Education, Edumacation, Ejucayshun...

David Bradley as Billy Caspar - 'Kes' (A Kestrel for a Knave) - 1970

Well, I’m not going to be all ‘missish’ about the supposed sanctity of the Polling Booth. We all know there is actually no such thing as a truly anonymous vote, so I am proud to say outright that I shall be voting for the Labour Party next week. Not just the Labour Party, but specifically the Labour Party of Jeremy Corbyn.

I like him. He’s seen a bit of life. He’s paid his dues. He’s the sort of dogged, charming old socialist I used to see around when I was growing up. Sometimes you wanted to punch them one when they came out with some daft theory, but most of the time, you forgave them, because just like Jeremy, whatever bollocks they came out with, you could at least be certain it was sincere, heartfelt, genuinely caring bollocks.

Like a lot of people, I’m tired of scrubbed-pink-faced 39-year-old public schoolboys in Savile Row suits with PPE degrees from Oxbridge and 15 years in the City telling us what we need. What we need are jobs that net us enough to pay our rent and mortgages and kiss off our debts. It’s no good telling us that every new housing scheme means more employment so we should all get behind the developers and rejoice at every bit of land we see being bulldozed for new ‘homes’.

1. We wouldn’t be in such a parlous mess with housing if Maggie Thatcher hadn’t flogged off so much of our council stock without replacing it,
2. building work is by definition, finite, and
3. we’re not all hod-carriers and plasterers.

Another thing we need is decent education for our kids that will give them a fighting chance in the bear-pit of the employment market. Furthermore, we need it to be good enough to compete with those whose parents can afford to send them to private schools.

Here’s where ‘Jezza’ and I part company. He hates Grammar schools and wants to do away with them. Perhaps it’s because he went to one himself, but I see them as the only real chance many smart working class children actually have to get to a place where they can seriously challenge the old order. It worked for Jeremy. I frankly doubt that if he’d gone to my school, he would be where he is now.

I saw 1970s comprehensive education first hand. It was all about lowering the bar so everyone could clear it. It was about making stuff so easy that everyone could get at least a C. The smart kids who weren’t fortunate enough to live within the catchment area of a Grammar school got bored, bunked off, became punks, and got arrested for trying to set fire to the school. Our most famous ‘old boy’, Graham ‘Suggs’ McPherson of ‘Madness’, had joined the school when it still implemented streaming. He was in the top stream all the way through. He was tipped for Cambridge, but he decided to go on tour as a roadie for ‘The Clash’ instead. You can lead a horse to water, and all that... Thing is, at least he had that choice. He was smart enough, and those smarts were recognised, and nurtured – free.

I believe all education should be free. I also believe there would be no need for private education if state education was just as good. I am all for scrapping university loans in favour of grants again – as long as getting into university goes back to being as tough as it was when I was a kid.

Let’s get this straight. It was never ‘free’. It was always on the taxpayer’s buck, but because school exams were tougher, there weren’t so many school leavers qualifying for it. That’s why we could afford to offer it on the same basis as state secondary education. Now it seems nearly every kid qualifies. Back in the days of ‘free’ university education, you needed a minimum of six good O levels and three A levels to apply. CSEs didn’t count - even if it was claimed that a Grade 1 at CSE was equivalent to a C at O Level.

Now every year, we’re supposed to believe that more and more and more kids are clocking up record results at A level. We watch as nervous babes open their results on live breakfast television, and whoop with them when they see that their results mean they’re guaranteed a place at uni - yet mystifyingly, fewer and fewer of them seem to be able to spell, or give you the name of the capital of Peru without Googling it.

It’s little wonder when you hear of homework not being corrected, even at supposedly ‘good’ state schools, for fear of “stifling creativity”. That makes me uncomfortable. Somewhere along the line, someone has sold these kids out, and the finger is pointing at my generation - and the generation before mine. Seems to me that the crucial difference between qualifying for uni back in the ‘good old, free old days’ as opposed to the present day, was the difference between the O level and the GCSE we have now.

Get any teacher who’s old enough drunk enough, and they’ll admit the GCSE is a piece of piss compared to the O Level, and that we’re selling our kids short, but they’ll not so much as whisper it sober for fear of losing their jobs. The elephant in the room is that the GCSE is the CSE with a fresh lick of rebranding. Don’t be fooled.

Back in 1979, I remember sitting in my Headmaster's office being reprimanded for bunking off. He was trying to suspend me, and I was talking him out of it as I sipped my tea, bought from the out-of-bounds caff across the road.

He was exasperated. Finally, he exploded: "But you're different to the other children in this school. You're articulate, you're able to express yourself…"

I was furious, and exploded right back at him: "It's your fucking JOB to make EVERY CHILD IN THIS SCHOOL 'articulate and able to express' themselves!" I raged.

That’s it and all about it as far as I am concerned. By all means, give kids as much or as little as they can handle - without shame, without penalty - but I maintain it isn’t socialism to treat poor kids like crabs in a bucket, and deny them the chance to climb out.

Yes, I’ll be voting Labour, but I’ll keep on arguing this one…

© Emmeline Wyndham - 2017