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JOHN HUMPHRYS: David Blunkett won himself
a great round of applause when he told a Labour Party conference before
the election how strongly they felt about comprehensive education. "Read
my lips" he declared, "no selection in education". But that was more than
three years ago. What's happened since the election has led many Labour
supporters to wonder if he really meant it. As Jonathan Beale reports,
those who want to get rid of Britain's last grammar schools feel they're
fighting an uphill battle.
JONATHAN BEALE: In a year of primary school your
future can be decided in a matter of minutes. Testing is designed to pick
out the brightest pupils for academic success. It's also been seen as
divisive and damaging for those children who fail:
DAVID BLUNKETT: Let me say this very
slowly indeed. In fact if you can watch my lips. No selection either by
examination or interview under a Labour Government.
BOB MARSHALL ANDREWS: I think selection is a process which
fails many children and as such of course I would favour a Government that
had grasped this particular nettle and said that selection will cease.
DEREK WYATT: We need a system for our children
that is representative of the needs of our communities. And it is divisive
to divide children at ten. I cannot find a single educational philosopher
or educational professor to say it is right to separate children at ten.
JOHN BERCOW; We not dealing here with machines.
We are concerned with the future of individual children and its to these
individual children's needs that education should be tailored. That must
involve having some degree of selection in our education system, and that
must mean some academic selection in our education system.
BEALE: It already exists in many
state schools. Even comprehensives are choosing a proportion of children
purely on academic ability. But for the moment eyes are focused on schools
that exclusively cater for the brighter children: Grammar Schools have
been the battleground of British education for nearly half a century. This
Government has inherited Labour's traditional hostility to the 11 plus.
And it will be judged by many on whether it allows such a clear cut case
of academic selection to continue. The history of Labour's opposition
to selection is unequivocal. As long ago as 1955 it said the 11 plus should
be scrapped . There were once more than a thousand Grammar schools ..now
there are just a hundred and sixty four. It's their future that's still
to be decided:
BERCOW: Grammar schools are beacons
of excellence in our education system. They are renowned for their academic
results, for their sporting prowess and for their cultural achievements.
It is mad, literally mad, in a country that needs to raise its level of
educational attainment, to talk about abolishing some of the finest state
schools in the country.
WYATT: I went to the grammar school
and my brother and sister failed the eleven plus. It marked them and still
marks them. It's a terribly iniquitous system. You cannot fail seventy
five percent of your community at ten.
BEALE: Hopes were high that this
Government would open the door to equality - the same learning opportunities
for every child To many that meant getting rid of the old academic elite.
But despite David Blunkett's promise the 1997 election manifesto mentioned
nothing about scrapping the grammar school system.
ERIC HAMMOND: They don't say they want
grammar schools abolished. They say they're providing the means where parents
can abolish them. It's a bit of a coward's corner I think.
BECKY MATTHEWS: It would have been much better
had they gone into government and say 'this system is dead in the water;
we will change it where it exists.'
BEALE: Instead the opponents of
the 11 plus are having to do some complicated sums. First they must find
enough parents to sign a petition before they can trigger a vote. Twenty
percent of parents eligible to vote on the future of grammar schools must
sign the petition.
MATTHEWS: In Kent to ask twenty
percent of eligible voters to sign a petition - and its not a simple signature
- there are actually nine boxes that each person has to fill in. In Kent,
in the recent Euro elections I think less than twenty percent went down
put a cross in the box. So we don't underestimate the difficulty of the
task
BEALE: Opponents of the 11 plus
in Kent will need more than forty-five thousand signatures to force a ballot.
Some believe it's a figure that they will never reach..
MARSHALL ANDREWS: I think that the Government set
out deliberately to make this a very difficult process . Now that is because
I think that philosophically possibly the Government is not wholly committed
to an end to selection.
HAMMOND: The way I read it politically
is that it's really a bone that was thrown to the old unreconstructed left
in some long forgotten decision in the Labour Party Conference annuals
and they felt this was the best way to do it, that no grammar school was
going to go under - or maybe one on the fringe where they are on their
own - and so honour would be satisfied. I think it's very dishonourable
actually.
BEALE: So far only one group of
parents in the entire country has reached their target for a ballot. That's
in Ripon where the debate is over just one school. In Kent this is just
one of 33 Grammar schools. The Government is watching from the sidelines
while parents line up against each other to settle the future of Grammar
Schools. But Ministers are acutely aware of the dangers in taking sides
on the emotive issue of a child's education. Not least because parents
expect politicians to practice what they preach:
BLUNKETT: Watch my lips. No selection
either by examination or interview.
BEALE: Supporters of academic
selection are swift to point out that 12 members of the cabinet since
1997 have been products of the Grammar school system. But they are more
likely to be judged by how they choose to educate their own offspring.
Tony Blair says he'll be the first Prime Minister to send all his children
to state schools. But he's attracted criticism for choosing the London
Oratory for his sons. A school that selects after interviewing both prospective
pupils and parents. Harriet Harman - the former Social Security Secretary
- has been accused of more blatant hypocrisy. In the case of one of her
children, she snubbed local schools in favour of a Grammar School ten miles
away.
BERCOW If a parent who is a Labour
Member of Parliament sends his own children to a selective Grammar School
- and that is what a Grammar School is, a selective institution - but then
does not support the right of other parents to do the same , that is hypocrisy.
MARSHALL-ANDREWS: I would have found it uncomfortable
if I with my strong views on selection had at the end of the day sent my
children to a selective school. I would have found that really very difficult
and very uncomfortable
BEALE: Tony Blair appears to be
more concerned about the bigger picture. Like making sure New Labour's
policies appeal to a wider audience. Many of the Grammar schools left are
in former Tory strongholds like Kent. And Labour doesn't want to see its
marginal seats here wiped off the map:
BERCOW: Before the election it
became clear that there were substantial numbers of parents in marginal
seats around the country who were pro Grammar schools and whose support
for grammar schools would stop them voting Labour if they thought Labour
would abolish Grammar Schools outright.
WYATT: I think New Labour came
in with a promise that it would not unduly unpick middle England; and there
are parts of middle England that are grammar.
MARSHALL-ANDREWS: I would be very sorry if the
Government's motivation was an electoral rather than an educational one.
BEALE: Critics say it's not measured
up to expectations on grammar schools. Nor has the Government clamped down
on the selection policies of other schools. In fact it's allowing comprehensives
to apply general ability tests for a proportion of their entrants. Those
championing all-ability schools say the system is still loaded against
them:
CAPERSON: I think a lot of educators
actually felt that if there were a Labour Government there would be a clean
break with the selective past and it would be the opportunity finally to
produce the benefits of comprehensive education to the whole of the country.
And I think many of us are disappointed that that hasn't happened yet
WILLIAMS: We are pitting professional
against professional. Up until now grammar schools and high schools and
comprehensive schools have worked well together with the ultimate aim of
improving the academic standards of all our youngsters. I do not wish to
spend time debating this issue for a moment longer than is necessary. Let's
go back to working together to improve education for all youngsters.
BEALE: New Labour's education
policy bears little resemblance to the old. Labour's fundamental opposition
to selection has now been transformed. And all the apparent inconsistencies
have been carefully covered up:
Like art, the Government's attitude to selection can be interpreted in
different ways. First it was no selection. Then it was no more selection.
And most recently it's being interpreted as some selection but only by
aptitude:
BLUNKETT: "Watch my lips - no selection".
POWELL: Certainly this government
is encouraging certain forms of selection. It's fostering a specialist
schools policy which is leading to the establishment of a large number
of secondary schools which can select a proportion of their students by
aptitude. Now there is significant debate about whether you can select
by aptitude or whether that's not a covert form of selecting by ability.
BEALE: It is, according to the
Government, an entirely new formula. There are now nearly 500 schools
which can select ten percent of pupils by aptitude. The fully comprehensive
system of the 60's and 70's is seen as an experiment that failed.
MARSHALL-ANDREWS: The type of selection which I
think is worth considering is something which the Government are now actively
promoting - and I think it's a very good piece of government policy -
and that is specialists within schools. So you have beacon schools, for
instance, for languages, for sport, for mathematics, for engineering.
BERCOW: The government seems to
be in favour of selection by aptitude and yet it is opposed to selection
by ability. It's happy to have people selected because they're good at
playing a musical instrument or because they have a facility for technology
or because they're adept at sport or because they're skilled in languages,
all of that's alright as far as this government is concerned but if you
happen to be generally academically able, that apparently is a sin the
Government can't forgive
BEALE: Labour though is speaking
a very different language to the one it spoke in opposition. And it's still
not clear how its core supporters will react. True the new words are far
more soothing to many middle class voters. But it will be difficult to
please both sides:
BERCOW: They're not quite sure
what to do so it's mix and match: it's say one thing and do another; and
indeed it's say different things to different audiences in different places
at different times for different purposes This is chameleon politics.
BEALE: Do you think this Government
wanted to get rid of grammar schools?
WYATT: That's a hard question to
answer.
BEALE: The answer may well satisfy
these grammar school children. The odds are that their school will be
preserved. But it's unlikely to satisfy those Labour supporters and parents
for whom selection is a lingering injustice.
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