Neglect and deprivation are the badges of British education. This is especially plain if we make comparisons with educational systems in other European Union countries.
In the league table of 25 industrial countries spending on education as a percentage of national income comes out last but three in the United Kingdom. Attendance among 16-18 year olds is below the European average. So is enrolment in higher education as a proportion of the relevant age groups.
The crisis in higher education has been the subject of three separate reports to the British Government. The Secretary of State, David Blunkett, is about to give his response. His Department has been busy downgrading the status of this response from the promised white paper on lifelong learning. Meanwhile, this year's applications to university by mature students have fallen by almost 20 per cent. Nine months into the New Labour Government, the abolition of maintenance grants and the imposition of tuition fees have put off one in five mature students. So much for lifelong learning and 'education, education, education'.
Michael Barratt Brown, a lifelong teacher in adult education, here offers us a careful critique of the Dearing, Kennedy and Fryer Reports. Though the three of them together reveal the crisis in British education, the case they present for tackling the crisis remains within a perspective that is fundamentally flawed. As Barratt Brown says, 'The flaw is financial. All three committees have had to work within warnings from the Treasury that there would be no more money and threats from the employers that they could afford to contribute no more ... All three reports recommend an increase in Government spending. They all draw attention in the most serious possible manner to the low rate of participation in further and higher education in the United Kingdom and the low level of education of the work force'.
The situation is desperate. One in six of the population over 16 has serious problems with basic skills. Less than 30 per cent of young people attend an institution of higher education. Only 17 per cent of those from the lowest income groups get 'A' levels or equivalent, and less than half of those who get two 'A' levels go on to higher education. By contrast, 59 per cent of young people from the highest income groups get 'A' levels or the equivalent, and over three-quarters of those who get two 'A' levels go on to higher education.
Tony Blair emphasizes that his Government's decision to pick students' pockets to raise funds for higher education ('"reform" of student finance') forms part of his wider plan for 'reform' of the welfare state. This boils down to rationing basic services through the price mechanism. Certainly, the detail of these fundamental 'reforms' has hardly been thought through at all. The means testing of £1,000 annual fees for European Union citizens coming to study in the United Kingdom should produce much pencil sucking, if only a little net revenue. But now these charges are being challenged through the European Commission.
In particular, the plan to charge fees for higher education for those European Union students coming to Britain under the Socrates programme gives rise to particular doubts which are quite serious. The President of the National Union of Students has written to the European Commission asking it to rule on whether these fees, and their means testing, contravene European Single Market legislation and the regulations governing European educational exchange programmes.
Clearly, these barriers conflict with the principle of free movement of students across Europe. The Commissioner responsible for education, Edith Cresson, has expressed serious concern about impediments which they place in the way of students wishing to study in other European Union member states. She has taken up the matter with Mario Monti, who is the Commissioner responsible for the completion of the single market and the related question of the right of freedom of movement around the European Union for all its citizens.
Recently, Hugh Kerr MEP interrogated David Blunkett on these matters when he visited Brussels on 4 February. Mr Blunkett refused to answer. Is he aware that this policy may be regarded as incompatible with European law? Or could such impositions have been introduced in ignorance? Once again, New Labour's warm words about Europe are exposed as hollow. Would it not be ironic if the result of David Blunkett's plans, which he claims will open up higher education, is that they lead to retaliation from other member states with the result that British students might be excluded from European exchange programmes?
It had always been hoped that closer unity with other European countries would offer advantages in taking best practice wherever it was to be found. As we've said, this pamphlet shows that the United Kingdom comes very low down in the comparative tables of European countries' educational provision -- in spending on education as a proportion of national income, and particularly in spending on higher education and in tertiary enrolment at ages 18 to 21. Recent studies in the National Institute Economic Review (July 1997) have, moreover, shown up particular weaknesses in UK pupils' performance in mathematics. These are all cases where lessons can be learned from other countries' experience.
At the same time, there are some areas where the United Kingdom can show the way. One of them is in the large number of mature students, studying both part-time and full-time -- the latter quite tragically cut back by the new funding arrangements. Another is the relatively large scale of medical and health education. A third is the large enrolment in the natural and applied sciences.
Finally, there is an obvious advantage in speaking English. While this puts the UK at the bottom of the league in foreign language teaching, nonetheless it offers big opportunities for students from other European countries who wish to familiarise themselves with the English language, and to enjoy its global coverage.
With the pending loss of the large recruitment to UK universities from Asian countries, any interference with recruitment in Europe would further damage them by reducing their income. The vision of European educational co-operation offers great possibilities of a common advance. The alternative, to look away from these possibilities, and follow the narrow agenda of competitive cost-cutting, would be to betray European civilisation.
Next section - Part I - The Education Crisis