On 18 October 1976, Labour prime minister James Callaghan spoke at a foundation stone laying ceremony for an extension of Ruskin College, Oxford. Callaghan paid tribute to the role of Ruskin in providing a ‘second chance’ for adult learners who had, for one reason or another, failed to realise their true potential in education. Callaghan could see the positive effect of this at first-hand: even his cabinet included a Ruskin graduate, secretary of state for industry, Eric Varley. As Andrew Adonis put it when he reviewed the speech in The Guardian 30 years later, it ‘lit a flare that has illuminated education reform ever since.’ Callaghan’s concern was about driving up national standards in schools: ‘To the critics I would say that we must carry the teaching profession with us. They have the expertise and the professional approach. To the teachers I would say that you must satisfy the parents and industry that what you are doing meets their requirements and the needs of our children.’
The chief inspector of Ofsted, Sir Michael Wilshaw, has recently caused a great deal of controversy with a debate about ‘no notice’ inspections of state schools. Ofsted has also abolished the ‘satisfactory’ category and replaced it with a ‘requires improvement’ label. These issues really do matter, but they are in reality a debate not about whether we should focus on improving standards, but how best we do so. That is not to say that there are not legitimate concerns about Ofsted. As shadow education secretary Stephen Twigg has said: ‘I want an Ofsted that is challenging of schools but is also fair and consistent in its approach.’ However, the aim of a relentless focus on educational improvement is one we now almost take for granted.
Yet, remarkably, it was not always a focus of political debate in postwar Britain. Clement Attlee’s 1945-51 government implemented the Butler Education Act of 1944, but, in doing so, Attlee himself felt that education as an issue had been elevated above the field of party politics. This is not to say, however, that Labour governments did not radically reform education. In the 1960s, Labour education and science secretary Michael Stewart’s famous Circular 10/65, enthusiastically implemented by his successor Tony Crosland, began the transition from grammars and secondary moderns to comprehensives. Harold Wilson’s government’s creation of the Open University in 1968 was a landmark. But the point is that there was little debate about driving up educational standards in state schools until the issue was placed centre-stage by Callaghan.
Callaghan knew that he was breaking new ground: ‘I must thank all those who have inundated me with advice: some helpful and others telling me less politely to keep off the grass, to watch my language and that they will be examining my speech with the care usually given by Hong Kong watchers to the China scene. It is almost as though some people would wish that the subject matter and purpose of education should not have public attention focused on it: nor that profane hands should be allowed to touch it.’ But he was firm in his resolve to speak on the issue: ‘These are proper subjects for discussion and debate. And it should be a rational debate based on the facts.’ Callaghan’s words on central purposes of education have stood the test of time: ‘The goals of our education, from nursery school through to adult education, are clear enough. They are to equip children to the best of their ability for a lively, constructive, place in society, and also to fit them to do a job of work. Not one or the other but both.’ As he pithily encapsulated it: ‘There is no virtue in producing socially well-adjusted members of society who are unemployed because they do not have the skills. Nor at the other extreme must they be technically efficient robots.’
The Blair-Brown governments strongly embraced the ‘Ruskin tradition’ with major investment and reform to drive up standards from an early age, with sure start and literacy-numeracy strategies as significant achievements. In the secondary sector, there was firm action on failing schools with specialist schools and academies. Speaking at the NAHT annual conference last month, shadow education secretary Stephen Twigg confirmed the promise that ‘a future Labour government would establish an Office for Educational Improvement, an education equivalent of the OBR, to act as an independent clearing house for research, a champion for improving the international standing of England’s education system and a body for sharing best practice within the school system.’ He is entirely right to focus on this issue. At its core is a desire to ensure that every child is given every chance to reach his or her potential, regardless of background. Perhaps, too, we should also give credit to the prime minister who, having left school and found a job at 17, had the vision to make the issue a real political priority.
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Nick Thomas-Symonds is the author of Attlee: A Life in Politics published by IB Tauris (2010). He writes the Labour history column for Progress tweets @NThomasSymonds
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The depressing thing about this article is that, with the exception of a nod to the Open University, it says nothing about the continuing need to invest in lifelong learning.
WIth increasing longevity, more and more adults need not simply a ‘second chance’ education to make up for being failed by initial schooling but something more. The late Raymond Williams argued that adults turned to education to understand change, to be able to adapt to it and, crucially, to shape it.
Alastair, as I reply to you I am sat at my computer marking essays for mature students, whom I’ve taught for a number of years. I think lifelong learning is vital – and I have taught a number of people who, as you say, did not need a “second chance” but are looking for something more. Nick Thomas-Symonds.
Those starting work 60 years ago (and before) could mostly expect a job for life and no real need to retrain unless they jumped from managed to manager. Those who started work 45 years ago probably couldn’t expect a job for life but mostly could expect a career for life moving between employers with update training as required from their employer. Those who started work 30 years ago and subsequently can expect multiple careers in their life (I started in 1990 and am currently on my 4th career) with a constant need to update and retrain.
Life long learning is not a luxury, it is a necessity both for the individuals coping with changes to the the jobs available and so their careers and to the country needing to generate wealth for it’s people to support a decent standard of living. The pace of change is accelerating and we need to grow our skills as individuals and as societies to meet it.
Once empires lasted hundreds if not thousands of years, now they are lucky to last out a decade before the next competitor over takes them. Just a few years ago company bosses were exporting jobs to India and China to take advantage of the lower cost of living and so cost of labour in those countries. Now many jobs are coming back because the changes to standards of living in those countries have driven up their cost of labour so that we are now competative again, in the skilled labour jobs any way.
In my case, I wanted both a second chance and the intellectual tools to understand and shape change. Two good reasons for returning to education at Ruskin College at the age of 35. (1991-1993)
As Alastair says, the sad thing is that Labour has talked some of the talk on lifelong learning but not done enough of the walking. It’s a paradox that Callaghan’s speech was so firmly labelled the Ruskin speech, but in fact concentrated on or led to mainly a debate about schooling. David Blunkett’s Learning Age was a very fine document, but again not followed through, and all the political and financial effort was put on expanding higher education. In 2009 NIACE published Learning Through Life (self-interest declaration as joint author) which aimed to restore impetus behind a genuinely lifelong and lifewide approach.
For anyone interested Compass are holding a meeting on LL on June 14, 5pm at the UCU offices in Carlow St, nr Mornington Cres.