Blog 2023 Malcolm Blair-Robinson

The introduction of the cheaper and more restricted (the spin word is targeted) edition of EMA has once again opened up an alarming fissure in the ideal of free education for all and the ability to provide it. Michael Gove had waiting in his in tray two priorities when he took office. The first was to introduce rigour to the curriculum and restore responsibility to the teaching profession. The second was to get better value for every pound spent because of the state of the public finances.

The first is well under way. The Baccalaureate restores focus on the outcome with a discipline absent since the disappearance of the old Matric. At last a connection is made between youth unemployment and what youth has been taught. National prosperity in the future hinges on these outcomes. This is why it is  calamitous that fewer than half of all  students finish state secondary education with a pass in basic Maths and English. This inhibits them from acquiring skills and communicating ideas. It excludes them from science. It is also literally unforgivable that there are twice as many job vacancies for young engineers than there are young people qualified to fill them, so employers have to look and sometimes actually move their business, overseas. This is education failure on a critical scale.

Various measures are in hand to respond to this farcical situation, including more focused primary eduction, phasing out modular A levels and so on and Gove is to be congratulated on grasping the nettle, in defiance of the shrill cries of those dangerous academics, who are prisoners in their world of fads and fancies, in denial that there is a real world as well.

When it comes to the money, the report is less enthusiastic. The tuition fees saga has been one of the worst policy mishaps of the government thus far. The EMA changes have been judged of the same stripe. Nothing has done more to undermine voter confidence, that the words of politicians are ones upon which reliance may safely be placed.  The impact on the Lib Dems is almost terminal and recovery will be difficult. Clegg’s reputation is in tatters. Yet the Tories have not come out well. Whilst extolling the need to create an economy which does not rely on borrowing and requiring hardship and suffering from everybody to reduce the deficit, this schizophrenic government ensures that every educated person, not from a wealthy background, begins their working life in debt.

Mixed messages never convey what is required. Add to that, the tinkering with structures, conversions to Academies, Free Schools etc are interesting ideas, but now, when so much else has to be done, is not the time.  The Education Department begins to look like a muddle prone to U turns and gaffes. At the heart of it all is the fundamental belief of the post war social settlement which defined our country, that eduction, including higher education, should be free and available to all. Neither Labour nor the Conservatives have, over the last thirty years, a good record here. Education is the future of the country. Michael Gove has a tremendous opportunity to make a difference. To make a real and worthwhile difference he will have to do better.

At the end of the day education has to be paid for out of taxation. To charge people, as in further education, money they do not have, so you lend it to them, is morally corrupt. To have to borrow the money to lend to them, is fiscally unsound. In combination the whole thing is economically flawed. Gove needs to talk to Osborne. There is confusion between tax rates and tax flow. The former are too high, the latter is too low. Notwithstanding that, the best way to pay for higher education is out of income tax. It offers a virtuous circle. The better your education the more you earn. The more you earn, the more tax you pay. There is no better way.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 30th, 2011 at 4:15 pm and is filed under Malcolm Blair Robinson. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.