Merit? What’s that? Class still rules Britain

Hasan Suroor
The Hindu, 8 October

Figures show that social mobility in Britain has declined over the past decade and is behind other advanced nations.

British Conservative Party leader David Cameron has described Britain as a “broken society” blighted by a collapse of traditional family values; a growing gun and drugs culture; a rise in anti-social behaviour among the young; “uncontrolled” immigration; and creaking public services — to mention just a few things that, according to him, afflict Britain after 10 years of New Labour.

Given his own background (son of a stockbroker and educated at Eton and Oxford) what Mr. Cameron, unsurprisingly, failed to mention is Britain’s continuing class-divide. Actually, he could have made quite a thing out of it considering that the whole New Labour project was designed to move Britain away from class and promote merit and social mobility. But then mentioning class would have exposed the class snobbery in his own party, and among its core supporters.

For all the talk of modernisation, the Tory mindset remains warped by class. Indeed, Mr. Cameron got himself into serious trouble with the Tory rank and file recently when, in a bid to reposition it as a “modern” party, he opposed selection in schools and declared that under a Tory government there would be no new grammar schools.

But what about Labour which came to power in 1997 promising to build a “meritocratic” society liberated from the stranglehold of the old-school-tie network and the notorious “postcode” syndrome? In the new dawn that Tony Blair and company promised, merit was to replace considerations based on wealth and class. In the summer of 2000, when a working class applicant, Laura Spence, failed to find a place at Oxford University despite good grades, Chancellor Gordon Brown called it an “absolute scandal” sparking a nationwide debate on Oxbridge’s elitism.

After 10 years of New Labour, however, class still rules, social mobility remains poor, and the rich-poor chasm is widening. Figures show that social mobility in Britain has actually declined over the past decade and is behind other advanced nations. While the middle classes have benefited, the poorest sections continue to struggle. And the “post-code” still matters as the following passage from the Liberal Democrat leader, Sir Menzies Campbell’s speech to his party’s conference in Brighton shows. He cited the example of two London neighbourhoods to highlight the social/class divide:

“In London — the capital of one of the richest nations in the world — just six miles separate Hampstead from Hackney. But they might as well be in different countries. If you live in Hackney, you are four times as likely to suffer from long-term unemployment as your neighbour in Hampstead. If you live in Hackney, you are twice as likely to be permanently sick or disabled. And if you live in Hackney, you are four times as likely to have no qualifications at all. Who’d have thought it, that after a decade of Labour government — a Labour government — the gap between rich and poor in this country would be wider than it was when Labour came to office? Who’d have thought that after a decade of Labour government, social mobility would be in decline? After 10 years, these are the facts: Fewer than one in five of the most disadvantaged children get five good GCSEs; less than one in five of the most disadvantaged children go on to higher education; and in this country today, 1.2 million.”

The area where the class divide is most visible is higher education which continues to be dominated by the middle and upper middle classes. Ironically, this is also the one area where the government has genuinely worked hard to break down barriers even at the risk of being accused of “social engineering.”

There are two issues here: widening access to higher education, traditionally the preserve of the upper classes; and opening up the “Ivy League” institutions such as Oxford and Cambridge universities to children from state schools and poorer backgrounds. On the first point, there has been some progress but it is feared that the introduction, last year, of top-up tuition fee of up to £3,000 a year could slow things down with students from disadvantaged families likely to be deterred by the cost of going to university, although so far there is no evidence to confirm this.

Experts have warned that irrespective of the fee factor, the number of students from the weaker groups going to university is set to fall sharply by 2020. And, according to the Higher Education Policy Institute, an independent think-tank, the government’s goal of getting at least 50 per cent of all school leavers into university by 2010 is highly unlikely to be achieved. The government, of course, has dismissed these projections as too “pessimistic” and is confident of meeting its target.

Opening up the elite universities to candidates from state schools is even more problematic. A new report from the Sutton Trust, one of Britain’s most respected education charities, reveals that one-third of the places in the country’s 13 top institutions, including Oxford, Cambridge, the London School of Economics, and Imperial College (London) are monopolised by students from independent schools. The report, based on an analysis of admissions between 2002 and 2006, shows that despite similar school-leaving results the number of successful applicants from independent schools was disproportionately higher compared to those from grammar schools. The “killer fact,” as one researcher associated with the report told the BBC, was that the top 30 independent schools had twice the numbers going to Oxbridge than the 30 top grammar schools. This despite the fact that many of these universities, acting under government pressure, are trying to reach out to candidates from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Sir Peter Lampl, Chairman of the Sutton Trust, said: “It is deeply worrying … that the chances of reaching one of these highly selective universities are much greater for those who attend a small number of the country’s elite schools, mainly fee-paying. Where does this leave the vast majority of the population who do not have access to these opportunities?” There was no getting away from the fact that a “class structure” operated at Oxbridge, Sir Peter said. “We actually do have a class structure and that gets in the way of trying to do something about this.”

Deliberate discrimination?

The findings have ignited conspiracy theories that applicants from state schools are deliberately discriminated against in order to preserve the class structure. It is also claimed that the system is heavily “worked” by the old-tie network involving tutors from independent schools — themselves alumni of Oxbridge institutions — and university admission dons.

A Guardian reader wrote about his experience which, he said, convinced him that the “ruling elite will always look after their own.” It is worth reproducing his letter to give a flavour of this nexus. William Bailey wrote: “Forty years ago I attended a fee-paying school which supplied a steady stream of Cambridge undergraduates, mostly to the same college. The reason for this was that our headmaster was a friend of the admissions tutor for that college — being good at rugby helped, but so long as the A-level results were reasonably good, in you went. It was my misfortune to apply for Cambridge shortly after the said tutor died; with the contact gone, admissions dried up.”

It is also the case that the admissions system in these universities is designed to test qualities that the more confident and articulate public school children find easier to deal with. Moreover, public schools have an aggressive policy of coaching and motivating their students for life-at-Oxbridge-and-after whereas many state schools simply don’t bother.

As The Times columnist, Libby Purves, pointed out, many state schools do not encourage their students even to apply to Oxbridge universities on the assumption that they don’t have a chance anyway. “State school applications to Oxford and Cambridge have fallen by five per cent … when 75 per cent of Cambridge applicants are from ‘upper or middle classes,’ no wonder more of them get in,” she argued. Teachers at one comprehensive told her: “Don’t mention Oxbridge. We don’t encourage them [our students] to apply; it’s setting them up to fail.”

So, it is at the point of entry into higher education that the self-perpetuating class cycle kicks in as Oxbridge graduates then go on to run the country and become the ruling elite, controlling everything from politics and civil service to the BBC. Mr. Cameron told his party’s annual conference last week that he wasn’t apologetic about his posh background because he knew that his heart was in the right place. Granted. But leading a party so wrapped up in class what chance does he have of changing things when New Labour, with its avowed working class roots, failed?