Friday, October 25, 2013

DCI RSMS - Royal School of Military Survey

Royal School of Military Survey (DCI RSMS) is a joint services survey training facility associated with the Corps of Royal Engineers (RE) but attached to the United Kingdom Defence Intelligence and Security Centre (DISC).

The Royal School of Military Survey (RSMS) originates from 1833 when it was established at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich as a survey training branch. After a period of stability the school moved to a number of locations including Chatham, Fort Southwick, Ruabon and Longleat before finally settling at Hermitage, Berkshire in early 1949, when it was renamed the School of Military Survey. The Hermitage site (strictly speaking it is in Curridge) was home to 42 Survey Engineer Group (Royal Engineers) and maintained close links with the Survey Production Centres (Royal Engineers), abbreviated as SPC(RE), at Bushy Park, Teddington and Park Royal (which amalgamated at Feltham in the 1960s and went through changes of name to Mapping and Charting Establishment (Royal Engineers) - MCE(RE) - in the 1970s before becoming part of Military Survey, later absorbed into The Intelligence Collection Group (ICG). In 1979 a major rebuild at Hermitage provided the school with purpose-built facilities. As part of Military Survey’s 250th Anniversary celebrations in 1997, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II awarded the school the Royal accolade. In April 2006 the RSMS became one of four federated schools within the Defence Intelligence and Security Centre (DISC) along with the Defence Schools of Intelligence (DSI), Languages (DSL) and Photography (DSOP). To exploit the growing synergies between Geospatial Intelligence (GEOINT) and Imagery Intelligence (IMINT) all Geospatial and Imagery analysis training and education is now the responsibility of RSMS. The school consists of three Training Wings: Geospatial Information Management and Geospatial Exploitation, based at Hermitage, and Imagery Intelligence, based at Chicksands in Bedfordshire.

DEI - Destroying Education Intentionally

24-2-28 Niall Ferguson: After Treason of Intellectuals [DEI, weakism] - UATX > .

Diminishing Educational Returns

23-6-14 More Education Is Not Always Better | EcEx > .
Regression to USSR 

Dumbing Down

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25-6-9 Is There a Stupidity Epidemic? - Fox > .

Thursday, October 24, 2013

EdA - Education Act 1902

The Education Act 1902 (2 Edw. VII), also known as the Balfour Act, was a highly controversial Act of Parliament that set the pattern of elementary education in England and Wales for four decades. It was brought to Parliament by a Conservative government and was supported by the Church of England, opposed many by Nonconformists and the Liberal Party. The Act provided funds for denominational religious instruction in voluntary elementary schools, most of which were owned by the Church of England and the Roman Catholics. It reduced the divide between voluntary schools, which were largely administered by the Church of England, and schools provided and run by elected school boards, and reflected the influence of the Efficiency Movement in Britain. It was extended in 1903 to cover London.

The "Cockerton Judgment" of 1901 had caused a crisis by undermining the lawfulness of "higher grade schools" for children over the age of twelve. A temporary fix allowed the schools to operate one more year. A second issue involved the 14,000 church schools, called "voluntary schools", run chiefly by the Church of England and including some Roman Catholic schools. They were poorly funded and did not receive a share of local taxes, but they educated a third of school children.

Under the 1902 Act the existing overlapping jurisdictions, with 2,568 school boards set up by the Elementary Education Act 1870, as well as all existing School Attendance Committees, were abolished. Their duties were handed over to county councils or county borough councils, as local education authorities (LEAs). The 328 LEAs fixed local tax rates. The LEAs could establish new secondary and technical schools as well as developing the existing system of elementary schools. These LEAs were in charge of paying schoolteachers, ensuring they were properly qualified, and providing necessary books and equipment. They paid the teachers in the church schools, with the churches providing and maintaining the school buildings and providing the religious instruction.

Under the Education Act 1902 (Balfour Act) changes to conditions attached to government grants encouraged the expansion of technical education. Local Education Authorities (LEAs) took over most of the evening continuation schools. After 1926 they became known as evening institutes.

The merging of evening continuation and evening technical school provision after 1902 resulted in LEAs and other managing bodies providing:
  • part-time day and evening courses, including day continuation classes
  • courses at works schools and elsewhere in a variety of vocational, domestic, art and general subjects
Tutorial classes developed as part of a movement to expand facilities for adult education, fusing the interests of the Workers’ Educational Association and the University of Oxford. The classes were recognised by the Board of Education in Regulations of 1908/1909 and grant-aided.

Opposition to the Act came especially from Methodists, Baptists and other Nonconformists outraged at support for Anglican and Catholic schools, and angry at losing their powerful role on elected school boards. Historian Standish Meacham explores their position:
the act put an end to the broad-based expansion of secondary education that had originated in the so-called higher grade schools established by progressive, popularly elected local boards. Instead, secondary education was [to be] administered by county council committees and occurred in specifically designated "secondary" schools, admission to which was strictly controlled so as to exclude all but a very few working-class children. This important issue [was] a matter of major concern to working-class reformers anxious to provide a democratic "highway" rather than an exclusionary "ladder" to secondary education.
The Liberal Party led the opposition and made it a major issue especially in the election of 1906; the Labour Movement was mostly opposed. 

The Act was a short-term political disaster for the Conservatives, who lost massively at the 1906 general election. However, G. R. Searle has argued that it was long-term success. It standardized and upgraded the educational systems of England and Wales and led to a rapid growth of secondary schools, with over 1,000 opening by 1914, including 349 for girls only. The Church schools had financing from local ratepayers and had to meet uniform standards. Eventually, in the Butler Act of 1944, the Anglican schools were brought largely under the control of Local Education Authorities.


Education (Provision of Meals) Act 1906, a noncontroversial welfare law .

sī vīs pācem, parā bellum

igitur quī dēsīderat pācem praeparet bellum    therefore, he who desires peace, let him prepare for war sī vīs pācem, parā bellum if you wan...