Tempestade Cerebral

Em 1891, no Reino Unido, a educação foi nacionalizada. Motivo? Recrutamento militar (meu destaque):

"The [Conservatives], worried by the German threat, wanted the schools to teach military drill, but the church schools refused to become Prussian academies. So, in 1891, [Lord] Salisbury made the state schools an offer: he would abolish their fees if they taught military drill.

Fees were then 10 shillings a year (except for the children of the poor who, at both state and church schools, were educated free) but, Salisbury suggested, if their fees were abolished, the state schools might attract pupils. To pay for the «free» state schools, Salisbury did not double the income tax of the rich; instead he doubled the domestic rates, the tax that preferentially hit ordinary people.

Under this double whammy of targeted taxes and "free" schools, a third of all parents had, by 1902, transferred their children from church to state schools. The church schools thus found their margins so squeezed that they had to apply for government grants - which were provided only if they accepted local authority control and if they introduced . . . military drill."

Até 1891 as escolas privadas (maioria da Igreja), em concorrência directa com as estatais, eram as preferidas dos britânicos. No entanto, aquelas não cumpriam o programa escolar desejado pelo Estado: treino militar...

Ao oferecer educação "gratuita" - financiada pelos impostos cobrados aos pais que escolheram educar os seus filhos nas privadas - o Estado conseguiu o que pretendia: autómatos preparados para a guerra!

Link via Education Watch.