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developments. The meticulous research of Peter Gosden, an authority on Sir William
Alexander and the Association of Education Committees, has provided an
authoritative and non-partisan account of the administrative complexities of creating a
new secondary system (Gosden 1976). One might expect that his serving for some
time as Chairman of the Joint Matriculation Board might have led him to include
some insights into that Board’s view of the process, but not so.
Roy Lowe, the social historian of mid-20th century education as was Roach of the
19th, has written of the social issues surrounding the changes brought about by the
1944 Act (Lowe 1988). Despite the acknowledged social influence of examinations,
the Boards and their work do not feature in his analysis. Then from the right of the
political spectrum comes Corelli Barnett’s censorious analysis of the post-war
""ragbag of politicians and civil servants, almost all of them Oxbridge humanists'”
whose idealistic preoccupations he labelled ""the new Jerusalem”. (Bamett 1986:
passim) He blamed their lofty notions of education for their failure to consider the
needs of industry following the war. For him, the 1944 Act was a disaster in ignoring
the importance of technical expertise. Yet he did not follow the logic of his position to
engage in a discussion of the qualifications available to the new schools structure, still
less to consider their providers.
Finally, a millennial volume edited by Richard Aldrich recruited the expertise of
academics from around the country to look back on A Century of Education (Aldrich
2002). Alison Wolfs admirably clear and lively chapter on ‘Qualifications and
assessment’ provides a concise overview of this field, and benefits from her wealth of
research both in Britain and internationally. Professor Wolf has a foot in both the