Thursday 29th November 2012 - Closing down opportunities for the average child

This evening I was at a committee meeting at the sixth form college where I am a governor.  The Principal and Vice-Principal were reporting that this year it is very difficult to motivate students to complete UCAS forms for university entry.  There is a total lack of motivation, particularly amongst working class boys: the students don't know what they want to do, seeing university as too risky and not for the likes of them. 

Yesterday evening I took part in a panel discussion, set up by our Students' Union, about the future of the NUS campaign for higher education.  During the course of the discussion I came to the conclusion that the country is currently in danger of throwing away many of the improvements in opportunity that have occurred across the whole education sector over the last 70 years.  The chronology goes like this:

1944 The Butler Education Act paving the way for secondary education for everyone.  This gave the chance for young people to stay at school longer and to receive genuinely secondary and not just elementary education.

1963 The Robbins Report which led to the expansion of higher education through the creation of a whole raft of new universities - Warwick, Essex, York, Sussex, Kent, Lancaster.  This significantly increased the opportunity to go to higher education.

1970s The move to create an integrated comprehensive school system in many parts of England.  This got rid of the old secondary modern schools and created the opportunity for young people to remain longer in an education system that could eventually lead to university or a variety of other career destinations.  This, of course, was an imperfect change since it was not implemented in many areas, and anyway the independent schools were untouched. Indeed, many former 'direct grant' schools educating bright but less well off pupils moved into the independent sector (as my old school did).

1992 The ending of the 'binary divide' between Polytechnics and Universities so that the vast majority of higher education students could rightly claim they had a university education - and with a degree that was awarded with pride by their new institutions once they gained degree awarding powers.

These minor revolutions all opened up opportunity for young people from backgrounds where, before the Butler Act, the norm would have been to leave elementary school at 14or 15 and go straight into employment with no higher level training.

What is happening today?

• The introduction of the English baccalaureate with a subject mix that many schools will find they are unable to deliver (where are they to get the languages teachers from, for example?) so that their students are disadvantaged in seeking to go further.
• The removal of schools from local authority control through conversions to academies (and the creation of free schools) which will result in parents with the best resources gettng choice for their children and the rest being left behind.
• 'A level' reform which seems likely to restrict  the numbers getting the best grades, therefore again limiting the 'middling' performers to lesser opportunities.
• The elimination of educational maintenance allowance reducing the likelihood of those from the poorest backgrounds staying on at school or college
• The new university fees structure, generally perceived as resulting in a massive 'debt' on graduation and thus reducing the likelihood of the risk averse from engaging at all.
• The entry into the higher education sector of unregulated new private providers who are already cherry-picking the cheapest and most vocational of course offerings and thus reducing the possibility of cross-subsidy between low and high cost provision in existing universities
• A fee repayment regime that can be altered by the stroke of a pen of a minister, without any recourse to parliament, such that the repayment terms could instantly be made less favourable
• An absence of any real plans for funding postgraduate education - so that even if a student from a poor background can get past all the new obstacles I've just listed they are likely to be held back from entering a chosen profession by the lack of a higher level qualification.

It seems as if many of the advances in school and university education over recent decades are today being undone. No wonder the young people at my sixth form college are disillusioned and reluctant to fill in UCAS forms.