Mrs Thatcher interviewed (2)

What about the controversy over comprehensives?

That, you know, has quietened down a good deal. Ironically enough we are getting far more objections now to changing the character of a really good grammar school than we were when I came into office. I think people are far more concerned now to keep first class schools going, and to pull up the standard of the others. They are no longer willing just to see a good school disappear, uncertain of What will take its place. You need to have two things: first, to keep the good schools, to keep the quality, and second to pull up the standard of the schools which are not good enough. Now, there are places where You can create a comprehensive scheme Without any trouble at all: everything goes very smoothly and it is good for parents, teachers and children. These are the schemes that give no trouble at all.

Also, can I just say there has been a lot of publicity about problems that have been occurring in large city centre comprehensive schools and also, almost everywhere I go I find both teachers and parents very worried about large comprehensive schools. They think that the children feel less happy in a very large school than in a smaller one.

But to extend this question of assessment of quality into other fields than schools, of Which you said that you are now concerned that content and quality in school teaching have been to a great extent shunted aside for non-questions. Are you happy about quality in higher education, and would you feel as willing to make Judgements about, say, university education and its standards, as you are to make Judgements about schools?

I don't think I have any way of doing that. Certainly the number of people getting degrees is going up enormously, certainly the kind of course which you can take in higher education for a degree has changed considerably. You still get a large number Of the traditional ones along the lines of the stricter mental disciplines; and then You get a number of others which are Perhaps hybrid courses.

Your tone of voice suggests that you Prefer the stricter, older ones.

I think that some of them make higher Mental demands, because they are more eXacting. For example some scientific courses, mathematics, languages, literature, history etc, are exacting. I have the nnpression that some modern courses in different subjects concentrate more on discussion than on a demanding syllabus. As one young student said to me recently, if You are taking an exam in law you have got to know the law and you have got to

Lknow some of the answers. If you are doing it in politics or perhaps in sociology

you can go on discussing ad infinitum.

What do you see as your major problems in dealing with higher education?

The main problem we have to decide is whether we go on providing courses for all of those who have the requisite A level qualifications and who want to go to university. It is a very difficult decision to make because I think there may be more people who, by their level of ability and attainment, could go into higher education, if they wished to, and if we provide the places. How far should we go on expanding higher education knowing how costly it is and that other things like improving some of the secondary schools and expanding nursery education also need attention? It really is a question, therefore, of choices in education — because the resources are limited. It is not only a question of weighing educational demands against other educational demands, but against other things that a government wants to do, like giving more help to the elderly and disabled. I think there is one school of thought which holds that we shouldn't go on expanding higher education indefinitely when, on our present programme, we already turn out enough people with graduate qualifications to supply the economic needs of the nation. They then go on from that to say: Aren't you breeding discontent if you are giving people graduate degrees when you know full well there will not be enough graduate calibre jobs for them all? The other school of thought says, well, you try to educate people up to the full level of their ability: won't you be creating problems if some can't get the education which they know they are capable of? Of course, there is something to be said for both viewpoints, and in the end we shall have to try to reconcile the rival demands against the resources available. So, the biggest thing is numbers. There are a number of things I think you could do to reduce the unit costs of higher education — some of them might be workable, some not. I think one of the reasons why we have had little student trouble in this country is because those who have gone on to higher education really have experienced genuine dialogue between themselves and the professors and teachers in universities and colleges. There has been a high proportion of staff compared with the number of students —

rather more than in continental colleges.

You have had trouble this year, of course, over the financing of student unions.

Yes, this is comparatively small. We have still not got public accountability for the use of public money, and I think this is quite wrong.

On the general question of higher education, and particularly the question of students, in spite of the fact that, as you say, our troubles in this country have been comparatively mild compared to those in other countries, there are nonetheless certain aspects of civic discontent fostered among students and teachers.

They are part of the other problem, being taught to doubt, being taught to debunk anything and everything.

And you would feel that that tends to go back to the beginnings of education?

Well, there are certain fundamental bases of our society here. The family is the basic unit of society. You have a rule of law that has also been quite basic to the freedoms of our society. Democracy is another essential feature of our society. Of course there are difficulties about any particular course of action and there are exceptions. Some families break up because of very difficult personal or other circumstances. The rule of law sometimes leads to difficulties, if you get people intimidated and afraid to give evidence. But democracy does offer the possibility of a change of government by reasonable means, and so everyone has a chance to put their views and have them accepted, except those, perhaps, who don't want a democratic system. But those are all really quite basic things in our society and if you go on debunking them, go on debunking the rule of law, suggest that the family is not a good unit of society or try to challenge democracy by having pressure groups which have enormous power, and therefore try to wield power beyond their numbers against a will that has been democratically expressed in elections, then you are fundamentallyoverthrowing society to try to get your own views adopted. For most of us it is not a choice between right or wrong — that would be easy. Every single course of action has its weaknesses, but it also has its strengths, and it is weighing up the two and coming to a conclusion which matters.

One final question. Suppose you stay in education for the life of this Parliament, and are not moved to some other job, and supposing the Parliament lasts for five years, what would you like to feel you had done in those five years?

I would like to feel that we had improved the quality of education and that we were turning out young people from the educational system better equipped in two ways. First, to face the life in the society that they will find. And second, better equipped in the sense that we have enabled them to develop their own talents so that they have some resources of their own. They should then be able to avoid the problems of boredom and of not knowing what to do with their time or their lives.