The 1960s

Germany in the 1960s, at least until 1968, was marked by an economically minded consolidation of the gains of the economic miracle, although the torrid growth rates were reined in by, among other things, a general shortage of human capital, meaning the labor pool was not expansive enough to meet the demands of the market. Thus, “hiring agreements”

(Anwerbeankommen) were signed between the Federal Republic and nine different states between 1955 and 1968. The idea behind the agreements was that guest workers would come alone (meaning without family members), stay for an initial period of two years and then return to their respective countries of origin. Often overlooked is the fact that this strategy was largely, at least from the perspective of the Federal Republic, a success, as roughly two-thirds of guest workers returned to their countries of origin upon the termination of their employment contracts in Germany (Street and Hansen 2015: 182).

It was perhaps not entirely unforeseeable that some proportion of the guest workers would stay. The generalized logic of economic migration, after all, lends itself to such a trend.

163

A look at employment statistics until 1973, while cooling off a bit in 1967, suggests a state of near full employment (Hinrichs and Giebel-Felten 2002: 7), an increasingly rare phenomenon in capitalist societies and a state of events which likely reflected the sweetest dreams of many a Keynesian economist. As the Federal Republic’s relationship to its eastern neighbors began to deteriorate – this deterioration being due to great power politics – it needed to search for different kinds of migrants, meaning the stream/“repatriation” of “ethnic Germans” from the broader east of Europe was cut off at least until the end of the 1960s (Ostpolitik). The Federal Republic’s economy needed labor power; the guest worker schemes allowed many, many workers to conditionally migrate; many of these workers stayed and eventually brought their families. Whether the Christian Democratic Union (CDU),⁴⁸ in power from 1949-1969, was able to anticipate that many guest workers would stay is immaterial. Many stayed for reasons of their own, and together these so-called guest workers added a modicum of diversity to what had until then been a very homogeneous postwar society. The reasons for this temporary postwar homogeneousness should be self-evident.

It is interesting, then, that the Federal Republic, perhaps inadvertently, was setting itself on a course for pluralism and heterogeneousness by means of a creative politics of migration in order to solve an economic problem while at the same time further consolidating a vision of a harmonious relationship between the education system and society at large. The Hamburger Abkommen (Hamburg Agreement) of 1964, at its roots a continuation of and replacement for the Düsseldorf Agreement from nine years prior, further standardized the structures of the Federal Republic’s education system, although the Agreement of 1964 was, as will be brought to bear, flexible enough to allow for alternative developments, a fact that is visible in the document from 1964, as well, with its provisions for evening schools and colleges.

While subsequent developments worked to nominally loosen up the system (see the 1970s), the adoption of the Agreement in 1964 represents in and of itself a conservative undertaking insofar as it sought to further standardize and entrench the old tripartite system;

the goal of the discussions at the time was rather the opening up of the highest school form,

48 The acronym CDU will be used to refer to the political party, the Christian Democratic Union of Germany.

164

the Gymnasium, in order to supply the future economy with enough well-trained labor power.

Interesting, too, is the notion that comparisons between the Federal Republic and other

“developed” nations at the time, comparisons which were not favorable from the perspective of German educators and policymakers, resulted in efforts not to universalize access to the Gymnasium but rather to merely increase access by a few points in order to match the forecasted needs of the forecasted economy (Gass-Bolm 2005: 228-229). This was really just a functionalist solution to a problem inherent to functionalism.

While it was mentioned above that the Hamburg Agreement of 1964 can be understood as a fundamentally conservative endeavor, such a classification has the effect of whitewashing earnest discussions and their subsequent implications on education in the Federal Republic. While nominally increasing access to the highest levels of education was an explicit goal of policymakers, some latitude was granted to alternative educational forms.

Führ and Furck (1998), for example, posit: “Particularly noteworthy is that henceforth experimental schools which deviated from the agreed upon basic structure would be admitted subsequent to approval by the KMK” (251; translated by author). This does not have to go down as a simple contradiction. The consolidation of the tripartite education system was conservative insofar as it was indicative of an attempt to steer society into the future by means of a system that had worked (except when it had not) in the past. There is no discussion of symbolic violence, exploitation or hegemony; instead, the arguments in favor of the tripartite systems were relatively simplistic tautologies: “It works because it has always worked”, “It’s a part of our tradition and without it our tradition would disappear” and “It sends people to where their skills dictate they belong”. These were not necessarily consensus ideas, although reading histories of them suggests they might well have been. In fact, impulses to reform the education system along egalitarian lines were present toward the end of the decade, as well, namely amongst the Social Democrats (the SPD⁴⁹) and their followers (Führ and Furck 1998: 251).

While some decision makers and educators were looking to the past for a guide to dealing with a present that they could not fully or maybe willfully comprehend, others could

49 The acronym SPD will be used to refer to the Social Democratic Party of Germany.

165

see the writing on the wall: the Federal Republic was becoming more heterogeneous, the division of labor was becoming more complex and the processes of learning for individual pupils did not always follow the same trajectories. These broader social-educational realizations were not sufficiently reflected in the KMK, but the openings left in the Hamburg Agreement allowed for the more germane and reform-minded discussions that occurred in the 1970s (Hinz 2002: 36-37). The KMK, through the Hamburg Agreement, was successful in providing an enduring meta-structure and framework for the education system, a structure which was rigid, functionalist and based on the notion that the meritocratic sorting of very young children remained the best solution. Luckily, the structure proved not to be entirely rigid and was open enough to allow for the reemergence of an equally proud German educational tradition, namely Reformpädagogik. The 1960s were turbulent times in the Federal Republic. The economy was clipping along at a rate which could now only be dreamed of, and it seems educational undertakings simply sought to preserve the happy status quo. The status quo, however, was unhappy for many and would be greatly and deservedly shaken up by the ideas and interests that emerged with gusto in the spring of 1968.

The 1960s in India saw a greater push toward the development of a national educational policy, a development which was naturally frustrated by the central government’s relative lack of power in the realm of secondary education. The first significant large-scale event, the establishment of the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), took place in 1961. The NCERT was tasked with standardizing approaches to education. In the Council’s own words: “The NCERT was established with the agenda to design and support a common system of education, national in character, which at the same time would enable and encourage the expressions of the diverse culture across the country”

(NCERT 2011: 2). The goal of the NCERT was, in fact, two-fold: standardization and disengagement “from its elitist colonial past” (NCERT 2011: iii). The NCERT was, much like the KMK, a body which attempted to steer the education system from above. That it was handcuffed constitutionally is an important idea; nevertheless, the NCERT was and has been able to exert some influence on the structure and trajectory of the Indian education system as a whole. It should be noted again that secondary education was not a priority for Nehru, who would pass away in office in 1964.

1964 was also an important benchmark concerning the central government’s attempts to exert influence over educational policy. The Kothari Commission, also referred to in the

166

literature as the Education Commission (1964-1966), composed of seventeen members and including five foreigners (from the UK, the USA, France, Japan and the USSR), reviewed the obtaining education system (with a focus on “quality”) in hopes of arriving at a comprehensive Indian educational policy. While the composition of the Commission is interesting in and of itself, especially the fact that a Soviet expert and an US-American expert contributed, its findings and recommendations are more relevant here to the extent that some of them, most notably the recommendation that a national educational policy should be formulated, were eventually taken up in earnest. In fact, the National Policy on Education was implemented not two years after the Commission issued its report. Back to the composition of the Commission: it is interesting to note that no members came from the states associated with the Non-Aligned Movement. This seems to have been a kind of missed opportunity to gain additional post-colonial insight into education, but given Nehru’s focus on the commanding heights, it is perhaps understandable that he – and by extension, Congress – was more interested in how education could promote growth, a connection which all but demands a functionalist imagination.

In any case, the National Policy on Education of 1968, passed by Nehru’s progeny, Indira Gandhi, represents a significant milestone in the country’s attempts to construct a national education system. The introduction to the document is particularly revealing of the contrasting ideas that led to the formation of a nominal policy, insofar as its pays homage to the skeletal educational ideas of M. Gandhi and the legacy of other independence thinkers.

The third article of the policy makes overt its overall goals:

The Government of India is convinced that a radical reconstruction of education on the broad lines recommended by the education commission is essential for economic and cultural development of the country, for national integration and for realising the ideal of a socialistic pattern of society (NPE 1968: 38).

Part and parcel of this, as related to secondary education at least, was the adoption of the

“Three-Language Formula”, which would allow for English, Hindi and a regional language (“preferably one of the southern languages”) as languages of instruction. This is obviously a major point of contrast with the Federal Republic at the time, where German was spoken by virtually every pupil and so the KMK could focus on mandating the acquisition of a foreign language, usually English, and did not have to wade into the power politics of language. This is something that would come later in the Federal Republic.

167

The goals of the NPE, namely social cohesion, demanded equality in secondary education, recognizing that: “education opportunity at the secondary…level is a major instrument of social change and transformation” (NPE 1968: 43). Parroting the ethos of modernization theory and functionalism, the document goes on: “Provision of facilities for secondary and vocational education should conform broadly to requirements of the developing economy and real employment opportunities” (43). While it is well and good that homage is paid to M. Gandhi at the beginning of the document, the spirit of the NPE is not really Gandhian; rather, it is geared toward what might be described as a vision of social solidarity brought about by the harmonization of the division of labor in society and the education system which is supposed to feed it.

The years of the 1960s were certainly more challenging than the previous decade for both countries. Economic growth had gradually started to cool in Germany relative to the decade prior, India’s economy had contracted mid-decade, India had “lost” a short war versus China, Nehru passed away, the Berlin Wall was constructed, etc. Educational reform attempts in the 1960s – the Hamburg Agreement and the National Policy on Education – did not slam the door entirely on future reforms, but they also did little to challenge the prevailing cultural-educational arbitraries.⁵⁰ Education would remain a chiefly ascriptive endeavor. This educational conservatism would be challenged later.