Surprise at strength of middle-class resistance to comprehensive schools [IrishTimes.com]
- Published: 02 January 2010
EDUCATION: FROM THE time he arrived as Northern Ireland’s education minister in 1976, Lord (Peter) Melchett, an Old Etonian, had as his principal objective the introduction of comprehensive education. It soon became clear, after he had issued a consultative document, that this would be much more difficult to achieve than elsewhere in the United Kingdom.
Arthur Brooke, his permanent secretary, reported in March 1977, that “on the face of it, there is not much support for wholesale reorganisation”.
He added: “One of the purposes of the consultative document was to gain more support for reorganisation by showing how it would work out in practice. This has not happened.
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