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The School Certificates came to be widely accepted and continued to accredit the
fortunate few of the population who by virtue of either their parents’ prosperity or
their own ability managed to find a place in a secondary school. There developed an
undercurrent of criticism that the importance of the Certificates meant that the
examining boards virtually determined the upper secondary curriculum. This view
was articulated by the historian G M Trevelyan. He spoke for some education
practitioners in his claim that when examinations were created in Victorian times “the
evils of the examination system, especially its effect on school education, were not yet
realized, nor were they as great as they have since become” (Trevelyan 1944: 568).
However because this negative opinion appeared in a book published in the USA in
1942 but, due to wartime paper restrictions, not available in England until the summer
of 1944, it did not influence discussions around the Education Act of that year.
The examination boards continued to administer the system of School Certificates for
forty years virtually free of the external interference which was to dominate the last
years of the century. The system’s survival was very likely due less to its lack of
flaws than to its limited impact on the population at large. The issues of widening
access to and selection for secondary education were of much greater importance
between the two world wars. During that time, England experienced a period of
social, political and economic turmoil which meant that virtually none of the hoped-
for reforms of the 1918 Education Act was implemented. The leaving age was raised
to 14 from 1921, but there was not an appropriate curriculum for pupils staying on in
elementary schools. Employers anxious to retain a supply of low-cost labour had no
enthusiasm for reform. Simon’s history of education between the wars suggests that
the leaders of industry objected: