A lot of people are getting hot under the collar, and with some reason, about the decision by David Cameron to pour scorn on grammar schools. Grammars, since the 1944 Education Act, have selected pupils by a rigorous examination at the age of 11 – hence it is known as the Eleven-Plus exam, and an often make-or-break test in a person’s life. In the late 60s, the-then Labour government began a move to scrap grammars and replace them with so-called comprehensive schools, adopting a fiercely egalitarian policy. The collapse of grammars accelerated, ironically, when Margaret Thatcher was an education minister in the government led by Edward Heath. There are now only a few grammars left.
Cameron dislikes grammars, he claims, because they do nothing to advance the interests of bright, working class kids. He may have half a point in that for many people, the 11-plus can be an arbitrary point to decide a pupil’s future. Unfortunately for Cameron, however, his stated hostility to grammars only reinforces the image of him being an upper class toff who is determined to kick the ladder of upward mobility away from the unwashed proles underneath (his recent daft idea of hammering cheap flights with tax conveyed much the same patronising, bugger-the-plebs message).
But the Tories, in wrestling with education policy, are missing the point, as they often do. The fundamental problem is that education between the age of 5 to 18 is compulsory, a fact that ignores the fact that many youngsters are bored by school much earlier and should be allowed to work and if need be, pick up their education at a later date (it amazes me that some people find this idea so incredible). The Tories are also ignoring the need to focus on choice. Rather than schools selecting pupils, by exam or some other criteria, we need a genuine and broad market for education, in which parents and their children choose the school instead. I have my reservations about vouchers – they can give the state a potential lever over private schools – but a radical boost to parental/pupil choice of school is a reform that urgently needs to be put in place.
David Cameron: what is the point of this man?
I think you’ll find that “education” between the ages of five and sixteen is compulsory; the uplift to eighteen is just some bonkers plan floated by some NuLab drone recently.
Not to say it won’t come to pass, of course.
Like you I am not exactly a fan of state education – and (since the 1944 Butler Act) the grammar schools were part of state education.
However, the lies that Mr Cameron and his education man came out with were irritating.
The normal establishment (media and academia) line that grammar schools just provide good education for free to the children of wealthy parents (this is held to be a bad thing).
In fact the evidence from Kent (the only county that still has a lot of state grammar schools) is that children from poor families stand a good chance of getting into grammar schools.
“Whatever you say state grammar schools are still state grammar schools” – quite so, but Mr Cameron and his side kick are also against paying for children from poor families to go to private schools (something that Stamford near me still manages to do – even though the assisted places scheme was abolished by New Labour).
“And quite right to, government payment would corrupt private schools”.
Perhaps so – but Cameron and his sidekick are also against cutting taxes to allow ordinary families to pay their own money to educate their children. As far as they are concerned if a family is not wealthy enough to both pay the massive taxes of modern Britain and to then pay (i.e. pay twice – pay for the state schools and then pay….) for their children to go to private school – well as far as Cameron and co are concerned ordinary families (or rather their children) can go to Hell. Pleasing the B.B.C. and the Guardian newspaper is what matters to Cameron and co.
“You are missing my point about child freedom”.
Quite true, I do not feel (right now) like discussing whether children (rather than parents) shold be allowed to decide what, if any, school they go to.
Cameron is the answer to a question nobody has asked.
Cameron is your typical Eton Toff, all nice sentiment and phoney charm, pretending to be a nice bloke, when in actual fact he does give a flying f*** about the working class and the poor.
He waffles about the environment because the middle and chattering classes are obsessed with it.
Helping children from low income families should be a priority for governments of whatever political hue.
The Comprehensive system, in my experience, seems to mainly benefit the bullies and idiots (who are often allowed to do as they please) who destroy so many bright young pupils. Lump in the bullies with the bright (and innevitably shyer) kids and sure enough the thugs will rule the roost, as you will often find in comprehensives.
Correction: “when in actual fact he does not give a flying f*** about the working class and the poor.”
As you can see, I did not go to gramma school.
I am another of those who benefited from a Grammar School education. Without it, I doubt that my life would have been nearly as satisfactory.
Nevertheless, I can understand the negative feelings that many have for them, generated mainly I suspect by the fearsome nature of the “11-plus” selection test. If there were sufficient Grammar Schools (or similar academically-orientated schools) for the population who could benefit by such education there need be no such fears. A selection test at around 11 to 13 could be used merely to recommend the type of education best suited to each child’s ability, with parents being given the choice to over-ride this recommendation, subject to the child’s satisfactory progress. Children might then move between an academic curriculum and a more practical curriculum depending on their development and inclination.
This kind of result could be achieved by having several streams in one school or by allowing parental choice of schools via a voucher scheme. Whatever happens, the state needs to loosen its leaden grip on education. But, please, let’s not have divisive religious schools.
It never seems to be mentioned that grammar schools need not select solely on performance in some all-or-nothing examination. Where I was fortunate enough to be brought up (Kent) all pupils from the area’s primary schools went to the local comprehensive (where ‘setting’ by ability was practiced) at age 11. After two years those with the best records were offered a place at the local grammar school. No ’11+’ examination was needed, the decision was based on achievements over the full two year period. Many of the brighter students who did not go to the grammar school at 13 later joined for A levels at 16.
I think that parents should be free to choose their school, but that the school should be free to choose the pupils, too, and for very good reason. It would be impractical if it were only the parents choosing as that would result in a similar fiasco that we have now where only geography or lottery is used. Such choice could be lottery, geography or selection by ability. It should be the school’s decision on what criteria. The main thing is to get the ghastly LEA’s dirty social-engineering fingernails out of the process and save a ton of money.
Some form of voucher system does not necessarily mean a lever over the private sector per se, especially if the rump LEA is not involved in certifying the schools for inclusion in the scheme ( I suspect the LEAs would cling to such an idea as a lifeboat for their petty agenda and to justify their power base and drain on resources).
If you actually read David Willetts’ speech you’ll see he and David Cameron are all for choice. You’re betraying a certain prejudice yourself, I fear!
many youngsters are bored by school much earlier and should be allowed to work and if need be, pick up their education at a later date
Um, there is a party that allows for this in their education policy.
It’s called UKIP.
DK
“[W]e need a genuine and broad market for education, in which parents and their children choose the school instead.”
This is a great point absent on the Telegraph articles and comments sections.
It would have the benefit of muting some of the effects of (seemingly) over-centralized education policy.
The problem with selling grammar schools to the British public is that they are almost extinct, and almost no-one in the electorate has much feel for what they might mean.
The strategic analogy is Blair’s refusal to repeal the Conservative trades union legislation: people on his own side were outraged, but only some of them; and the majority of the electorate had already forgotten what a trades union was, save for a vague feeling that it was something discreditably associated with Labour’s past. Those outraged had nowhere to go, because they were the ones more determined to get rid of the Tories than anyone else.
It is not a perfect analogy because by comparison trades unionists were more numerous in the Labour Party, and their days of power more recent.
In the most populous most parts of the country you would have to be over 50 to have attended a grammar school, and you would be outnumbered 4 to 1 by voters who didn’t. Those like me who attended grammar schools more recently were sometimes 1 in 20 of their cohort in the catchment area. There are several times more people at private schools than grammar schools now. They are an obscure bit of history to the vast majority, no more meaningful than Technical Schools.
What’s interesting about the new-found enthusiasm for CTCs etc is that they do operate a form of selection – albeit currently an utterly mad form – so it might yet be a way back into selective education… but under a label that the average voter may understand.
!
Talking about choice is one thing, proposing concrete measures that might ruffle the feathers of our outmoded education bureaucrats, is another. To introduce choice would mean a radical change to the centralised, almost Soviet model we have now. Cameron is not going to do anything that will annoy the public sector workers whom he has sought, rather obviously, to court during his time as leader of the Tories.
I have met David Willetts several times over the years. Both in a Conservative party context and in the context of the Edmund Burke society.
I would not trust anything he said, about any subject. He is “clever” – i.e. shallow and dishonest.
As for choice:
So we can expect either vouchers or tax deductions (for education costs) – I rather doubt it.
I did not follow Guy’s argument (no disrespect meant to him, our minds work differently so I often do not understand what he is saying – which does not mean it might not be true), so I can only give my impression of Mr Cameron.
Mr Cameron is trying to be a younger version of Blair.
However, there are several problems with this approach.
First of all Mr Cameron assumes that Mr Blair believed in nothing (apart from getting elected) and this is not true – Mr Blair, whilst he was very interested in spin and other such, did and does have beliefs and people could tell that.
I do not think that people will feel great loyality to a man like Mr Cameron – who really does believe in nothing apart from being elected.
Also Mr Cameron has forgotten that whilst Mr Blair was very popular in 1997 (and for years after this) people are rather irritated by the spin and clever tactics style of politics now (in short Mr Cameron is preparing the fight the last war).
The continuing Conservative party losses in cities like Leeds and Bradford (cities the party controlled not so long ago – and which should have fallen to the Conservatives with the government as unpopular as it is) shows that, outside the south east, Mr Cameron is starting to be seen for what he is.
Finally Mr Cameron is not going to up against Mr Blair, he is going to be up against Mr Brown.
I really appreciated the 11 plus exam back in 1953. I also took the entrance exam at a minor public school and passed that. So the state paid for me to attend that school. My father was a docker in London docks and my mother worked part time as a cashier. The education I received I really absorbed, took my “O” Levels at age 15 and “A” levels at 17. It sure made my life, allowed me to work in Zambia and then Canada.
Keep the 11 plus for bright working class kids.
Grammar schools let children who want to learn, learn.
Normal high schools have to many children who do nothing and make clever or interested children look bad, in grammar schools you can be clever, infact you try harder to feel even better.
Grammar schools are great !
Grammar schools let children who want to learn, learn.
Normal high schools have to many children who do nothing and make clever or interested children look bad, in grammar schools you can be clever, infact you try harder to feel even better.
Grammar schools are great !