Despite education being one of the big success stories of Labour s first term, the department to which Tony Blair sent Stephen Twigg in this summer s reshuffle is not without its challenges. From low teacher morale to questions about student financial support, along with the admission from Estelle Morris that she wouldn t touch some comprehensive schools with a bargepole , the government has a series of prickly issues to tackle.
None of this, however, seems to daunt the new Minister for Young People and Learning. Twigg is, after all, used to taking on seemingly impossible challenges and winning. And, since he admits that he is now really surprised when I am introduced and they don t mention it , it s worth recalling one more time that the enduring image most people have of Twigg is the moment, in the early hours of May 2 1997, when he wrested Enfield Southgate from Michael Portillo. In fact, far from being bored with the connection, Twigg revels in it: It was voted the third greatest television moment ever by Channel 4 viewers and Observer readers, which admittedly isn t an entirely representative cross-section of the population, but it s still very good to become one of the best television moments ever.’
Twigg, general secretary of the Fabian Society until his arrival at Westminster, has risen rapidly since getting there. After a year as deputy leader of the House of Commons, he was elevated to the department dealing with what, he claims, remains New Labour s top priority . It is a contention borne out by July s Comprehensive Spending Review, which pledged a six percent per annum boost in education spending.
But Twigg is keen to stress that money alone won t raise school standards: Of course, we don t want to simply throw money at problems, but five years ago we inherited an education service that was severely under-funded. We had crumbling buildings, schools without proper equipment and a great need, in many parts of the country, for new schools. Since 1997, therefore, the government has invested heavily in capital projects while embarking upon significant reform, particularly in primary and early-years education . The government s intention now, says Twigg, is to focus on secondary schools and reform in further education and lifelong learning .
The condition of Britain s secondary schools is the major unfinished business of Labour s education agenda and led to the education secretary s now infamous bargepole jibe. Despite the anger of the teaching unions, Twigg defends Morris choice of words. What Estelle was saying, not just as Secretary of State but also as a teacher of great experience herself, was simply reflecting reality: there are schools which teachers would prefer not to go and teach in. As the minister with special responsibility for London s schools, Twigg is well aware that many of the capital s schools wouldn t pass the bargepole test. We want to get to a position in London, he says, where every school is a school that teachers would be comfortable teaching in and where parents would be comfortable sending their children.
Twigg accepts that while they have to be right at the heart of what we re trying to achieve , there is a real problem with teacher morale, with many people leaving the profession and others leaving those parts of the country where they are under pressure.
He believes that several factors are contributing to this. Over many years the status and professionalism of teachers have been both undervalued and devalued . I think politicians in all parties have contributed to this, alongside sections of the press, he says. The result has been a public attitude [which] demeaned the teaching profession . The government, Twigg argues, wants to turn its back on that era and celebrate teaching as a profession .
Next to the assured programme of investment and reform for secondary schools, the government s approach to higher education seems far less sure-footed. It s not that the government lacks ambition: it remains committed to raising the number of school leavers going into higher education to 50 percent by 2010. And Twigg dismisses those, such as the Institute of Directors, who argue instead for a greater emphasis on vocational training: The IoD are posing a set of alternatives that I don t think are alternatives; we want to do both. We want to ensure that those who don t go on to higher education have a good education and training experience as well.
However, critics of the government claim that its goal of widening access to higher education is in conflict with its decision, two months after coming to power, to abolish student grants and introduce tuition fees. As a former president of the National Union of Students, Twigg admits that his support for the government s policy is not consistent with views that I ve had in the past . Nonetheless, he defends the original decision. We were right in 1997 to say that universities had been badly under-funded for a long time [and while] we can come up with some extra money from taxation, we need other sources of money. That s what tuition fees have done.
At the same time, however, Twigg believes that the government has recognised that there are issues about student hardship, debt and access to higher education and that s why we ve implemented the review of student finance. The connection between widening access and student financial support is not, however, as black and white as some make it out to be, believes the minister: One of the sad realities is that, if you look at the statistics for the last forty years, the percentage of children from the poorest backgrounds getting into higher education has barely changed. So, in twenty years of a decent grant system and free tuition, moving into student loans and a lower grant, and then into no grants at all and tuition fees, the percentage has stayed stubbornly the same and very, very low; whereas the overwhelming majority of kids from middle class, professional backgrounds have been going into higher education whether there s a grant or not, whether there are tuition fees or not.
The lesson, believes Twigg, is clear: if it is to widen access to higher education, the government needs to look beyond questions of student finance to what s happening earlier on in the education system . It s this approach which has led the government to announce that Education Maintenance Allowances, means-tested grants available to sixteen and seventeen year-olds staying on at school, will be introduced nationwide by September 2004 (up to now they have been piloted in one third of LEAs). Twigg admits, however, that having introduced EMAs, there is a logic to looking into whether that sort of thing could apply again in higher education .
As one of the government s youngest ministers, it was perhaps natural that responsibility for young people would fall within Twigg s brief at the DfES. His main concern is clear: We ve got to face the fact that young people do not feel connected with mainstream politics. Although this isn t new, and certainly not peculiar to this country, I think it s a very, very serious challenge that we ignore at our peril. The minister accepts that there s no simple panacea , and he recognises that new voting mechanisms such as via text messaging and the internet are not likely to significantly affect turnout amongst young people. However, he is not without ideas. I want to see more examples of young people s voices being genuinely heard and engaged with. He cites examples such as local youth assemblies and parliaments, school councils an initiative actively encouraged by the DfES and MPs holding surgeries aimed specifically at the young.
However, Twigg also believes it s important to remember that when I talk to young people in my area, their concerns aren t that different to the concerns of the wider population. Delivering its promises on the economy, public services and crime, for instance, is key to the government re-engaging young people.
Twigg joins the DfES at a time, therefore, when it really has its work cut out, sitting as it does at the centre of the government s plans to shake up secondary schools and re-engage the young. Only someone who clearly relishes a challenge would appear so happy to be there. Additional work by Martha Hampson