Has anyone noticed a distinct avoidance of the elephant in the crumbling classroom?
How we’ve spent a week lamenting and debating the shocking neglect in our education system without getting to the heart of the problem? Here’s a quick test: how many of these schools, unable to open because they were fitted with cheap concrete that had not been replaced, were private ones?
How many of these perilous classrooms, which the Prime Minister knew about for years, were in fee-paying schools of the type he once attended as his daughters do now? How many of Sunak’s Cabinet, two-thirds of whom were privately educated, were aware of the problem and refused to “sit on their arses” because it impacted them?
If you answered “none” to all the above, then come to the front of the class (unless you’re worried the metal stanchions may give way and you’ll be crushed by the ceiling) because you’re doing an effin’ good job. Some may say I’m offering a straw-man argument as independent schools are businesses which need to stay in tip-top condition to satisfy fee-paying customers. But that misses the broader point.
There has always been an educational apartheid in Britain aimed at perpetuating the rigid class system, but since the Tories came to power in 2010, squeezing public sector spending to breaking point, it has become more blatant. A whistleblower, who recently worked with the Education Secretary, claims the Tory Cabinet were warned regularly about RAAC but were “dangerously complacent” about the issue.
Rishi Sunak must be a leader, not just a manager
In which other rich country would there be such arrogant disregard for the education and safety of 93% of its schoolchildren? In which other rich country would a prime minister appoint a post-Covid education recovery tsar, only to look at the £15billion state school catch-up plan he produced, and contemptuously slash it by 90% to £1.4billion, as Boris Johnson did?
That translated to £50 per UK pupil compared to the £1,600 per pupil spent in America and £2,500 per pupil in Holland, and resulted in the gap in exam results between the state and private schools (which had the means to better negotiate Covid) widening even further.
Keir Starmer claimed at PMQs that Britain is being run by cowboys. But that’s too basic an analogy. It is run by a rich mafia whose main interest is to preserve the status quo. This current Tory government, and its wealthy backers, simply don’t care about state education because in most cases they are buying a better one for their own offspring.
It’s why there have been 10 education secretaries in 13 years, whose main objectives were to stand up to the teachers’ unions (nicknamed “The Blob” by Michael Gove), push grammar schools to satisfy aspirational voters who can’t afford fees, and cut budgets. Contrast that with the last Labour government which had a plan to rebuild or refurbish every state school because they believed that raising education standards was the key to unlocking the country’s potential. A plan the Tories binned.
The elephant in Britain’s crumbling room is the rarely spoken truth that it lags behind comparative economies in social mobility, regional equality and productivity because our education system works for the benefit of a very small, but rich, minority. Until we address that, the roof will continue to cave in on us.
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