no equality can be provided in education when it is denied in all other sources of social life. We totally reject the general conception of this white paper; we reject the idea that the proportion of the national output spent on education should be reduced; and that nursery schools can only be provided at the expense of other educational provision. Such conception does indicate the seriousness of the economic problems facing this society, and the way in which the crisis of declining profits is expressed also in a crisis over social expenditure.
NURSERY EDUCATION - THE FAMILY AND THE STATE Finally we should try to assess the government proposals in relation to their infuence on the family unit, and on the position of women and children. Ever since nineteenth century protective legislation took women and children out of the mines and restriced their conditions and hours of employement, thus (amongst other things) preventing the disintegration of working class family life, there has been increasing state intervention in areas of life which were previously only the concern of the individual family. Most working class families have been brought more and more under the control of the As a combined result of developments in technology, the need for more educated and more healthy workers, and the struggles of the working class, educational, health and welfare services have been increased. Despite the huge inadequacies in these services, they do represent important gains for working class people, and must be defended and extended. At the same time we must understand that these gains also have negative aspects to them. They have meant that the state has appeared to take oe r many tasks from the family in general and the mother in particular, but not in a way which has opened up real potentialities for liberation. The family is surrounded with a range of institutions, services and authorities with which it is supposed to co-operate.; while family autonomy and authority are undermined, family and particularly maternal responsibility are not. (For example housing policy has undermined extended family relationships on quite a wide scale, health visitors provide expert advice to mothers on what they must do for their children,jyeat if anything, the ideas about maternal responsibility for the physical, social and psychological well-being of children, have intensified.) The latest proposals for nursery education are no exception to this; the white paper states that 'the Government believe that provision for the under fives should build on, not supplant, parents' own efforts.' An article in New Society noted that 'the pre-school operation provides a great opportunity for enlisting the family in the educational process.' (N.S' 11.1.78)
In discussing her proposals Margaret Thatcher has emphasised that she does not want to encourage mothers to take fulltime employment, as'the very low level of full-time provision itself indicates. There is no recogbition here of the rights of children or of women.
All this suggests to us the importance of demanding free fulltime nursery education, and care and play facilities for smaller children, as of rights. )Not according to some'social criteria defined and controlled by Local Authorities or similar bodies, which in the end depend on 'the needs of the economy' and not our needs). And it shows the importance of linking the demands for state provision of these facilities to the demand for local community control over them.