VINCE CABLE, the Business Secretary, is threatening our top universities with financial penalties if they refuse to take in more working class pupils at the expense of talented six-formers from private schools.
Under the old system of selection through the 11-plus, there were inbuilt unfairness’s that led the ideologically driven Labour government at the time to throw the baby out with the bath water. Instead of fine tuning the old system, they set about imposing an ‘equality agenda’ on the nation’s state schools.
This led to the comprehensive system that we have today. Grammar schools were set upon in Tudor fashion; they became the modern contrast for the dissolution of the monasteries. Shirley Williams played the part of Henry VIII – considering her religious background, it was an unfortunate situation to find herself in - but socialist needs must.
Over the decades since its introduction, the political classless (who, after all, prioritise peoples votes) have tried to impose the egalitarian ethos on state education. Even Margaret Thatcher continued the rout of grammar schools when in power. But all this has done is to dumb down both the curriculum as well as GCSE and A levels; until it has become almost impossible for a student to fail.
The so-called Equality Agenda has no place in our children’s education. Dumbing down humiliates the gifted pupil and cheats the less gifted and more vocationally inclined. In the 1950s, we had technical colleges and polytechnics (soon to be given university status) to direct us toward a professional livelihood.
These new ‘universities’ proliferated. In the 1950s there were other pathways to success for those without academic ability. Today those pathways have been tarmaced over by the creation of the new egalitarian pseudo universities, that have been put in place to, partially, at least, make the parents happy; which, let us face it, makes all politicians who need to keep their seats, very happy.
Even if it was possible to bring equality into education, it would not be desirable; as we see today in the devalued worth of our exam results - and now the same strategy is being forced on the elite universities, and if they succumb, the same retardation will sweep through those universities as it has already done through state education since the birth of the comprehensive system.
VINCE CABLE, and those like him are (particularly on the Labour benches) acting in Pol Pot fashion; and are about to dumb down this nation’s greatest educational assets in order to bring equality to education. This asset is worth billions from oversees students who rightly believe they are getting the finest education in the world and are being well tested by it. Such a belief will be cruelly undermined if Cable’s ‘progressive’ threats are bowed down to by Oxford, Cambridge, Durham, or Imperial College London.
Equality in education seeks to rid academia of what no doubt the progressive types would regard as elitism. This is to say that there should be no losers. For if we have winners and losers - where then is equality?
Cable should realise that elitism in education is education in its finest form. It produces the most gifted intellects no matter from what portion of the class system is worshiped.
As far as the working class are concerned, the 11-plus, had it been reformed and allowed to continue would have provided what Vince Cable today demands. But alas socialist mumbo-jumbo was heralded, as the true elixir, that would herald the socialist dawn.
I doubt today that Shirley Williams truly believes in the comprehensive system and the way it has developed. She will not of course admit it publically – but like her old comrade (when in the SDP) Roy Jenkins, who fell afoul of doubt about multiculturalism, she might also mention her doubts about comprehensive education to a trusted friend before her end.
If comprehensive education resulted in dumbing down, then Vince Cable’s threats would lead to the dumbing up. The only students that should go to university are those academically suited to do so. But what has happened over the decades is that, through the dumbing down of subjects; all but those from the chav estates, are now finding themselves at a university.
EDUCATION IS NOT something to be toyed around with for ideological reasons. It is meant to bring the best out of the individual – and that ‘best’ may not meet the requirements of a university placing. But it could nevertheless offer other educational pathways - as it once did.
Cable should withdraw his talons and allow the so-called ‘elitist universities’ to plough on without the threat of financial penalty. The whole system of a state education has been traumatised by the comprehensive experiment. Now Mr Cable seeks to replicate such disturbance among our most influential universities.
Being as we are in the grip of so-called ‘progressive’ politics; Mr Cable will pursue his prejudices to the very end. Being ‘all the same’, is now regarded, along with abortion, as being ‘progressive’.
The last system built upon such ill-equipped foundations was of course that other pillar of Left-wing progressiveness, the Soviet Union; which, after 70 years crumbled into dust, but still left in its wake the debris of socialism which today clings like a limpet to the hull of the ship of state in this country.
Equality of opportunity is the only context in which ‘equality’ should be deployed. If an educational system offered opportunities to all based upon academic ability from whatever background the students came, then there is nothing to protest about. If there is something to protest about in the modern educational system, then it is the likes of Oxbridge and Durham that should do the protesting.
VINCE CABLE SHOULD be sent packing and told to provide the universities with more worthy candidates than the comprehensive system has so far managed to provide. Oxbridge and Durham are not prejudiced at a class level despite the outpourings of the Labour Party’s prejudices. Elitism means the best regardless of class.
Elitism is at the pinnacle of all human activity, whether in education or sport (in light of the Olympics). Elitism has nothing to do with class but ability; and, as a term is applicable to all sorts of vocations and activities outside of the realm of academia.
But it is within academia that the Left find it so nauseating. Why? Because the Left carries the baggage of equality and seek to transplant this virus throughout society and all of its activities: education being the paramount activity that moulds the mind - and they indeed wish to mould the mind of future voters to the culture of egalitarianism.
Each and every one of our finest universities should challenge Cable to do his worse and carry out his threat. It is a meaningless threat because if the universities refused to pay the fines he warns them of, what would he do?
Would he also, like Shirley Williams, follow in the footsteps of Henry VIII, this time regarding universities? I think not. Cable knows that our premier universities are in the driving seat and his threats are hollow.
I suggest that Cable’s threats should be ignored, and the universities that fall foul of his penalties should continue on regardless. He (Cable) thinks he can reduce the spines of the universities to putty by threatening them with fines – they should hold fast, in defiance of such a shallow threat.
Our great universities are beyond the grip of politicians and so they should remain. Academic standards are the primary function of such institutions, and if politicians wish to narrow, lower, or undermine such standards, then it is up to those universities to stand fast and prevail. If not they will succumb to the same dumbing down that the rest of the educational environment went willingly to meet.
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