Labour needs to proclaim a Comprehensive Future

By Mike Ion

Since comprehensive education was introduced, barriers to achievement for many young people have been removed. The annual government statistics of school attainment, examination results, and participation in further and higher education offer clear evidence of a “levelling up” over the last 25 years. However in some areas of England (Kent, Bucks, Birmingham) it is reasonable to regard comprehensive schooling not as a “failed experiment” but as an experiment that has not yet been tried.

In 2008 over 60% of all 15-16 year olds in maintained schools achieved five or more “higher passes” at the end of compulsory schooling. This is the hurdle set in the past for only those attending grammar schools, one that many, even of that selected minority, failed to surmount.

In 1970, 47% of pupils left secondary school with no qualifications; in 2007 that figure was down to below 3%. Between 1989 and 2007 the percentage of 16-18 year olds in full-time education rose from 37.6 to 80.3. In 1971-72 14% of under-21 year olds entered higher education, in 2006-2007 44% entered.

Having well over a third of school leavers enter higher education is an aim that would have seemed impossibly ambitious a generation ago. Given that expenditure on education did not increase in real terms between the mid-1970s and the late-1990s this remarkable increase in productivity, as measured by qualifications, is attributable, in large part, to the removal of the barrier of the 11-plus for some four-fifths of the population.

Political support for the comprehensive ideal could well be a major issue at the next election. Why? Because if Europe has long been the Tory party’s Achilles’ heel then a debate about selection at age 11 plus could well prove to be a real pain in the neck for Team Cameron. It is now some 18 months since David Cameron experienced his first – and so far his biggest – self-inflicted wounding when he “wobbled” over his and his party’s continued support for academic selection. In 2007 David Cameron called the defenders of grammar schools “deluded” and said that any debate about selection was “sterile”. Mr Cameron – though probably not his party at large – is still apparently convinced that there should be no more grammar schools and no more selection by ability at age 11.

What is puzzling therefore is why Cameron does not take the next logical step in this argument and call for all existing selection to end. Let me suggest why he is so reluctant to move in this direction: it is because the majority of the remaining 164 grammar schools in England are in Tory-held constituencies. Cameron is not opposed to selection out of conviction; rather he is in favour of keeping all existing selective schools out of cold, political calculation.

So could the continuation of the 11-plus become a major issue at the next general election? One man who seems to think so is the combative and privately educated secretary of state for children, families and schools, Ed Balls. In a speech to last year’s annual conference of the National College of School Leaders Ed Balls made clear his own personal position on grammar schools. “Let me make clear that I do not like selection,” he said. He went on to explain how some secondary modern schools are achieving good results despite the fact that they are surrounded by grammar schools. “I’ve heard first-hand how some of the young people starting in these schools feel on day one that they have already failed,” Balls told the audience of headteachers.

There is no doubt that Balls and the Labour party in general are keen to make selection an issue before the next election and that they believe a debate about the future of grammar schools will help in providing some clear dividing lines between the Labour and Tory front benches. Cameron often uses the term “progressive” when talking about the modern Tory party, but he knows that selection at age 11 is seen by many people to be an archaic and socially exclusive policy, he also knows that opening up a debate about this issue would produce a packet full of trouble for him personally.

Tory party members and supporters of a particular age see grammar schools as offering escape routes from poverty for bright working class kids – they disagree with their Eton-educated leader and want to see more grammar schools under a future Tory government, not fewer. As yet, the Tory party has failed to outline a vision for schooling that will help meet the rising aspirations of the British people. Do the Tories favour an inclusive, comprehensive system that intrinsically values and caters for all pupils regardless of their economic or social capital? Or are they still in favour of a two-tier, elitist system that helps perpetuate privilege and inequality?

The answer to this question matters and Labour should provide their own, clear and unambiguous answer. The next Labour manifesto should make clear that under Labour there will be a bright, well resourced future for comprehensive schools and it should contain a concrete commitment to end selection by ability in the state sector once and for all.