Problems of schooling today: Accessibility and the curriculum factor

Many of the current problems regarding quality in education are traced back, both in political and education circles, to post-war development of the comprehensive school as an alternative for the traditional categorial system of secondary education. In this article this statement is investigated further using comparative analysis of the educational developments in the Federal Republic of Germany, Denmark, England and the Netherlands. The results seem to indicate that the current discussion about quality should be traced back primarily to curriculum changes, both in terms of restricting conditions and in terms of educational contents. These changes have been brought about during the last 25 years by socio-cultural and educational impulses. The results of these developments are often seen as directly connected to the current social problems of effectiveness in education, in terms of dysfunctionality and loss of quality. Such a way of thinking obscures the objective acquirements of the cultural change, which brought about a more democratic structure of education. The increasing accessibility and retentiveness this resulted in, are insufficiently included as independent factors in the current assessment of educational effectiveness. In criticisms of comprehensive schools and the loss of quality attributed to them, we see only ideological feints. But behind these appearances lurks a question, which demands thorough reflection on the tasks of education in our present information age.