1. levels of electronic communication facilities now supplement the book and newspaper.

2. much more is known about children's emotional and intellectual development and the range of individual needs.

3. democracy, so widely prized in Western nations, has been greatly extended.

4. changes in industry and commerce are rapid and ongoing.

5. there has been an immense increase in 'free' or leisure time.

6. standards of living have risen dramatically.

7. smaller families have contributed to better, roomier housing.

8. educational levels of parents and grandparents have risen, especially in key areas of literacy and numeracy.

9. increased family income enables more to be spent on children.

10. the questioning of traditions, values and sources of authority is widespread.

    There are more. They would all have been unimaginable in the 1870s and 1880s. But, had such foresight been available, it would have been equally difficult to imagine that the basic structure of the school based system would still be in use 130 years later. It is still in use, and it is struggling. For instance:

11. there is difficulty in teacher recruitment: in attracting young graduates to embrace teaching as a career; in retaining experienced and skilled teachers; and in filling the most senior posts in schools. These difficulties are not caused solely by poor salary levels.

12. there is an unacceptable level of truancy from schools.

13. there are growing behavioral problems - especially in secondary schools; these include vandalism, arson, and bullying.

14. many school buildings are old, in need of repair or replacement, or badly situated. They are expensive to maintain and many are, in economic and community terms, seriously underused.

15. their standard, fixed opening and closing hours add to traffic congestion and become a danger to children.

    There is then the vexed question of equality of opportunity. It is a very moot point whether the school aids or hinders such equality. It is not difficult to show that, in many ways, it promotes inequality: that there is a culture of inequality deeply embedded in the school based system. And it is doubtful whether, as many Western governments seem to suppose, throwing more and more money into the system will do much to improve the situation. Inequality of opportunity as it relates to the school may be of three kinds: those inherent in the school - its very structure, aims and organization; those brought - often inadvertently - by the teachers and children who comprise the school; those caused by differences between schools. Congregating large numbers of children into one building for 25 hours or more per week demands, for safety reasons alone, a degree of organisation that can be only partly flexible.

    The degree of flexibility and the variation in work patterns or study method - and so the diversity of approach to children's needs, becomes dependent upon the physical limitations of the building, the organisational skills of senior faculty or staff, and the degree of importance they attach to the benefits arising from adaptability in their professional work. There will be wide variations.

    Students and parents will have little, if any, say in these organisational procedures. It is the school which holds together, on a legally supported basis, for fixed periods of time, a large number of children and which'shares them out' to particular teachers, rooms and other available resources. The potential for inequality is already there. The work skills of teachers vary enormously, as do their attitudes to their work and their decisions on what is, or is not, significant in it. Even where parents have the necessary awareness of what is happening, they are rarely able to evaluate accurately the scale of the differences or decide, in an informed manner, the extent to which a teacher's philosophy, skills, experience and personality are appropriate to their own children's needs or their wishes for their children's future. Only if those parents were in the privileged position of being able to interview personally and at length a range of possible teachers or tutors for their children would they be able to make enlightened decisions the importance of which are, to any child, immeasurable. Schools, or at least many of them, tend to pinpoint inequalities by the competitive nature of their regime: a regime encouraged, or insisted on, by some governments. The grading of students' work and the emphasis on teaching subjects or material which can be easily and numerically assessed, puts children into categories ranging from success to failure. Such areas chosen for assessment may be those traditionally regarded as important and not those at which some children excel or which seem important to them in the lives they lead outside school. Little regard has been paid to the personal background of the child or to other interests or skills he may have which are outside the restricted orbit of the school. A child unaware of the unequal nature of the social system in which he lives will appreciate it fully after only a few terms or semesters in state schooling. No school can right all society,s wrongs, but it should not reinforce them or add to them. A school's expectations of a child can be self-fulfilling, yet so complex is this issue that individual teachers cannot be blamed - in view of all the other school-initiated pressures they are under - for not mastering those complexities or mitigating their consequences. That there are significant differences between children in intellect, abilities, interests and skills which no education system - school-based or otherwise - can wholly iron out, even if that were desirable, would be accepted by most educationalists. But the extent to which these differences expand naturally as children grow older is more debatable. But the influence of each child's home and family environment in this whole area is strong, and in this whole area of scholastic attainment the type of educational provision made can increase or decrease those differences.

    By removing the child from the home for his or her formal education the nineteenth century school-based system of education was establishing a precedent which is with us today. And, where the pupil's home circumstances are exceptionally poor, as with poverty in its various forms, or with neglect, violence, indifference, drunkenness or sexual abuse, the school, despite its drawbacks, may be, temporarily and for limited intervals, a haven of relief for the child and his or her sole means of glimpsing values - even lifestyles - different from those at home. That is why deschoolers might be unwise to rule out the school as an option for every child. For a quite lengthy interim period between traditional schooling and a more personalised, tutorial-based approach, schools will need to be retained for some children. But that does not, of course, mean to say that those retained schools have to remain exactly as they are now.

    But, for most, the state-prescribed gap between the child's home and the school can be detrimental to the child and the parents. By separating the child's formal learning from his life at home the school-based system is denying the caring or would-be-caring parent both direct, personal involvement and the chance to learn how he or she can contribute fully to the educative process.

    For a whole variety of reasons many parents lack the confidence to engage fully in their child's whole education. They do not appreciate, and are not told about, the broad sweep of skills and experiences they possess already and which may be of value in almost any child's education. Some do not know how to praise their child's best efforts effectively or how to indicate that he might be doing better Others do not know how to get value from meetings with teachers, or how to extend their own education. Many will not be able to select from and use humanising powers of literature, music and art, or to utilise for their child's benefit the best of the ever-expanding multimedia. Others will not know when, why, and how they should join in a school's homework assignments, or how to set aside an area for quiet study purposes, not only for the schoolchild, but for all the family,or how to utilise - partly for educational purposes - their vacations. Yet more will wonder how they can introduce effectively new hobbies and interests, or how to talk helpfully to teenagers. Not a few will be unaware of help and advice already available outside the home, or where, when and how to seek it. Others will not appreciate how valuable for educational purposes are many cheap, throw-away everyday items, or how to make full use of public libraries, museums, art galleries and other free, locally-provided resources, particularly the knowledge and skills of the people employed in them. More examples could be added of areas where parents would benefit from regular advice and practical assistance. Of vital concern is the failure of some parents to realize how essential their help and support is in their child's education, and, along with this, how great is their influence on that child, and, just as important, how necessary full co-operation is between parent and teacher or tutor. Also necessary is the ability and willingness to build realistic expectations of the child's future - especially his or her career - based, cautiously, on whatever evidence may be to hand. It is not, then, surprising that parents - even those who try especially hard - find it difficult to progress satisfactorily in all these areas.

    The whole matter of aiding a child to grow up in societies as elaborate as those of the developed world is a complex amalgam of increasingly demanding tasks which make huge calls on the parent's physical, emotional and mental energy and on their financial resources. While it may be true that some parents would resist attempts to help and see them as interference in their family lives, or be suspicious of intentions, many others remain desperate for any help; others would welcome specialized help at specific periods and others ongoing, gentle system of support and information. Yet society, for the most part, continues to regard twenty-first century child rearing as a part time, unpaid,'pick it up as you go along' occupation. This is a quite remarkable attitude when you recognise the importance of parents' work to the whole society: indeed it is not easy to think of any employment whose outcome has greater consequences for a nation's well-being. So we have a long outdated nineteenth century school-based educational structure which is underperforming for many children, tedious or irrelevant for others, unattractive for teachers, worrying for parents and expensive for the state. It is based on the physical and mental separation of child from home and an unnatural concentration of large numbers of children in a school. This long and frequent separation makes it difficult for parents to understand and so help fully with their children's education or to gain knowledge for themselves of the intricacies of child rearing. That scenario suggests strongly that the time is ripe for an examination of alternatives to schooling, and that it would be reasonable now to expect fully funded, carefully researched studies to be made of different approaches to childhood education. Additionally it would seem that peak of dissatisfaction with the old system coincides with an era when developments in information technology are leaping ahead and opening up a whole variety of exciting possibilities. But there is reluctance to experiment. Most of us still see children's educational futures in terms of what can be done in a (traditional) school. The notion that the school is the place for learning is deeply embedded in the culture: it may be so deeply set that only a massive social earthquake will loosen its hold. Many reasons for society's reluctance to change its outlook in the sphere of children's education are given in TEACHING TOMORROW, chapter 7.

    Also in that book is a detailed, viable, helpful and hopeful plan which addresses the principal problems outlined above and which offers remedies. The plan incorporates facilities available now which teachers of 1870 and 1880 would have dismissed as incredible.

    Under the plan selected teachers who are keen to participate will be given long, rigorous, in-depth training so that they can change their role and become personal professional tutors. Each tutor will have 20 children in her group all of whom would be within a two-year age range. The tutor will retain that group for two years. Between ages birth to 14th birthday, children will thus be cared for by seven tutors. These seven, plus an additional tutor (the chairperson - who will have other duties) will comprise one tutor panel and that panel will have overall professional responsibility for the education of 140 children. Each tutor panel, with 11 others, will be attached to a large community resource centre which, apart from tutorial accommodation, will possess extensive educational, social, welfare and other facilities all available - when not needed by personal tutors - to citizens.

    Some well situated schools from the old system will be retained and converted to field centre use and offer accommodation, meals and study facilities to tutor groups and parents.

    Each professional tutor will prepare a flexible personal study programme for each of her 20 pupils/students and will work to the maximum extent possible with the parents. Emphasis will be laid on literature, music, drama and art.

    A large central audio-visual library, controlled by tutors and parents, will make available - at all times and in most places - a vast selection of teaching material or'lessons' from which a tutor can construct or augment each child's study programme. All library material will be available to parents at any time in order to facilitate their involvement in the work, and to further their own chosen educational development. Parents prepared to gain recognised qualifications in parenthood will be paid salary commensurate with the value of the work if they elect to work full time with the tutor and within the child's previously agreed programme. A scheme such as this, which is described in detail in TEACHING TOMORROW would dispense with the school-generated problems identified above and add other benefits of its own. It would:

16. extract from contemporary society those aspects (particularly technological ones) which would enhance children's education.

17. eliminate many problems found in and caused by the school-based structure.

18. focus on many aspects of educational (and other) inequalities.

19. bring into the educational scene, purposefully, those parents who choose to become involved - some of whom currently feel excluded.

20. enhance immeasurably the professional standing of teachers.

21. assist the general and parenthood education of parents through direct, frequent and regular contact with personal tutors, the community resource centre and the multimedia library.

22. ensure that children have opportunities for secure, ongoing relationships with skilled, caring adults and children chosen from tutor panels.

23. offer each child, through his or her personal study programme, the chance to sample a range of subjects or activities, through a personal study programme, which are specific to that child's needs, some of which can be followed through to become a lifetime's centre of interest.

24. keep broadly within current education expenditure levels.

* * * * *

This article is based on:

Adcock, JOHN: In Place of Schools, New Education Press, London, 1994.
ISBN 0 946947 62 7

Adcock, John: Teaching Tomorrow - personal tuition as an alternative to school, Education Now Books, Nottingham, 2000.
ISBN 1.871526.44.2 (softback)
ISBN 1.871526.46.9 (hardback)

John Adcock,
13 Church Drive,
Keyworth, Nottingham,
NG12 5FG, England
Telephone (within UK): 0115 937 3027

(from USA): 011 44 115 937 3027