AI: At the end of the Second World War, Britain undertook a radical educational experiment - the Education Act 1944 created "grammar schools", public selective schools that were supposed to admit all children with the best academic ability. This experiment lasted twenty years and ended in the 1960s, when the Labor government decided to turn grammar schools into “state comprehensive schools” without selective admission. However, some of these educational institutions survive to this day, mainly in Northern Ireland and the counties of Southern England.
The debate about grammar schools has always been heated and controversial. Proponents of meritocracy believe that separating children by ability gives them a more individualized education and encourages social mobility and human flourishing. At the same time, egalitarians argue that the system is unfair because it provides better education only to those children who were born into more favorable conditions. The idea of selective schooling arose from the government's Hadow Report in 1924 and was based on the concept of meritocracy - equality of opportunity rather than outcome.
