Politics

Beating the system

Iyou walk through the garden next to the Temple underground station you will come upon a statue to W. E. Forster of

Education Act fame (J. S. Mill is there, too, I think, so the garden is a little shrine to the Victorian enlightenment). I walked there most days for about two years and som- times brooded on the tribute to Forster in- scribed beneath his name: 'To his wisdom and understanding [I think I remember it saying] England owes the establishment of a national system of elementary education.' Forster's Act — in which Gladstone, the Prime Minister at the time, expressed little interest — is generally considered to be one of those Good Things quite common in English history. It goes with the abolition of slavery, the Great Reform Bill and Magna Carta, one of the many British firsts for freedom. But what are the elements of its Good Thingery? Education is a good? Yes. Universal education is a good? Yes, although the more it is imposed the less it is wanted. A national system of education is a good? No, not in itself. It was Forster's Act that first sowed the idea that universal education involved a national system. That idea is now an orthodoxy which producers some unintendedly painful results.

'The teachers', which means the teachers at state schools, are working to rule. They are in an 'ugly mood' apparently, and might even disrupt exams this summer. They have been offered 4.5 per cent, but, unlike their Scottish counterparts, they have refused it. Teachers' pay is agreed by the Burnham Committee, established under the Remuneration of Teachers Act 1962. This committee consists of representatives of the employers (the local education authorities), the teachers (the unions, pro- portionate to their memberships) and an observer from the Department of Educa- tion and Science. Over the past ten years, due to the differing political strengths of different groups of workers, the Burnham Committee has not been able to keep teachers level with 'comparable' groups. The result is that teachers are not paid very much, and most people seem to feel that it is somehow uncivilised not to try to pay teachers a bit better. Out come the rather confused and sentimental, but also rather sympathetic points that are always made when the market is not allowed to determine pay — the teachers deserve more, people say; they are doing a difficult job; don't we care about our children's future?

Judging by results (not just exam results), I suspect that this is laying it on a bit thick. When one has acknowledged the kindness, devotion and skill of many teachers, one should then admit that tens, perhaps even hundreds of thousands of teachers (there are more than 400,000 in all) are very bad. The fact, to take a minor example, that the majority of them in London seems to accept the ILEA's imposition of racial awareness regimes upon their schools argues an almost incredible weakness of mind. But one does not have to think of teachers as a band of saints and scholars to agree that their situation is unfortunate and unfair. Why should anyone think that it is sensible to cram every teacher into the same boat? How can anyone say that 'the teachers' collectively need, deserve, do not deserve 4.5 per cent, two per cent or 30 per cent? Sir Keith Joseph has rightly invoked the laws of supply and demand: if he really applied them, he would pay different rates for different teachers — more, for instance, to maths teachers, of whom there is a shor- tage, less to English teachers, of whom there is a countless multitude.

Flexibility is prevented by the national system. What makes it even odder, though, is that it is a national system with almost no power. This administrative miracle — 'a national system locally administered' is the phrase — is revered as a combination of central purpose with local freedom. The system is universally imposed, but the schools are run by local education authorities; those authorities, in turn, are the offshoots of local councils which themselves are reined in in their spending by the Department of the Environment. The Department of Education and Science can issue guidelines and directives, but it lacks almost all real powers. The result is immobility. Authorities can make very few choices themselves — they are forced, for instance, to conform to the Burnham scale — yet they cannot be made to take positive orders from above. Change is slow, choice exists only at the margins.

To be consistent, and to get anywhere, those who do believe in a national system ought to give it a chain of command. It would be possible, though difficult, to run British schools centrally and directly. The Government would turn out a cadre of headmasters. It would channel resources in- to those schools, subjects and types of pupil that it thought would be helpful to national ends. It would offer no choice, but it would guarantee order. Teachers would be under a more rigorous code of discipline, almost a civilian version of being in the army. They would be trained by the state to fulfil the state's purposes. This could be made to work. But I think almost everyone would regard it as obnoxious and oppressive. The

reason that a 'national sysem' is demanded is simpler and less sinister — it guarantees universality. No one nowadays is prepared to allow the chaos of an ancien regime in which one area has hundreds of schools and another scarcely any. Every child must go

to school.

But is there any evidence that parents believe that every child should go to the same sort of school? Is there much sign that people feel that only national rules or a local authority can protect educa- tional standards? What hint is there that parents believe that all teachers should come from the same stable? One notes that in the area of education — private schools — where the largest amount of parental choice is exercised, formai qualifications are often lower than in state schools. The same is true of facilities. Where state schools generally have boiling radiators and smart new gymnasia, private schools often have leaking roofs and decaying stretches of asphalt. The fact that private schools are not closely watched over by public author- ities is not seen as a drawback, it is actually an attraction. Abolitionists like to argue that Parents choose private education for the bad reason that it gives their children social cachet, but there are some more notable differences between private and public than class. Ari obvious one is the parent's freedom t° choose; yet it is possible to show that even this freedom exists partially within the stet!! system — the foundations were laid by t" 1980 Education Act. I suspect that tile

crucial difference is that, o

in private ednea..- tion, a school is a thing in itself. whether' run by one man, or a board of governors a parents' collective, a private school IT only itself to think about (and to blante',. People refer to the 'public school system but that is just what it isn't. Independeh schools are not only independent of t re state: they are independent of one an°thoee; They may cooperate for mutual advanta",;_ but they exist as altogether separate etilie'r ties. This means that they do not sn from administrative whim, from the ewers. sion or the imposition of outside P°w ave Many of them are bad, but all of theta it within their power to make thealsel" better. The same should and could app1Y t° w„lliadt we call 'the state sector'. The state coo pay the fees of schools, based on a fortntl,,i related to number of pupils, it could late standards, and otherwise get out. ing combinations of parents, teachers, c! e!:-;1 and other local worthies, but not Polltiors nominees, could form boards of gove,,,rn*,,d_ which would appoint headmasters. In ors, masters, watched over by the govercii,ith would run their schools. (The Adam is Institute has said and Sir Keith JC/SeP h hinting that such charges are overdue.) E he ac,, ir school would be free to apPorti°ntthat oue lump of money as they thought fit, s each school would, or at least cvovn, if it wanted, have its own pay scales. If• Then

tually each school would own itsc •

„dip(' 'the there would no longer be people ca-"'" ather teachers' who acted as a body, and,,aure on- dissatisfied one at that. There wow° ly the teachers at each school. v-1.•- A

would be universal but not system Ore Ore

Charles Mo