ENGLAND'S SCOTCH MYTH

Akin Cochrane says John Mortimer's wrong

about Scots education; but, unlike Magnus Linklatet; he has an excuse: he's English

ONE OF the most interesting things about living on these islands is the attitude of the English towards the people who share their birthright. In my experience — I have lived amongst the English for half my life and still visit them now and then their attitude can probably be best recounted, though in shorthand terms, thus.

For the Welsh, there is stunning con- tempt which very quickly turns into active dislike. I am convinced that Labour lost the last election as much because of the Kinnock/Welsh factor as because of John Smith's tax-increasing shadow budget.

The Irish are viewed by the English with condescension tinged with real fear and guilt: fear of the incomprehensible, to an Englishman at any rate, hatred that the Irish can at times exhibit towards the English; guilt, even among those who know nothing of history, for the wrongs done in England's name to that place over the water.

What then of the Scots? It is a great joy to be viewed as a superior being, and that, generally, is how the English view their northern neighbours. Why? Because of the perceived superiority of Scottish education. There is a widespread feeling amongst Englishmen with the best of minds, not to mention the most expensively schooled minds, that most Scots are at least their equals and very often their betters in edu- cation terms. The Scottish state education system is deemed to be a distinct improve- ment on its English counterpart. It is an idea that most Scots do nothing to dispel and, taken together with our separate Kirk and law, Scottish education is something which sets us apart.

I regret to have to enter a note of dis- sent. The plain fact is that the supposed superiority is bunkum. Neither Tony Blair nor Harriet Harman would have had a problem about choosing a state selective school had they lived in Scotland, for the simple reason that there is none. Not one. There is no London Oratory, no St Olave's, nor anything like them. Every sin- gle state secondary school in Scotland is a comprehensive, and most of them practise that ultimate sin against children anywhere — mixed-ability teaching.

But no one seems to be aware of this. In an otherwise amusing article in the Sunday Telegraph two weeks ago, John Mortimer defended his right to be what Nye Bevan termed a Bollinger Bolshevik and said of education, `I wish to live long enough to see good schools made available to every child in England. Then we may become as well educated as the Irish and the Scots.' Ian McWhirter and Magnus Linklater in, respectively, the Observer and the Times said much the same. Their folly is that as Scots they should have known better. I've been asked to do a voice-over for tea-bags.'

Sadly, for all three and their readers, the truth is nothing like how they imagine it to be. That fond folk memory of a lad o' pairts' being ruthlessly drilled in Latin, Greek, mathematics and literature by a learned village 'clominie' is so out of kilter with what actually happens in Scottish schools that it is laughable.

The comprehensivisation of Scotland's schools and the abolition of what made them better than English ones — their rig- orous selection — happened more than a generation ago. The relegation of all those academies, of which every Scottish town used to boast, to non-selective comprehen- sives was achieved with a ruthlessness which still takes the breath away. And it was achieved by an education `industry' far more powerful in Scotland than its counterpart in England, which has delivered so many bloody noses to a suc- cession of education secretaries in White- hall, Margaret Thatcher not excluded.

In its van is something which calls itself the Educational Institute of Scotland. For all its lofty nomenclature it is a trade union which in its levelling and anti-elitist aims is every bit as doughty a class warrior as was the NUM at its Scargillite height. It is an outfit that no Scottish Secretary of State has dared tackle, certainly not the immedi- ate past incumbent, now Trade Secretary, Ian Lang. As a product of an English pub- lic school (Rugby), Mr Lang was always diffident about taking the Institute on, as he would be derided as someone who knew nothing about Scottish state education.

His successor, Michael Forsyth, is of a different stamp and from an entirely differ- ent class background — something which has served him ill, incidentally, in his wars with the lairds of the Scottish Tory Party in the past. He is a product of a selective Scottish education — Arbroath High and St Andrew's University. He and his Scottish education minister, Raymond Robertson, another ex-selective state school boy, have made a start in reintroducing some stan- dards by reviewing mixed-ability teaching and urging a move towards streaming. Even this very modest plan has been met with howls of protests from the `educationists'.

Help may be at hand, however. In the last week, two senior Glasgow Labour councillors, Gerry Carroll and Mohamed Sarwar, have admitted that they send their children not, as in the Blair and Harman cases, to selective state schools but to selective fee-paying schools. At well over £1,000 per term, the schools are not cheap, but neither councillor sees anything remotely hypocritical in his action. Nor, perhaps surprisingly, does the lady who is set to become Glasgow's Lord Provost when council reorganisation takes effect in April. Jean McFadden, who penned an indignant letter to Miss Harman after the St Olave's imbroglio demanding that she resign her front-bench post, insists that neither councillor has done anything wrong. Selective schools are wrong, but fee-paying ones are all right. Geddit?

Frankly, I don't. But remember, this is happening in Glasgow. I am indebted to another former Lord Provost, Michael Kelly, for recounting the following story in a recent newspaper article. Apparently, more than 20 years ago, when Glasgow's Labour-controlled council was voting to abolish the city's selective schools, the then education convener, a certain Dan Docherty, was chided by Tory councillors (they still had them in Glasgow back then) about the fact that his children went to an expensive selective school.

Mr Docherty took great umbrage at this slight and rebuked his assailants thus: 'The education of my children is my wife's responsibility. It is nothing to do with me!'

If you think the Blairs and Harmans of this world are being hypocritical, take a look at the school-fee-paying socialists of Scotland. They don't blame the wife nowa- days, they just pay the money to get their children out of Scotland's comprehensives.

The moral of this tale is that in search- ing for a solution to their bad schools the English should not listen to Messrs Mor- timer, McWhirter and Linklater, well- meaning though they may be. Do not look north for salvation. Most parents in Scot- land would love to have the choice of selective state schooling available to the Blairs and Harmans, but it just doesn't exist and, unlike Glasgow's Labour coun- cillors, they can't afford to pay to opt out of state education.

Far from the English looking to us for help, it is we who are casting envious eyes southwards. The English gave the Scots the comprehensive sickness and, now that they are emerging from the intensive care ward through some timely selective initia- tives from Gillian Shephard, it is time they helped us get out of it too.

Alan Cochrane is editor of the Scottish Daily Express.

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