“We claim now material necessities to lift us above worrying for food and shelter…. but we claim more – we yearn for culture, we demand opportunities for physical and mental development, and we openly and fearlessly declare war against all that tends to keep us riveted to earth”.Martin Powell-Davies
This speech by the trade union pioneer, Tom Mann, sums up the demands that have been fought for from the very beginnings of the labour movement - and that socialists are still fighting for today.
Socialism, removing the barriers that production for private profit places on society, will not only offer a decent standard of living to all but allow every individual to freely develop their personality, talents and interests. Access to free, high quality education would be a right for all, whether as children, youth, or adults of any age.
Unlike 1891, when Mann was speaking, at least compulsory primary and secondary schooling are now seen as a right. However, as with all our public services, cuts and privatisation threaten to undermine the gains that have been made.
Starting with the Tories, and accelerating under New Labour, government attacks on comprehensive education are reopening debates first waged a century ago. Then, a determined campaign to secure secondary education for all was fought against an establishment determination, satirised by the NUT, to “Give working-class people just enough education to make them know their stations in life, but reserve all higher training for the children of the ‘better classes’”.
It was only in the 1960s, as genuinely ‘comprehensive’ schooling developed, that the idea that secondary students of all backgrounds should be taught in the same school became accepted. But how far forward have educational opportunities for working-class pupils really progressed?
Research into exam results confirms that the major factor influencing a school’s position in the league tables remains the social class of its pupil intake. Without a major injection of funding, above all to reduce class sizes to a maximum of twenty, there is no chance that schools can overcome factors such as poor housing, diet and unsocial working hours which inevitably discriminate against children from working-class communities.
Before being abolished under the 1945 Labour government, secondary schools had been allowed to charge fees. This financial hurdle was deliberately intended to restrict educational opportunities to all bar the few working-class students lucky enough to win scholarship places.
Today, the financial hurdles may be subtler but remain (certainly for university education – see ‘box’). Expecting money for books, school trips and expensive uniforms are all ways that some schools discourage working-class families to apply.
Of course, the fee-paying independent ‘public schools’ have never been touched. Indeed, when class sizes between private and state schools are compared, Britain’s educational divide is greater than any other developed country in the world. The resources of fee-paying schools should be placed under public control to be used for the benefit of all, not the privileged few.
If students from any background are to genuinely have equality of opportunity, then, as the Labour Party demanded back in 1917, education must be free – both at school age and at university.
Of course, this was a Labour Party born out of trade union struggle, turning its back on the Liberal establishment. It is no coincidence that today, when workers are having to fight against the New Labour establishment to build a new workers’ party, trade unionists are having to fight the same battles to win decent education for all.
Then, as now, many workers sought to develop their learning later in life and evening schools mushroomed at the same time as workers developed their trade unions, particularly as they won reductions in working hours. Today, adult and community education classes have been particularly hard-hit by council cutbacks making a mockery of New Labour’s claims to stand for ‘lifelong learning’. A socialist policy would allow for education and training at any age, including paid time-off from work.
No to Academies!
Some of the first successes for independent labour and socialist candidates in the 1880s came in the elections to School Boards that, before they were abolished, democratically controlled the new elementary schools. One of their central demands was that public control was extended to all schools – including those run by churches and private trusts. This demand is acquiring new significance today as New Labour’s drive to expand Academies and trust schools threatens to remove even the limited democratic control of schools through elected Local Authorities.
The policy is based on an ideology that sees free-market competition as the key to improving public services. As John Hutton, now Secretary of State for Business & Enterprise, announced in a speech to the neo-liberal Brookings Institute in Washington, “We needed to drive greater challenge into the system … opening up these monolithic structures from across the private, voluntary and social enterprise sector”.
Whether it’s transport or health, housing or education, we know what such a deregulated market means in reality. Privatisation will lead to even greater polarisation between the most popular schools and those caught at the bottom of the league tables. Working-class families will be the main losers.
Labour’s 2006 Education Act was based on the idea that Local Authorities should turn “from provider to commissioner”. In other words, rather than being elected to take responsibility for local schools, councillors should now simply oversee their transfer to privately-sponsored Academies or “Trust” schools backed by charitable foundations. They want democratically accountable comprehensive education to become a thing of the past, to be discarded along with all the other ‘outdated’ ideas that Labour’s socialist pioneers once stood for.
These independent schools depend on public funds but are not accountable to local voters. Instead, whether it be universities or banks, evangelical church groups or individual businessmen, the control of schools, including staffing and admissions, is being given over to private sponsors and trust appointees.
But, instead of planning for the interests of the community as a whole, individual sponsors will put their own interests first, at the expense of other local schools. Academies will seek to select pupils whose needs can be met most easily and who are most likely to boost their status and position in school league tables. Figures already show that Academies tend to exclude significantly higher numbers of pupils than neighbouring community schools.
Academy sponsors see the commercial advantages in getting control of brand new buildings, thanks to millions of pounds of preferential Government investment. Some have used Academies to further their business interests awarding payroll and management contracts to linked companies. For others, including the many religious organisations sponsoring Academies, the opportunity to imprint their ideas and ethos on youth may be their chief incentive. Some, like Manchester Airport, make clear that their main purpose will be to train employees for their specific needs.
Yet, despite all the advantages offered to them, there is no evidence that Academies offer pupils a better education than community schools. Dogged research by Roger Titcombe, a retired Headteacher in Barrow where anti-Academy candidates recently won seats on the local council, reveals that many Academies have skewed their curriculum, restricting access to subjects such as science and foreign languages. Perhaps most damning of all, Titcombe met significant difficulties in obtaining the information at all. Unacountable academies want to keep their secrets hidden from public scrutiny.
The fragmentation of education into the control of many different employers is also an obvious threat to collective trade union organisation. The strike action taken by NUT members in Bolton to oppose their possible removal from council employment is an important step in trade unionists opposing the Academy programme.
Individual sponsors have no right to control the education of our children. Academies and foundation schools should be brought under local democratic control. All schools should be accountable to democratic local education committees, including elected parent, staff and school student representatives.
Abolish university tuition feees now and introduce a living grant
The latest figures showing that drop-out rates from Universities are as high as ever, with 22 per cent of full-time students no longer studying two years into their courses, confirms how financial pressures are impacting on students.
Tuition fees introduced under New Labour have already reached £3,000 a year with threats that they will go even higher. Fees and particularly the lack of a living grant mean that many students are forced to take on part-time work, inevitably affecting their studies.
The massive resources that governments draw on to write-off the debts of the banks should be used to write off stident debt and fund a living grant that could make higher education freely available to those who want it.
