... number of schooling hours, or the exact days of holidays; it also does not manage the institutions' finances. The Central Government says, in broad terms, what schoolchildren should learn, and decides how much money to give to the institutions. In Britain quite a strong emphasis has been put on the quality of person that education produces, as opposed to the qualities of ability that it produces. Despite the fact that there is now great concern about literacy levels, much of the public debate on educational policies still focuses on how education might help creating a better society, and not so much on how to develop useful knowledge and abilities, i.e., efficiency. As a consequence, in general, at British schools priority is given to the development of understanding, casting aside the acquirement of factual knowledge and how to apply it to specific tasks. Thus academic ability is more emphasised ...

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