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| Education | |
|---|---|
 Advertising image forSmall Axe that features a still fromEducation. Note that the poster advertises the entire series; the actors named at the top of the poster appear in other films in the anthology. | |
| Genre | Historical drama |
| Written by | Steve McQueen Alastair Siddons |
| Directed by | Steve McQueen |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| Original language | English |
| Production | |
| Running time | 63 minutes |
| Original release | |
| Network | BBC One |
| Release | 13 December 2020 (2020-12-13) |
Education is a 2020drama film directed bySteve McQueen and co-written by McQueen and Alastair Siddons. The film was released as part of the anthology seriesSmall Axe onBBC One on 13 December 2020, in the Netherlands on 16 December 2020, and onAmazon Prime Video on 18 December 2020.[1][2]
Although the characters inEducation are fictional, the film is based on real-life events of the 1970s, when some London councils followed an unofficial policy of transferring disproportionate numbers of black children from mainstream education to schools for the so-called "educationally subnormal".[3] The practice was exposed by educationalistBernard Coard in his 1971 pamphletHow the West Indian Child is Made Educationally Sub-normal in the British School System.
On review aggregatorRotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 93% based on 29 critic reviews, with an average rating of 8.05/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "Education casts its hopeful gaze on the future, offering a simple and effective end to the Small Axe series that solidifies Steve McQueen['s] place as a master storyteller."[4]Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 88 out of 100, based on 13 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[5]
Peter Debruge ofVariety praisedEducation for its "clever" approach to portraying the subtle ways in which segregation occurs in early education without "being reductive about the institution or its employees." He compared the film's "grainy, naturalistic" style to the works ofAlan Clarke andPlay for Today.[6]