This blog post is inspired by an article I read in the Telegraph today by Harry Mount which chronicles the resurgence of public school boys in the upper echelons of politics. The central thesis of his piece is that the decline in grammar schools has led to a vacuum of talent in politics and this vacuum has subsequently been filled by males educated at Britain's top public schools; Cameron, Clegg, Osborne, Balls and up to a third of both the Cabinet and Shadow Cabinet pertain to such a trend.
The fact is of course - and Mount points this out - that the traditional public school types like Cameron had never actually disappeared; they were merely complimented and in some cases dominated by the often more talented grammar school people. To illustrate that statement one only needs to look at one startling fact: from 1964-1997 all British prime ministers were grammar school kids. Yet, in the 21st century, we have a country 'run by public school boys' (Davis, 2009). As Davis points out in that article, public school kids run the media and even our rock bands (Kaiser Chiefs, McFly et al - can you call them 'rock'?).
The whole point of this article, however, is not to take a pop at public school kids; they are products of a very effective education system and deserve to take a full and fullfilling role in British life. However, for me the return of the Etonians illustrates a worrying trend in British education which happened ever since Thatcher failed to support grammars and selective education in the 1980s: that comprehensive education and this 'nobody-fails-let's-do-easy-GCSEs' culture has betrayed a whole generation of talent. The point isn't that public schools have advantages over state schools - they don't, on the whole; it's that the social democratic model of comprehensive education has proved to be a failure.
That said, I look forward to seeing how Michael Gove's free schools will correct the great social democratic betrayal of Britain's young people.
You have got to undersrand the background. In the sixties the integrated circuit revolution was just beginning. The pencil pushers in the higher echelons of our education system foresaw an ever increasing level of cheap automation which did no require human effort to produce the goods. In the future all things would be made in state owned automated factories and presumably given to the population.
ReplyDeleteThe comprehensive education system was designed to educate the masses for leisure not for work. Statistically half the population have a lower intelligence than the other half. In todays high tech age this means that half the population will not achieve the educational standards required to work.
The next logical step is the spartan approach, ie do we genetically screen for educational potential? If equality is the goal then it must be considered.
The other alternative is to abandon the automation pipe dream and provide jobs for all and get rid of this stupid idea that repetitive work is demeaning to the human state, it pays the bills and keeps taxes low.