IQ 2 goes back to school
Lloyd Evans
Intelligence Squared squared up to intelligence last Tuesday. How do we get the best from our brightest youngsters while not chucking the dimwits on to the educational scrapheap? Chris Woodhead, former chief inspector of schools, proposed the motion, ‘All schools, state as well as private, should be allowed to select their own pupils.’ With his wry, memorable turn of phrase, he derided the idea that selection equals segregation. ‘It’s a myth that the sharp-elbowed middle classes colonise the best schools while the working classes lose out.’ Teachers, he said, were sick and tired of Whitehall diktats. And those opposing selection represented ‘the best possible example of Old Labour’s rancour and bitterness’. He characterised the government’s policy as self-regarding envy. ‘If everybody can’t have excellence, then no one will.’ Opposing him, the former education secretary David Blunkett spoke with great charm and wit and insisted that ‘schools should meet the needs of the child, not the other way round’. Arguing in favour of centralised policy, he used the example of synthetic phonics. This flash-card system of teaching kids to read isn’t universally admired, but its adoption has been ordered by the government. So far the results have been encouraging. Blunkett then toddled off to vote in parliament, leaving his side rather short of firepower. Martin Stephen, High Master of St Paul’s, opened up with a joke. ‘There are only three political types. Rightwing fascist bastard. Bleeding-heart liberal. And loony leftie. And I’m all three.’ He was educated at a non-selective comprehensive in Manchester and he’s convinced of the need for selection. He gave common-sense examples — top orchestras, Premiership football teams — which have to recruit on the basis of ability. ‘And if you concentrate bright children together, they spur each other on and set standards for the least able.’ And it’s the least able that concern him most. Money should be found, he said, to educate the most troublesome kids. Lots and lots of money. There should be specialist schools providing one-to-one teaching. ‘And if the cost of those schools isn’t twice the fees for St Paul’s or Eton, let’s sack the politicians.’ Huge applause for that.
Next up was Fiona Millar. Blonde, beautiful and somewhat disengaged, Ms Millar (alias Mrs Alastair Campbell) told us that support for selection would mean a return to the 1950s. Back then, she said, ‘the price paid for exclusivity fell on the working classes’. Her suggestion that exam results had improved enormously in the last half-century drew polite explosions of mirth from the audience. Quoting statistics from Kent, she advised us to reject selection on three grounds. Selection fuels the private tuition industry. It’s a policy favoured by Ukip. And it divides rather than unites society. Not bad at pre-emptive attack, Ms Millar seemed short of positive arguments in favour of her policy. And very short of passion in forwarding them.
Norman Tebbit, by contrast, provided not just better arguments, but much better jokes. ‘I’m not a fascist,’ he began, referring to Martin Stephen’s opening quip. ‘There aren’t many left in this country. They’re all working in Brussels.’ He advocated the simple ‘go shopping’ approach. ‘Buy your children the education you want for them.’ Analysing Labour’s instincts, he detected a thread of mistrust laced with snobbery. ‘They believe some classes are unfit to select a school for their children because, after all, you can’t expect the poor and the blacks and the foreigners to choose the best for their children. No. Only the bureaucratic classes with their ring-fenced, final-salary pensions can do that.’ Massive applause. Even Joan Bakewell, in the chair, chortled merrily away. Lord Tebbit gave his policy solid contours and suggested that ‘the lapel of every child should have a voucher attached’. Problem kids would attract high-value vouchers, he said, while clever, obedient kids would merit more modest funds because they cost less to educate. Government subsidy and free-market dynamism would turn problem kids into profitable kids. Or as Tebbit put it, ‘There would be competition to attract these highvalue, hard-to-teach pupils.’ If that smacked of positive discrimination, Tebbit’s next opponent, William Atkinson, failed to spot it. Instead he told us about his career as the head of a successful London comp. Enlightened self-interest had drawn him to teaching wayward youngsters. ‘If we don’t educate them, maybe they’ll prey on us.’ Bizarrely, he then wandered off into a maze of global statistics. In China, he warned, the cleverest 5 per cent number more than the population of the UK. ‘They have more talented students than we have students.’ Tebbit pounced on that. ‘Because the Chinese are elitist. They’re selective! It’s not because there are a bloody lot of them.’ Which pretty much ended the debate. And helped to win it. The proposers triumphed convincingly.
Before the debate For 339 Against 200 Don’t Know 152 After the debate For 451 Against 202 Don’t Know 48
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