Education

Who is conning whom?

Rhodes Boyson

Roy Hattersley's declaration on September 7 that independent schools must die moved Britain nearer to a totalitarian and away from a choice and free society. It was a typical outburst from a member of a party which mouths slogans about people's participation in the decisions affecting their future while the only participation it is really interested in is that of the party members forcing the rest of the country to accept their restrictive and blinkered image.

Fifteen years ago the left in this country believed that public schools would disappear because state schools would become so much better that parents would refuse to pay out of their own pockets for private education. Waiting lists for public schools were disappearing and many public school supporters felt that their days were numbered. Thus the left looked on public schools, like the Tower of London and the monarchy, as interesting anachronisms whose influence on society would steadily decrease and disappear. The scene is now completely different because of the lowering standards of much state education which an increasing number of parents from all classes refuses to tolerate. Instead of Mr Hattersley declaring that some private schools were "a confidence trick played on gullible parents who could get better education . . in the state system" he would be better employed questioning why 4,000 more children are in private schools this year and why the waiting lists for public schools have so increased. Could it be that much state education is "a confidence trick on gullible parents '"?

Does Mr Hattersley know that there are still in London scores if not hundreds of parents who have refused to send their children to the secondary schools to which_ they have been directed because they consider that the standards of these schools are so low that their children would do better at home? Instead of Mr Hattersley raising a political smoke screen by threatening independent schools with more stringent inspection he needs to consider more stringent inspection of certain state schools and if necessary their closure since the education they offer may be "a confidence trick on gullible parents." The publicatibn of the examination results and attendance figures of certain London comprehensive schools might end the myth that comprehensive schools as such actually improve the standards of education.

There are state schools outside London where parents have had to band together to object to the methods of teaching employed and where parents know that the replacement of academic schooling by the attempt to inculcate dubious social values is depriving their children of genuine opportunities in life. Again I could give Mr Hattersley names of schools and parents, and again many of the latter are Labour voters who are not as gullible as Mr Hattersley apparently supposes the ordinary parent to be. The disappearance of teaching by ability in such schools and the use of other people's children as guinea pigs is one very ungullible reason for the flight from state schools. • The idea that state schools would be improved by closing

public schools is just not on. The closure of these schools would simply remove a. control mechanism against which state schools are tested. If public schools were closed the pupils would not go to 'sink' schools in London but to socially selective efficient schools in high-price housing areas where parents buy a better education for their children by purchasing expensive houses in the catchment area of good comprehensive and selective state schools instead of sending a cheque once a term to a school.

Didn't Richard Crossman's children go to Harry Judge's school at Banbury and didn't we note in the spring where other Labour MPs sent their children? The closure of the public schools would simply widen the gap between the best and the worst state schools since the former would gain a further blood transfusion of clever pupils with good home support and the unskilled working class live nowhere near their catchment area! Such further 'divisiveness', could only be prevented if all housing were nationalised and we were all — apart from Labour MPs of course — allotted houses, from Buckingham Palace to a one room flat, by a random computer in a glorious if miserable social mix! Mr Hattersley's views on equality are mere verbiage unless he is prepared to go to this length.

Mr Hattersley also claims that the closure of the public schools would provide more 'educational resources' for the state schools. This is just not true. The teachers in public schools are generally more highly qualified than state school teachers and they would disappear to universities, to other professions and commerce. The parents who spend £1,000 a year to obtain a better education for their children would simply switch this money to buying better books for them, taking them on instruction holidays to Greece and employing private tutors.

What is wanted is a system whereby more parents are able to put more resources into education to add to those provided by the state. This would be advantageous both financially, and in genuine participation with parents helping their own children and gaining mental satisfaction from the fact. If private preparatory education can be had for £360 a year then even at the present heavy rates of taxation some 40 per cent of parents could probably afford this for their children if they realised their power and provided there was a great increase in independent education. We want more choice and self-decisions and not less and the first political party to realise this will win millions of votes.

The only way to ensure that general educational provision equals that which is wanted by parents is to enable them to pay far more of it directly themselves.

The present shortage of teachers in London and the part-time schooling that has resulted is because the state bureaucracy, irrespective of which party is in

STpehStator September 22, 1973 power, is not prepared to pay the price to staff the schools. Without the huge state and local authority bureaucracies, teachers in London would have been paid £300-£500 more per annum years ago. When Mr Hattersley says, "The pursuit of equality of opportunity would have to be replaced by the pursuit of equality itself,' We know that we have lost all touch with reality. Men inherit their characteristics, including their intelligence, size, sporting ability and the colour of their eyes frorn the genes. Can all men be given green eyes, be fift tall, and run a 100 yards in ten seconds? We know that this is as impossible as to believe that there can be educational equality between a Bertrand Russell and a moron and to talk about it is dangerous gobbledygook.

The only equality that matters ts our respect for one another as human beings — what Artife% used to call in the Manchestet Guardian "the ability to lay oneself down alongside one's fellow men." This — accepting children and adults for what they are as children of God — is the only real equality which makeS fraternity, liberty and even hap. piness possible. To try to make people equal who are not equal is a recipe for misery and we will all be manipulated by state appara. tniks and Fabians like puppets aS we refuse to respond in the way our masters intend.

Equal treatment for the lion and the lamb will surely bring tyrannY to the lamb not freedom. Out society has deteriorated as more and more of the real decisions in life have been taken away froin our control and given to state and local authority bureaucrats. Mr Hattersley's threat of further repressive measures can only he averted by a philosophy of increased choice and parental involvement. The educational voucher would enable all parents to be really involved in the choice of school for their children and bY this they would become better. fuller, persons. The threat of less choice from a left which dislikes freedom, and perhaps people, cail only be met by the centre and right advocating more choice.

There is an urgent need for those who do believe in freedoni. in choice, in liberty and in people to band together and fearlessly to put their case against the authoritarian left, the 'wet Liberals and the paternalists in the Tory party. ?Set the people free" a slogan as important and attractive now as when Winston Churchill, that great libertarian. stated it after the post-war Labour Government, and if it isn't again sounded clearly and loudly it may be too late. The threats of the educational left must now be defied by the courage and clear thinking of the educational right and it will be interesting how much support we get from the NCCL in this real battle for in dividual and civil freedom.

Dr Rhodes Boyson is headmaster' of Highbuty comprehensive school in North London.