Political Commentary

Labour and the Public Schools

By DAVID WATT

IIOULD a Labour Government reform the

Opublic schools gradually, or abolish them, or let them stew in their own juice? The approach of a general election, especially one concerned with the modernisation and democratisation of Britain, might, on a naïve view, have been ex- pected to concentrate the Labour Party's col- lective thoughts. Instead it has resulted in the

acceptance of an admittedly unsatisfactory com. -

Promise of doubtful meaning and in official disapproval for any efforts to reopen the issue as being dangerous to unity and frightening to the electorate. Nevertheless, since a distinguished Fabian group has this week (albeit a little

wearily) submitted to Mr. Wilson some new and controversial thoughts on -the public schools,

which they are prudently refraining from pub- lishing until after the election, it seems a good moment to review the situation.

In the first place there is no doubt that the Party is united in deep theoretical hostility to Private education. Even the most cautious of trade unionists, the most stolid ex-public school

frontbencher would maintain that a mere pay- ment of money should not be allowed to guarantee a child a better education. A very large majority would also agree that it is essen- tial to break the public schools as the nurseries of a privileged elite. It was this feeling which narrowly missed overthrowing the official policy document on education at the 1958 party con- ference on the ground that • it openly declared the time was not right for tackling public schools; and it was this feeling which caused the execu- tive to enshrine in the later Signposts for the Sixties the promise that these schools shall be integrated' in the State system according to the recommendations of a new Educational Trust. This latest document is regarded with under- standable cynicism by most of the leadership since the question of what 'integration' means h left extremely vague and the Government Would not • in any case be bound to accept the the less, devotees of the public school would be most unwise to forget that they are heartily dis- liked by the Labour Party at almost every level.

When that is said, however, unanimity is at an end and heated controversy reigns, when it is

allowed to supreme. There has always been and still remains a gradualist wing of the party on this subject. According to their view it is neither

right nor electorally wise to prevent people buy- ing education any more than private medical treatment. Furthermore, any violent attempts to take over or close down the hundred-odd

existing boarding schools of the Headmasters' Conference would simply result in their opening uP immediately elsewhere. The solution proposed I therefore to democratise the schools by ex- tending ending the number of boys who are to be nom- VMl.e'd, and paid for by local education auth- a_es. At present, under the arrangements made after the Fleming Report of 1943, 25 per cent

Places at HMC schools are theoretically is to local authorities. The suggestion

.:1Sr that this percentage should be raised to 50 even higher (a proposal endorsed by 'pro- g_.,reSS71Ve' headmasters such as MT. J. C. Dancy, 1. Marlborough) and that the schools would uwee °Tne semi-State boarding schools in the same aY as direct grant schools like Manchester

Grammar School, a semi-State day school. This was Hugh Gaitskell's own position up till 1958, but he was voted down ,by his colleagues on the National Executive partly because it was thought that no system of selection could be devised which would not cream off the best boys from the State system, partly because the cost to local authorities was prohibitive (as is proved by the fact that only a minute fraction of the available public school places are taken up by LEAs) and partly because of a supposed prejudice on the part of the working classes against boarding schools. Since 1958, therefore, Flemingism has been 'out' and the theoretical field has been clear for more drastic solutions.

Some of these make a rather perfunctory appearance in Signposts for the Sixties—turn the schools into sixth-form colleges, take them over entirely as State boarding schools, use them for pre-university courses. The sixth-form college idea, in particular, has had considerable vogue but it and similar notions have now run into practical difficulties, the most decisive being the near-impossibility of combining radical moves in this direction with the rest of Labour's programme. The party's chief educational prob- lem administratively, and perhaps electorally, will arise from a fierce determination to integrate the 179 direct grant (i.e. semi-State) and 1,295 maintained (i.e. fully State) grammar schools into a State system of comprehensive education. The amount of local pride, money and loyalty invested by teachers, parents and local authori- ties in these schools makes a far more formid- able body than any public school lobby and the integration can only be made palatable if the grammar schools are assured that standards, especially in the sixth forms, will not be allowed to drop.

The party has therefore fallen back on a kind of contemptuous laissez-faire. The attitude of the `blunt Northerner' of the Wilson type or of the backwoods trade unionist is that it is a waste of time, money and energy to worry about the educational privileges enjoyed by less than 2 per cent of the country's children; that the supreme (and highly expensive) priority is the State system; that the schools certainly spread some kind of class privilege but that the way to cope with privilege is to beat it face to face. This attitude is summed up in the remark of an eminent Shadow Cabinet member the other day: 'The only people who are bothered about the public schools are members of the party who were educated at one.' Given the practical difficulties of the alternatives and the general ignorance of the majority of party members of the real extent to which public school ideals and relationships still hold sway at nearly all the important national centres of power, it is not surprising that more than half the party regards the whole issue as irrelevant. Simple ways of penalising the public school would certainly be generally supported—closing tax loopholes and cutting off tax concessions such as covenants which now help private edu- cators, setting up a quota system on supplies of teachers to public schools, extending fierce and compulsory inspection to the vast number of private institutions not now liable to it and even, perhaps, making private school products in- eligible for State university grants.

Much of this programme is very likely to be put into effect in any case. But because it is inconclusive, negative and unimaginative some of the party intellectuals have not un- naturally cast around for something better. The most likely opening lies in taking another and closer look at Fleming-type solutions. A number of factors make these more plausible than they were even five years ago. If one works on the basis of a 50 per cent quota of local authority places the cost is estimated at between f15 mil- lion and £20 million. This would indeed be a formidable sum for local authorities to find but since it is now Labour's declared intention to lift much of the cost of education off the rates and on to central government much of that objection disappears. As to selection for places, a sizeable proportion of the 3,000 or 4,000 places which would be available could, it is now thought, be filled on straight grounds of social need—children with broken homes, unsatisfac- tory parents, parents abroad or peripatetic in, say, the services. Furthermore, providing there are enough applications, it is relatively easy to make an intellectual cross-section when selecting children for places and the results of a recent survey in Swindon published in the spring num- ber of Where? show that even among working- olass families there is an astonishingly high potential' demand for boarding school places. Finally, the move in the State system towards break in schooling at thirteen or fourteen rather than eleven-plus makes the private and public sectors easier to dovetail.

All this makes Flemingism more plausible but it is a fairly safe prophecy that for the moment these ideas will get absolutely nowhere with the leadership. Their real drawback is that they will not appear justified on grounds of social re- form unless the character of the schools is totally changed by putting in a higher percentage than 50 of local authority boys. But a higher per- centage than 50 would cost more in cash and parliamentary trouble to the leaders than would itself be justified by the social advantages to the community. It seems very likely therefore that for as long as Labour's Educational Trust grinds on with its inquiries and perhaps for a long time .afterwards anxious governors and headmasters can relax, their jobs secure;

apoplectic retired officers can let their blood pressure subside in the knowledge that the back- bone of the country is still rigid; and impover- ished parsons' and schoolmasters' wives can continue to scrape another £2 a week out of the housekeeping so that little Willie may have the education of a gentleman.