Last week’s A level results paint a different picture of young people in England to that portrayed by last week’s riots. More students than ever before have passed their exams and they have worked extremely hard to do so. However, the reward for this work is becoming more and more uncertain. The increase in university tuition fees, the changes to the educational maintenance allowance, radical reductions in careers provision and the abolition of targeted programmes to support access to university like the £100m per year Aimhigher programme I have worked on for the past five years make the returns to the work that these young people have put in look precarious and risk laden.
If Labour want to shape the agenda on young people, responsibility and the social contract post the 2011 riots they have to take a holistic approach to their lives. One that addresses head-on what young people get for buying into what society offers.
Rhetorically the coalition has said many of the right things on social mobility, access to higher education and on the need to target support at those who need it – be they the 120,000 in the most challenging circumstances or able students from disadvantaged backgrounds. But in practice, the policies have been far weaker. In the Aimhigher programme we provided additional activities to give young people and their families from backgrounds where university was not the norm the opportunity to learn about different courses/ institutions and to help them get the grades that might make the difference between a place or not. Moreover, Aimhigher did its most intensive work in the neighbourhoods that were worst hit by the riots reaching the young people drawn into the disorder.
From 2006 to 2009 the percentage of young people going to higher education from low higher education participation neighbourhoods increased by 32 per cent as opposed to only seven per cent from high participation neighbourhoods and the percentage on free school meals going to university increased by 31 per cent – twice the rise of those not on free school meals. The programme was making a difference. Yet just at the time when fees are being close to trebled it has been abolished. It is the universities themselves who the government now says have the responsibility for making higher education appear a viable and attractive option for these young people. In London I have founded a new organisation, AccessHE, which is trying to bring together over 25 universities to do this work but it is a huge challenge. The regulatory structure monitoring their efforts is not strong enough and the whole sector is undergoing huge upheavals.
Ed Miliband should continue to press for an enquiry into the riots. Labour should initiate and deliver one if the government does not do so (this might even be preferable). Any enquiry should not limit itself though policing, or the problems of the most dysfunctional families. It needs to be a nuanced examination of the issues facing all young people in England today, but one that recognises what is common but also what is particular to different groups.
At the moment, the coalition, while talking the language of targeting and difference is actually taking a blunter, ‘one size fits all’ approach. This is going to be ineffective practically and for them potentially damaging politically. It is diverting limited resources away from young people who need it just at the time they need it the most. Also, the link between responsibility, work and reward is fracturing. Most parents expect their children to benefit from the commitments they make and the responsibility they show. If these relationships start to break then it questions the assumptions that underlie not just the social contract that young people understand – but the one their parents have bought into too.
After the riots, the political temperature is already beginning to cool and more serious debate beginning. Labour can and should lead this.
—————————————————————————————
Graeme Atherton is executive director, Aimhigher West, Central and North (WECAN) London Partnership. He is writing here in a personal capacity and is a member of Progress.
—————————————————————————————