Socioeconomic and Political Context of Current English Educational Policy

In the following we shall try to present a brief statistically based sketch of the present trends in Great Britain's economic development* and their effects on the employment structure. Our purpose in presenting these statistics is to illustrate and provide a general background for the socioeconomic processes to which the expressions "scientific and technical progress" or "technical and social change" refer. This approach is also made necessary, we feel, by the fact that references to present social and economic trends have been an important part of the various arguments adduced to justify reforms in education. In other words, reforms bearing on the education of the future work force — that is, its occupational and social training — are justified or rejected on the basis of references to these trends and their actual or projected effects.