CONCLUSION

5.1 Kenneth Baker emphasized the need for change in education in Britain, speaking during the debate on the second reading of the Bill (in the House of Commons on 1 December 1987). He said: "The need for reform is now urgent. All evidence shows this - international comparisons, reports of HMI's, and more recently the depressing findings on adult literacy ..." He added that there was a need "to build up the professionalism of many fine and dedicated teachers."

5.2 The continuing debate on educational reform, and the specific aspects discussed in chapter 4, bring out themes about which Rosmini had much to say, and underline the need for a consensus of opinion on what is the essence of education. The controversy will continue as long as there is neither unity of purpose nor a clarification of aims and objectives.

5.3 It has become very clear to the present writer that although Rosmini lived 150 years ago he still has valuable advice to offer to those who are presently involved in education in general and Christian education in particular. His insistence on the need for unity and coherence, as well as what he says about the essentially moral nature of education, is still applicable. (The problems of the Christian educator will be returned to later.) Rosmini himself was faced by changed ideas in education: he commented on the fact that whereas in earlier times there had been a broad measure of agreement over aims, with everything ultimately related to God, by contrast: "...the spirit of modern education tends to have a multiplicity of objectives, because it considers natural, tangible things without referring them to their original cause; and this means that they disintegrate and are dispersed among themselves." (Rosmini, 1826).

5.4 If this was true in Rosmini's day, it is even more so today. It was precisely the object of the Baker proposals to bring some shape and purpose into the education system of the country. But in the welter of arguments that are going on about details in the Bill, little or no attention is being paid to the vital underlying question - what is the aim of education? And the controversy will continue unless agreement can be reached about what this aim is. In short there is need for unity of purpose and a clarification of aims.

5.5 As the Brian Wilcox article made clear, the whole of the Russian education system is geared to producing homo sovieticus, the sort of citizen the Soviet State requires to serve its purposes. It is therefore a unified system with a clear aim. What we need in this country is a system with very different aims, but still one which has those qualities of unity and coherence.

5.6 In Sull'Unità Rosmini called for a "unified and coherent" education. For him, if education is to serve the whole human person it must begin from (and be seen to begin from) a clear aim - namely to prepare children for life. And for him, as for Christian educators still, that must include the next life as well as this one. But even to prepare for this life, an education system must set its sights well above such matters as curricula, examinations and jobs, and take account of those objectives so fleetingly mentioned in the opening clause of the Baker Bill - (to promote) "the spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development of pupils." For if the true aim of education is the complete development of the human person, it must fundamentally be moral in nature.

The Christian educator (and Rosmini in particular) will take this further and say that fundamentally the whole curriculum must guide children to fulfil their duties towards God, the Church and society. And while such an aim cannot be imposed on all schools in a society which is now multicultural and largely secular in outlook, nevertheless a great many people - and parents in particular - in face of the crime, corruption and immorality which are all too common today, look to education to inculcate in children moral standards and selfdiscipline. It is true that schools alone cannot be expected to achieve this. Moral values do not come simply from the school; parents have the first responsibility; and in a healthy society the prevailing ethos would support these values. One of the great problems facing teachers at present is that many children receive little or no moral formation in the home, and the examples which society shows them cut right across all that school, parent and teacher may offer them by way of moral guidance. Despite this it remains true that any educational system worthy of the name must embody a sound ethos; and if the system is to be truly unified, every school as far as possible must share that ethos. So logically enough, for Christians Religious Education (R.E.) is not simply one school subject among many, but the foundation on which all else builds - an idea which the bishops and others have strongly urged on Mr Baker, apparently with some success, in that he has raised the status of R.E. to bring out its importance. At the same time it must be acknowledged that teachers in professedly Christian schools face an additional difficulty, because while they are teaching what they believe in, they have to be careful not to invade the spiritual territory of pupils whose culture and religion are different.

5.7 These considerations would seem to go a long way to vindicate the soundness of Rosmini's contention that a well-planned education system will meet three requirements over unity: it will have a unified aim; it will promote unity in the various teachings (so that a child is not exposed to random or incompatible ideas); and it will bring unity and integration to the various powers of the individual child. But all this can only be realized if heads and teachers have grasped and assimilated these ideas of unity themselves; if staffs have a clear vision of their roles, and share the same values and expectations. They must also respect their pupils as individuals, taking into account their natural stages of development, and they must work together harmoniously to foster the development of the whole person - the subject of all education. These ideas of Rosmini have a continuing relevance to the planning of an education system. But he saw too that education does not stop when school-days are over: Fr Paoli, who was Rosmini's secretary towards the end of his life, wrote:

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