SCHOOLED FOR SUCCESS?

Michael Trend assesses the record of

Kenneth Baker, an Education Secretary with higher ambitions

I STOOD with Kenneth Baker in his ministerial waiting room looking at the photo gallery of his predecessors. Who was Miss F. Horsbrugh, I wondered? There were more familiar faces — though some one doesn't often think about nowadays — Patrick Gordon Walker, Fred Mulley, Shirley Williams; but two images stood out clearly above the others — R. A. Butler and Margaret Thatcher. Education has historically been a potentially much more important portfolio for Conservatives (pace Miss Horsbrugh, who, I find, sat in Churchill's peace-time Cabinet) than for Labour. Of these two great figures in the history of the modern Tory Party one was the education reformer and heir apparent to the leadership (but, of course, never quite made it) while the other (rather surprisingly) did get all the way to the top.

Is Mr Baker made in this mould, I wondered, as we went into his office to talk about his views of the nature, extent and progress of his education reforms? A re- cent front page led with the story that he is now the heir apparent. Try as one may, however, it is impossible to draw him on the question. When I approached the subject he smiled, walked over to the window and stared out of it; he talked about the great traditions of his country, his party and of Parliament, waving all the while — Westminster being just out of sight — at the Waterloo railway cuttings.

In all I spoke to Mr Baker for about an hour and discovered afterwards that there was nothing remarkable to quote from my copious notes. However hard I had tried to provoke him it had all been just like one of his speeches (of which he sent me away with a generous armful): highly polished, positive and professional, but in the end utterly unilluminating on any of the fun- damental questions. He best came alive, talking enthusiastically and with an almost mercurial charm, about contemporary stage productions of Shakespeare's plays or his own latest literary anthology.

On the central question I went straight 'Are we being typical white, middle-class liberal males?' to the heart of the matter: 'Has there really been a great reform in the education system in this country?' And we were off: Bills, Acts, working-parties, management structures, budgetary delegation, curricu- la, frameworks, choice, attainment levels, standards, quality; but no answer. I won- dered if the author of the 1988 reform Bill — nay, rather, as its informal title had it, Great Reform Bill — had been overcome with modesty; it hardly seemed likely. Many of Mr Baker's critics believe, in any case, that, for all the changes he has made at the DES, he has failed to earn the title of great reformer. This advocate of getting the bureaucrats off the backs of parents is currently engaged in more `top - down' planning than any of his predeces- sors; the DES is adding 180 new staff in the current two-year period. It can plausibly be argued that the man who claims to be giving power and responsibility to colleges and polytechnics by removing them from local authority control has been the architect of their nationalisation rather than their privatisation; and that he is doing the same to the universities. His current proposal seems to want to impose on universities the sort of 'planning for national needs' that the greatest statists would be proud of. Yet Baker is also suggesting to the universities themselves that the new Universities Funding Council (which stands at the centre of recent changes) is not really substantially different from the old Universities Grant Committee. The great engine of policy that Mr Baker commands is as often flung into reverse as forward.

The pattern of what has been going on is perhaps nowhere better seen than in the case of the new GCSE examination. I have no doubt that in different circumstances Mr Baker would dearly love to be able to take real pride in a fine new examination designed to measure basic secondary school achievements; but nobody would seriously argue thilt the GCSE has this status. Rather it is an examination, de- signed for their own 'egalitarian' purposes, by those Mrs Thatcher's Conservatives regard as the 'great enemy' — namely the teaching unions. There are, moreover, many aspects of the GCSE that still cause concern. It offers no chance for bright pupils to stretch themselves; it puts an ever-growing pressure on the academic standards of `A' levels.

Many politicians might have felt that by bringing in the exam they had effectively painted themselves into a corner. But not so Mr Baker. When I asked him about the GCSE he spoke cryptically of 'a develop- ing situation'. Further probing suggested the following interpretation: hopes of an early reform of the GCSE itself should be based on the Task Group on Assessment and Training, the body which will assess. pupils' progress through the national curs- culum. If it works well then will we really need a GCSE? I taxed him on this and

managed to get him to speak of 'a snapshot still being needed at 16'. My interpretation of which is that he is reckoning on using the testing provisions of the new national curriculum to cure the worst features of the GCSE, but that the exam itself will carry on.

Is this seemingly endless fiddling about With a rotten examination, trying to make it presentable, the stuff of which real Thatcherite heroes are made? Or are they not rather people like the teachers of the history department at Lewes Priory com- prehensive school? In their struggle to offer the children in their care an alterna- tive (i.e. the much-vaunted 'choice') to the worst excesses of the GCSE 'new history' they have had a remarkable effect. Their Claim that the exam was unteachable and unassessable, especially the 'empathy' ex- ercises, led directly to widespread concern and eventually a change of heart on the part of the central education authorities. Mr Baker has now set up a 'working group' to look into the whole matter, a team of 'moderates' under the leadership of Com- mander Michael Saunders Watson, chair- man of the Heritage Education Trust, to Clear up what Mr Baker admitted was a `mess'. But what of the two men who started the bells ringing, Christopher McGovern and Dr Anthony Freeman of Lewes Priory? Following a 'reorganisation' in their local education authority they have lost their jobs.

It is hardly surprising that Mr Baker's critics on the Right of his party feel unsatisfied. They have never — and will never — forgive him for their defeat on What they thought should have been the greatest reform of all — introducing a voucher system of education, where the money follows the pupil rather than going to the school or place of education. (The current disagreement on student loans is, to the Right, really the voucher argument in higher education.) When I raised this subject he spoke of practical, rather than ideological considerations. He told me that voucher systems simply do not work: he had seen this for himself in the East Coast of America, as had Sir Keith Joseph (thereby tying in the support of a figure Whose position in the Pantheon of the Right is beyond any doubt). Anyway, he went on, all the best features of what the advocates of vouchers wanted to see had in fact been achieved through his reforming legislation: 'I've done it through open enrolment', he said.

Mr Baker hopping from one leg to the Other in this way is really quite an impress- ive performance; most politicians can do it once in a while but with Baker we see real artistry. The Tory Right, however, watch him with exasperation wondering if one day he is going to hop onto one of their mines and blow himself up. But their exasperation is tempered with a feeling that Baker has also negotiated himself through the enemy's minefield with at least

some success; when put to it they can think of nobody else with the skills needed to have done this. 'We recognise that, although basically unsound,' one right- winger put it to me, 'he does get things done, unlike — ironically — Keith.'

What has he got done? When he first came into office many schools were shut; the teaching profession was going through the worst period of unrest in its history. That now seems a thing of the past. Parents have at last been given a real choice in the school to which they send their children

and headteachers have been given back much of the status and power that most people assume should naturally belong to them. I think Baker has convinced both his Conservative critics and parents that he cares above all about improving, one way or another, the quality of education. When I asked him for the top priority in his work he said, 'quality, quality, quality, quality, quality'. This was a rare, and convincing outburst of passion in our conversation. 1 was also struck by how often he spoke of the 'collectivism' of the education system against which he was determined to make headway. This, at least, is half-way Thatch- erite.

Speculation will, however, continue as to which of his many current projects really engages his heart. While his City Technol- ogy Colleges have not taken off in anything like the way he orginally hoped for — or predicted — Baker, an arch-technocrat, has put himself out greatly for them. Not so, though, with the opting-out proposals for schools. It is still early days but my suspicion is that Mr Baker thinks that there will only be slow progress here, and that this does not worry him too much. The Prime Minister is well known to want to see a take-up rate of some 50 per cent in opting out.

In recent times another charge has been heard against Mr Baker: that he is a starter of things not a sticker at them. But Baker is ready for this one too. 'People sometimes say of me that I am a very good fire-fighter — sort out the GLC, my green paper on the community charge — that type of thing; then I move on. But here I'm showing that I'm delivering the goods.' Anyway the problems never seem to stop: at the moment teacher shortages are top of the list and Baker has been quick to come forward with his plans for this crisis. The press continually give us Mr Baker laun- ching some new initiative — such as his 'fame school' with its photo-opportunity walking across Abbey Road. And he now makes much of his opportunities to speak out on 'wider' matters — such as his recent address to the General Synod. He has also done well with international visits (trying to get in before his critics say that he couldn't go any higher because he has no international experience?) In recent times he has been to both the US and USSR — and he has had to postpone a trip to Australia because the Prime Minister has done him the honour of asking him to squire Mrs Gorbachev about town when her husband comes here for talks. The 'fire-fighter', the 'diplomat', the student of the 'art of the possible', the 'reformer'? Perhaps they only make sense when taken together as Baker the 'politician'.

It has always seemed hard to me to blame a politician for being ambitious — some would say that that was what we paid them for. And Baker's ambition to go further has been matched with real achievement. Throughout his time at the DES he has hopped about, but never to one tune; this has helped him establish a claim to be thought of as his own man. He has made a success of being stuck between his own Right and the deeply-entrenched education establishment, skillfully playing them off against each other. When the point of decision for a new party leader is reached it may well not be to the advantage of potential candidates to be too closely associated with the die-hard supporters of the Prime Minister. One right-winger told me that he did not think that Baker would be considered for the post of successor unless he could prove that his reform of education had worked. (By this he specifi- cally meant that the opt-out rate of schools had been substantial.) But some of those who are deeply locked in the past ten years of British political life have forgotten — or perhaps have never known — that incum- bent leaders of the Tory Party have hardly ever had their way on the choice of their successor. Mr Baker, once dubbed a Heath-man, will have learnt that during his earlier sojourn in the wilderness. So the question about whether he is to be thought of as a great reformer will have to wait until we can see the answer to another question: does he want to be thought of as such; and, if so, when and by whom?