| Abstract: | ABSTRACT Within the changed political discourse of the last few years there has been serious consideration of whether a publicly provided education system is. either necessary or desirable. The case is made for allowing the ‘social market’ to provide. The changeover to such a system could be effected in many ways, from a new national policy enshrined in statute, to the gradual extension of the private sector and greater ‘privatisation’ of the maintained sector through more and more dependence on parental and other private contributions. The role of the public, maintained sector could thus at one extreme disappear altogether and at other points on the spectrum become residuary (providing those services the market will not provide) or subsidiary. In any of these cases I believe there would be a loss to our democracy, to our ways of living and working together and to our view of the worth of the individual. The purpose of this paper is to examine what might be the justification for a public system of education, that is, one designed to give all citizens access to education through arrangements made by publicly accountable bodies. |
