Analysis the admission policy of primary and secondary schools in the UK

1. Introduction

The value and role of “knowledge” is different in every culture but good basic education is essential in every culture. Primary and secondary education in UK (up to 16) is compulsory for all children. However, there were a limited number of high quality schools and these are oversubscribed application. That created problem of “distributing” pupils between schools (Hurst and Sugden, 2011). So a practical and effective admission policy has great influence on the quality of basic education. The purpose of writing this report is to argue for the reliability and effectiveness of current enrolment policy. According to this report, it will help admission policy designer to solve the problems and prove the benefits of this policy to parents. This report includes four parts. First of all, there is a brief introduction of evolution of the basic education admission policy. After that, the status of current selection process will be discussed. Thirdly, the advantage and the problems will be evaluated. The last part of this report will show some suggestion for solving the problems, like improving the quality of local schools and punishing “address cheats”.

2. History

Admission policy has undergone a series of changes and developments since Butler’s 1944 Education Act set up compulsory primary (5-11 years) and secondary (11-15 years) schools. At that time, the selection process is 11-plus examination (Mcnay and Ozga, 1985). In the United Kingdom, the 11-plus is an examination administered to some students in their last year of primary education, governing admission to various types of secondary school. The name derives from the age group for secondary entry: 11–12 years. The 11-plus examination usually consisted of three pa...

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...dren who study in a local area school will have a better quality of the school and family education owing to the connection between schools and communities. In addition, it also gives equally opportunity access to the good school and good solution for preventing childhood obesity. On the contrary, it leads to a fierce competition for the good quality schools which is recognized as the primary cause of the high house price near good schools. Another fact is that increasing number of parents cheat in the application to the secondary schools. According to the analysis above, improve the quality of the local schools can be an effective way to substantial lessening of competition for good schools. To some extent, strong policy and strict supervision can prevent cheating in application. There recommendations can help the enrollment policy be more effective and fair.