Britain, like America, has an internationally renowned university sector with impressive rates of graduation and post-graduate study. But it co-exists with schools that historically have failed the majority. Tackling this – in the light of the rapidly escalating requirements of the new economy – should be the benchmark against which the radicalism of the government’s proposed education reforms is judged.
In the UK, given its contribution to democracy and self-fulfilment, education beyond the basics has always been a concern of the left. Yet, until 1997, education was never a compelling priority for Labour despite real strengths in its record, including the Open University and comprehensive admissions. The Attlee government proposed no landmark education act (in a world of heavy industry and full employment, education seemed irrelevant to national prosperity). And the comprehensive revolution in the 1960s was strong on who came in the school-gate, but not on what and how they should learn.
Since 1997, however, progress in education has been strong. Class sizes are lower, GCSE and A-level results are higher, and there are 32,000 extra teachers. The biggest leaps in attainment have been in the areas of highest poverty.
But England’s schools are still some way from being world-class, and stark inequalities persist. Today, nearly 40 per cent of 11 year-olds enter secondary school without mastering the basic competences. Similar proportions fail to get five good GCSEs. Literacy and numeracy for all was the mission of Gladstone’s Liberal government in enacting the Education Act of 1870. Four generations later, it has still not been achieved.
In the meantime, Britain’s independent schools have completed their transformation into highly competitive exam factories. More than half-a-million children entered private education last year, creating even greater demand for improvement in the state system to prevent worsening polarisation.
Further changes in schools are required if Britain is to become a more equal and less class-ridden society, with education as the central pillar of social justice. Too often, the government has failed to articulate the radical left-of-centre aims and purposes underlying reform. Structural changes are a necessary, but insufficient, condition for national improvement. Therefore, the proposed legislation should reflect five core imperatives.
First, continuing to raise basic literacy and numeracy standards in the primary years as a self-contained mission in its own right.
Second, ensuring secondary education has significantly higher average levels of performance, with a broader curriculum composed of qualifications and schooling to suit vocational as well as academic aptitudes, including adoption of the Tomlinson proposals.
Third, there needs to be greater investment in the teaching profession to raise its status and promote modernisation. This is absolutely crucial to the entire programme of educational renewal.
Fourth, sustaining progression in education and training beyond the age of 16 is essential for the vast majority – not just a minority, as in the past. The UK still has among the worst staying-on rates for 16 to 17 year-olds in the OECD.
Finally, after a century in which volume was the main concern, quality is critical. A further step-change in educational investment is required, beyond the commitment to a 5.4 per cent real-terms increase in the 2003 to 2006 spending review. The post-war welfare state also ensured universal provision of health, housing, benefits and education across the country. But enlightened reformers on the left – notably the LSE academic Richard Titmuss – realised that, because people are different, services must cater to individual need.
Important philosophical issues are at stake. In the past, comprehensive education was seen as treating every child the same. At first glance, this would provide equality – or so it seemed. But, as RH Tawney wrote in 1931: ‘Equality of provision is not identity of provision. It is to be achieved not by treating different needs in the same way, but by devoting equal care to ensuring that they are met in the different ways most appropriate to them.’
For 50 years, discussion on the left has focussed on ensuring that schools respond to each individual child: from the abolition of the 11-plus, to pupil-centred theories of learning. The white paper merely continues that debate. Provision must be shaped around the needs of the learner, implying a more diverse system with centres of excellence.
Such diversity has always existed in some areas without harming the least advantaged. The challenge is spreading the excellence that accompanies diversity to every community. Education remains the great liberator – yet the odds stacked against some children are still too great. Therefore, the debate come the next election will not be: has Labour reformed too much – but too little?