THE system of elementary education in vogue in England from 18134 to JL 1895 was based on the principle of payment by results. Once a year the children were individually examined by Her 1fajesty's Inspectors of Schools, and the amount of Government grant apportioned to each school depended on the accuracy with which its pupils could reproduce the knowledge they had imbibed during the preceding twelve months. All children from five years old np to twelve or thirteen were examined, and were then obliged, as a rule, to be promoted to the next higher standard. Every attempt to secure. exemption from examination, on the plea of ill-health, irregular attendance, or natural dulness was rigidly scrutinised, and anything above a small percentage of exemptions resulted in loss nf income to the school, and of reputation to the teacher. As public money was being distributed over a wide area, it was inevitable that an attempt should be made to establish uniformity of standard throughout the country, and thus the ill-fed and irregular children from the slums were subjected to the same ordeal, and expected to reach the same level of accuracy, in all subjects, as children from good homes. It was apparently assumed that all children of the same age possessed the same natural endowments, and had reached the same stage of mental development. The results thus obtained were, of necessity, premature results born out of due time, and could not be secured by truly educational methocls, which recognise the gradual growth of the child mind, but only by the tricks and short cuts of the crammer. The system was, however, useful in the compilation of blue boola ; and statistics of passes and failures afforded a rough and ready method of estimating a small portion of the work done in school. Although the system was abolished in 1895, by the pressure of enlightened educational opinion, some large school boards retained the plan of having the children in their schools examined individually, at least once a year, by their own inspectors. A recent report

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Usage of any items from the University of Cumbria's institutional repository 'Insight' must conform to the following fair usage guidelines.Any item and its associated metadata held in the University of Cumbria's institutional repository Insight (unless stated otherwise on the metadata record) may be copied, displayed or performed, and stored in line with the JISC fair dealing guidelines (available here) for educational and not-for-profit activities provided that• the authors, title and full bibliographic details of the item are cited clearly when any part of the work is referred to verbally or in the written form Putting the Action into Politics: embedding employability in the academic curriculumIf you were to ask your students why they are studying politics, public administration or international relations, a wide range of answers are likely to ensue. There will be those students who aspire to elected office. Others see careers in the diplomatic service or in the EU or UN. Others again envisage working as researchers for pressure or lobby groups. Regardless as to the potential career, there will be those students who are focused and driven, having a clear goal and how their time at university will aid them in achieving it. For the most part, student aspirations are rather vague, with only a broad-brush idea as to a potential career. There are also those students who have no idea as to any sort of preferred destiny. Regardless as to what career aspirations may be present, very few students appear aware of the actual skills needed to achieve them. While 'a good degree' is widely acknowledged as being important, there is a distinct lack of awareness as to the basic skills needed in employment. What may complicate matters, at least for some students, is their understanding that in coming to university they will be acquiring 'knowledge'. That is sometimes their sole focus. There does not appear to be an awareness of the skills development -implicit or explicit -that is undertaken within tertiary study, or how these skills may enhance any future career development. There is also a lack of appreciation of the 'academic' skills needed while at university, or how these feed into future careers. Thus, employability is seen as a key part of education. There is often an issue as to what is meant by the term 'employability', as well as how the concept could -or possibly should -be embedded in the academic curriculum. A succinct definition is as follows: "Advance HE views embedding employability as providing the opportunities to develop knowledge, skills, experiences, behaviours, attributes, achievements and attitudes to enable graduates to make successful transitions and contributions, benefitting them, the economy and their communities" (Advance HE, n/d, online).Added to this, UK employers have often complained about graduates not having the appropriate skills for entering the workplace, although confidence in finding the appropriately skilled people had risen to almost 75 % in 2018 (CBI, 2019, 8). This paper will focus upo...