Labour tells us that ‘education, education, education’ will solve all. This ludicrous ideological smokescreen is, however, becoming more and more transparent every day. The central idea that raising standards in education is the key to greater economic prosperity and to full youth employment, and so to ending poverty and social exclusion, have been blown aside by recent research.
Peter Robinson from the Centre for Economic Performance has shown that there isn’t any significant link between academic performance in schools and economic prosperity in developed countries. Ironically, he used the same Third International Mathematics and Science Study that was used by Labour to damn the quality of mathematics in British schools to show that several countries with weak economies, such as the Czech Republic and Bulgaria, perform well at maths, while some of the strongest economies, including Germany and the USA are not significantly better at maths than Britain. Robinson further undermined Labour’s claims that poor academic performance is at the root of economic problems by pointing out that in a parallel study of science attainment in schools Britain finished near the top of the league. More embarrassment for Labour came when it was revealed that British children came second only to Singapore in the ability to apply mathematics to problems; a skill arguably more relevant to economic performance than simply doing sums.
Robinson discovered that instead of academic performance affecting economic performance it is rather the other way round. It is the social and economic disadvantages suffered by so many working class children that creates the conditions for their comparatively poor academic performance. The effects of poverty and social exclusion totally overwhelm all the other educational factors such as teaching methods, homework policy, streaming and setting that Labour is so keen to promote. Indeed, two pieces of research from Manchester University reveal that, despite all the educational tinkering and billions of pounds spent, there has been no improvement in maths standards over the past eight years and reading standards for 11-year- olds have notably deteriorated since 1992. The only other significant influences on children’s performance Robinson could find – parental involvement and peer groups – are also social class factors, so Robinson concludes that ‘Over the long run the most powerful “educational” policy is arguably one which tackles child poverty, rather than any modest interventions in schooling.’ Blunkett, in a display of philistinism remarkable even by his standards, dismissed the whole of Robinson’s report as ‘claptrap’.
Robinson’s claims, however, are illuminated by an analysis of SAT results in 1996 (SATs are the compulsory national tests at seven, 11 and 14 years) which demonstrated such a close correlation between levels of achievement and the children’s class background that the test results could have been pretty accurately predicted from the social composition and location of the school alone.
Not that SAT results are usually very illuminating. Robinson points out how unreliable they are as indicators of improvements in academic standards. He demonstrates the inconsistencies and contradictions between standards as revealed by the different tests and exams (SATs, GCSEs, NVQs etc) and between the different national performance targets based upon them. In particular, Robinson points out that the targets for primary mathematics and English, that 75% and 80% respectively of 11-year-old children should be achieving National Curriculum level 4 by the year 2002 and a similar target for GCSEs, could be achieved by concentrating schools’ efforts on the ‘top’ 80% of children and totally ignoring the ‘bottom’ 20% that Labour claims to be so keen on helping.
In another section of his report, Robinson challenges Labour’s claims that employers are crying out for better skilled workers. He points out that the Department for Education and Employment’s own Skill Needs Surveys between 1994 and 1996 showed that only 18% of employers believed there was any ‘skills gap’ in their workforce and most of this was to do with non-academic skills. Only 4% felt there was a lack of necessary literacy and numeracy among their employees. This shouldn’t be surprising if we consider that jobs in capitalist Britain are so mind-numbing that 40% of all jobs and 80% of unskilled jobs require reading skills no better than those achieved by many infant school children and that 85% of all jobs and 95% of all unskilled jobs require only a similar level of mathematics.
This is important to bear in mind, because Labour uses the illusion of skill shortages and rising demand for academic skills as a spur to make reluctant students conform with their educational programme. In fact, even if trends in the 1980s towards a greater proportion of ‘white collar/pen-pushing jobs’ was to continue, the present level of educational attainment would not be exhausted for another 25 to 50 years. And the reality is that the radical destruction of the old manufacturing industries has now been mainly completed and the trend is towards more and more unskilled and de-skilled work.
It may remain true that, all else being equal, an individual can improve his or her employment prospects by achieving better academic qualifications. However, this is only because he/she has the credentials to leap-frog over someone else in the dole queue. It is not because that person is now able to fill some previously unsatisfiable skills shortage. And it certainly is not a solution open to the mass of unemployed workers. Unemployment is endemic to capitalism. Under the normal conditions of capitalism now prevailing there just won’t be the jobs available or in prospect to be filled by workers; better qualified or not.
Educational standards are not at the root of youth unemployment. Indeed Blanchflower and Freeman at the Institute for Public Policy Research have shown that there is no significant pool of ‘unemployable’ young people, as Labour would have us believe. They point out that young people today are far better qualified than earlier generations when unemployment was lower. Nor have young people priced themselves out of jobs, for their wages in recent years have fallen relative to other workers’ pay.
Instead, what Blanchflower and Freeman found was that youth employment is ‘exceptionally sensitive’ to overall employment conditions. A 1% rise in total unemployment leads to almost twice that rise in youth unemployment. In other words, the quickest way to solve youth unemployment is to make sure there are more jobs all round.
Of course, this is precisely what decadent capitalism in crisis cannot do, no more than they can create the conditions for educational advance by eradicating poverty and class privilege. So Labour, the party of capitalism, will continue to tinker with the system, desperately chasing the phantom of ‘standards’, sowing false hopes and diverting the blame for failure onto teachers and the young people themselves; while the social democratic left, unable to see the class nature of education, think the problems can just be solved by more resources. Most working class youngsters already see through these delusions but can’t yet see an alternative. It is the urgent task of communists to win young people to the only movement that can create the conditions for life enhancing work and education.
We too have our educational priorities – revolution, revolution, revolution.
FRFI 140 December 1997 / January 1998
