Articles

It's a privilege to be asked to speak here today at the conclusion of this conference. There are many here today with diverse opinions about our education systems and hopes for the future; on something as vitally important as education, it would be a surprise indeed if we were all in agreement.

Over a decade ago, Tony Blair announced to the Labour Party Conference that his three priorities for government were 'education, education and education.'

After nearly two decades of Tory mismanagement, with state schools in dilapidated buildings, with the sale of school playing fields, and above all else with a chronic shortage of teachers leading to unmanageable class sizes, Blair's statement of intent was guaranteed to find an echo amongst the electorate.

What was less clear was what New Labour would do about education when in office. What did Blair mean by education? And was his concept of educational reform the same as that of the voters who propelled him to power?

From the start, education occupied a special place in the political economy of New Labour. Where Old Labour had traditionally had problems squaring the circle between – in Michael Sanderson's words – 'social equity and industrial need', New Labour saw no such difficulty. Instead of a weak spot, Blair was determined to make New Labour's educational vision a strength.

Here, Blair felt, he could square the circle between the competing demands of the Labour left and the neo-liberal project of which he was a part. Education for opportunity yes; but the training of human capital for industry was to take priority.

I have limited time today, so I want to focus on one aspect of New Labour's educational legacy; namely the role of education in the promotion of greater social mobility.

EDUCATION AND SOCIAL MOBILITY

As long as formal education has existed, it has been an avenue of greater or lesser social mobility.

Plato – derided by Karl Popper as the arch-authoritarian - writes in his Republic that though there were distinct social classes – 'silver and gold' - 'silver' could be born to 'gold' and 'gold' to 'silver.' It was the duty of the guardians to see these discrepancies and ensure that talent could fulfill itself.

Today, these guardians are teachers.

Plato was no Michael Young. His arguments stemmed from the needs of the community alone, not the wishes of the individual. People were born with talent, and they alone could rise. We are more democratic. Education is the cornerstone of freedom. To be denied the ability to communicate, to integrate, to function as a member of our society is an assault on the dignity of those our children.

Yet social mobility is not influenced by education alone. It goes much deeper than that. Who your parents are and what they earn is still the most determining factor in shaping a child's life chances in modern Britain. This is intolerable.

The Sutton Trust reported last year that the UK is one of the worst-performing developed nations with respect to social mobility. A child born today is less likely to be upwardly mobile than a child born in the late 1950s.

Stratification – class – is real and there is no getting away from it; to cite the Report, nearly 1 in 2 of young people in the highest fifth of income-earning families gain a degree. In the lowest 20% of families by income, it is 1 in 10.

If we take entry to higher education – not the awarding of a degree – as one yardstick of educational attainment, the picture is still bleak. The expansion of higher education in the later 1980s and 1990s – huge as it was – merely consolidated the middle-class hold on degree-level qualifications.

This is not all down to economics. Much of it is to do with culture. The ancient universities, often derided by their detractors for social bias in their admissions process are, in the words of Susan Greenfield, the victims at the 'end of the food chain.'

By the time they receive their prospective undergraduates at interview, in some cases they will have been on the receiving end of thirteen or fourteen years of educational inequality. This is despite Labour's rhetoric about the much-vaunted 50% target, and I quote Estelle Morris:

"Achieving the well qualified workforce we need in this century means meeting the goal that by 2010, 50% of young people progress to Higher Education by the age of 30. We also need radical improvements in vocational education and training. We must continue to raise standards at GCSE, increase participation in learning and training beyond 16 and raise the standards achieved by 19-year-olds. Reforms to vocational and work-based qualifications, rapidly developing technology and the Key Stage 3 strategy mean that we are well placed to begin a programme of reform that is based on higher standards and greater recognition of high quality vocational routes to success."

Yet there is little Oxford, Cambridge or any of the Russell Group can do if kids from poor backgrounds receive poor qualifications because the state sector isn't up to scratch.

Part of the problem is cultural, and this affects different communities in different ways. A recent study published in 2002 gave detailed examples of how – even when they did apply – students from non-traditional backgrounds (even with very high A-level grades) could find university life tough. To quote from the experience of one British Asian student:

"You come here and it's like, basically, you know your different, and plus, because there was no people, like, coming from my background....I just couldn't handle it." ('Raj')

We need to find more role models; and we need to make life easier for the trailblazers; else their journey could be seen by their peers as a cautionary tale – better not to aim high if these are the consequences.

THE POLITICAL PROBLEM

No-one thinks that solving these problems will be easy.

Education is a difficult department, and now it is two, with the Prime Minister's separation of responsibilities for universities away from the rest of the education sector.

Putting Universities – literally – in between Innovation and Skills screamed of the Prime Minister's real vision; that universities are simply knowledge factories, there to manufacture the human capital that will, in Labour's dystopian vision, become a new generation of slaves to the requirements of the market.

It will not be individual desire or the search of fulfillment which is shaping the experience of our university undergraduates. It is the not-so-invisible hand of market necessity, which, as we are told, trumps all else.

But, in fairness, education has always been what the expert might call a 'tricky one' for Ministers. I remember well the story of R. A. Butler, summoned to see Churchill during his wartime coalition, to be told he was to be appointed President of the Board of Education as it then was. Butler responded that there was no department to which he would rather be sent, save the Treasury. Churchill arched an eyebrow and blandly stated it had been intended as an insult.

Butler was unusual; there have been few champing at the bit to take up the reins at Education down the years. Even Tony Crosland, a Secretary of State who made his mark, if ever there was one, was reluctant to go to the Department for Education and Science, as it was then known.

It has been harder for Labour than the Conservatives. Labour from time to time flirted with the idea of equality of outcome; the Tories from time to time flirted with equality of opportunity. Ironically, this meant that it was the Tory Party – not Labour – which gave the assent to mass higher education; that it was the Tory Party – not Labour – that agreed to Sir Colin Anderson's recommendation that the maintenance grant should be available to all students who attended university.

Blair came into office with this legacy to address. And there have been unequivocal improvements in the system.

As the former Prime Minister was so keen to note, there are 35,000 more teachers than in 1997 and they are paid better. There are 172,000 more support workers.

There is now nursery-level education for most of those who want it.

And credit should be given for the rising numeracy and literacy our young people have benefited from.

Yet the benefits have not been shared equally.

As the BBC's education correspondent notes, one in five children spend six or seven years in primary school and emerged unable to read or write properly.

The definition of which courses represent 'good GCSEs' has been widened to allow an increase in A-C pass rates.

And too many of our young people are still not enjoying the benefits of their education.

We support decentralisation in education, as in other areas. It is right that those who are closest to the frontline should have the ability to take more decisions themselves, in this case parents, teachers and governors.

But we must be wary that decentralisation does not become segmentation – and that a level playing field exists everywhere in our country.

RHETORIC AND REALITY

It has been a decade of educational reform. Nearly every major reform has been sold to us with the rhetoric of 'choice.' Parents and pupils should have more choice.

But if 'choice' means a choice between mediocre alternatives, it is no choice at all. If ultimately educational reform is about accepting, and legitimating educational inequality in the name of the market, then it is no choice at all.

If all forms of education – academic and vocational – are not available to all, without prejudice, then there is no choice.

For many in our fractured society, there is no choice. All there is is discontent.

Attempts to reform 14-19 curricula have met with mixed results. Mike Tomlinson was asked by the government to produce a report on how best to structure such a Diploma, to think creatively about how we might give parity to the skills of all, whether academic or vocational.

Unsurprisingly, the Tomlinson Report was sacrificed on the altar of electoral ambition. If Sir Humphrey were around, he might have remarked it was a touch too courageous.

Yet the Diploma project still exists, and is rolling out over a longer period. It is to be hoped this can go some of the way towards remedying the gulf which exists in our education system.

CONCLUSION

Labour speaks of choice.

But when they say that every aspect of life is subordinated to the needs of the economy and security, choice remains the preserve of the privileged few.

They have abandoned their own supporters, who simply want what parents of every generation want; a better life for their children.

That isn't happening under Labour. It won't happen under the Tories. In the 1980s they shied away from reforming the postcode lottery in the face of outraged middle-class parents who wanted to retain the ability – through home ownership – of transferring their own advantages to their children.

David Cameron said last year that 'We have got to get more good school places otherwise all we're doing is trying to find a different way of dividing up the cake.'

I am pleased to say he is right, though this is something of a road to Damascus moment for a man who once ran for election on a pledge of the pupil passport - school vouchers by another name.

We advocate £1.5billion extra targeted spending on pupils from the poorest backgrounds; to give them the same chances as others, without simply farming them out to the private sector or removing them from the communities they have grown up in.

I mentioned university entry earlier. In Easington, in Sunderland North, Tyne Bridge, Bootle, South Shields, Liverpool Walton, Blackpool South, Eccles, Lincoln, Poplar, Brighton Kempton, Bolsover, Barking and many more, less than 1 in 5 of school leavers go to university.

They all enjoy Labour representation. Several Ministers represent constituencies in such a position.

If Labour are serious about the rewards of a higher education, then their betrayal of their own supporters after over a decade in power speaks volumes for their commitment. It should be noted that one of those seats is Barking, represented by a former Higher Education Minister, Margaret Hodge, and which features BNP councillors; one of whom is now in the Greater London Assembly.

The political consequences of tolerating stagnant social mobility – of reducing elements of the working class to a disenfranchised underclass – is too dangerous to contemplate.