CBI boss Richard Lambert has not, unlike his predecessor Adair Turner, understood the reality of the 21st Century. He has railed this morning about:
The education system .. failing pupils from poorer homes and producing exam results which "we ought to be ashamed of"
As he correctly points out:
There is an absolutely straight correlation between GCSE results and free school meals, a straight line so the most deprived get the worst results
And he’s right. And he’s also absurdly wrong in offering his comment that:
The problems are rooted in a "culture of low aspiration"
No they’re not. They’re rooted in a culture of deprivation, as his own comment on free school meals shows.
There are many faces to deprivation. The common factor to all of them is lack of money. This is not an accident in the UK: it is deliberate. Some of our largest companies (major supermarket chains and retailers, major facilities management companies and government service contracting out groups, caterers, and more) base their entire business model on paying wages that ensure deprivation.
I offer an example. Sir Terence Leahy, boss of Tesco, earlier this year:
attacked "woefully low" standards in Britain's education system and blamed the government for a surplus of quangos and guidelines.
But average full time equivalent pay at Tescos in 2008 was under £13,000. Now, I know that might be distorted by pay in Asia — but the majority of employees are in the UK and so whilst pay may be higher than that in the UK on average it remains massively below UK average pay however calculated, which exceeds £20,000 by all measures used. And Tescos are the UK’s biggest private sector employer.
Lambert says that underachievement is linked to free school meals. These can be claimed by anyone with pay of less than £16,040. That’s on average all the staff at Tescos.
So like it or not Tescos, and employers like it, are paying the wages that ensure people claim free school meals which seem to be linked with a lack of aspiration and poor education results. This is the crisis for education. we’re training people to do work which is demeaning, boring, and dead end. And you want them to be inspired at school when they see that is their prospect?
There are, of course, solutions. The first is to train people quite differently. Competence is not key to young people, capability is. We demand competence in some absurd things like IT skills which will be redundant three years after they leave school. we do not teach them the essential capability to adapt, which means preparing them for life long learning and change.
The second is to massively reduce differentials in society by serious redistribution of income and wealth: then people can have hope of a fair chance. Reduced differentials enhance fairness of outcomes, and nothing is more motivating than fair outcomes.
Third,we have to pay teaches more. Especially those in difficult subjects. It’s absurd for example that few state schools can offer really good science curricula now. This has nothing to do with quangos or anything else. this is undervaluing education. and business must pay for this by paying more tax.
So it’s back to you Richard Lambert. call for:
- Higher pay for lower paid staff
- Better paid teachers
- More tax overall
- More redistribution in society
- Better qualifications for life
- More meaningful work
Then we’ll solve the education problem.
I’m waiting to hear from you.
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A person called Augustine posted the following comment which I deleted in complete error, so I post it for him:
Dear Richard,
Undeniably there are many,many of our fellow citizens who are experiencing a culture of deprivation.
I have no empirical evidence as to the causal relationship (if any) between the culture of deprivation and the culture of low aspiration. However, if these two aspects of life are for a moment treated as being different, if you talk to teachers (I am not suggesting that you do not) in state funded schools in parts of the UK that are more deprived, then many teachers make a clear distinction between deprived families with no aspiration (or having apirations that might not be wholly appropriate for the continued well being of a complex society, crudely instanced by the desire for designer clothes, expensive cars and generally, an easy life, but not wishing to work in the more traditional ways), and deprived families who have and introduce their children to aspiration (for example who wish their children to be decent contributing members of society, provide parental support and, again for example, encourage their children to train for a career).
Equally teachers who teach children from less deprived backgrounds recognise the lack of aspiration holds children back and limits the ability of children to experience the benefits and joys of schooling.
The teachers I know (I am not a teacher0, welcome aspiration and wish that it was more evident. They also recognise that with aspiration even though there exists deprivation, they are able to achieve so much more with the children under their care.
Again I do not have verifiable emipirical evidence for this, but my understanding from my reading in history, is that the growth of the Labour party, the growth of the Co-operative movement, the growth of the public library system etc was out of strata of society that was deprived but had apiration. The difference the aspiration has made to our lives in the twentieth century has been profound.
Now, if what you are saying is that a characteristic of deprivation is lack of aspiration then I am not sure why you are disagreeing with Richard Lambert. If deprivation has more than one characteristic then any attempt to identify and alleviate one of the characteristics must be a good thing. Do you not agree?
If however you are suggesting that alleviation of deprivation should override any attempt to identify lack of aspiration and also override any attempt to alleviate and encourage aspiration in itself, then I suggest you are misguided.
It is physically difficult to change deprivation in the short term (or even the medium term) but it is probably easier to change levels of aspiration in the short/medium term. It is not necessary to ignore deprivation when putting effort into enhancing aspiration and I suspect, that changing aspiration will have a positive impact in alleviating deprivation.
If the aspirations of all of our children was turned up a notch or two (I know that this is a metaphor but it is possible to identify valuable aspirations and also identify the comparable intensity of aspirations), then the future of our society would be enhanced. Many of society’s children from deprived backgrounds need to be introduced to what the world could be like, what our society could be like, what, as individuals they could achieve, and to make visions of the future their own. Surely this is enhancing aspiration? Surely this would be a good thing? Yes, deprivation would continue to exist and alleviation of deprivation is an ambition to be worked towards, but part of the journey of alleviation might be aided by recognising that aspiration is lacking in many children remedying this lack might be a very positive way forward.
It will not surprise me if you dismiss my comments. So be it.
I wish you well.
Kind regards
Augustine
Augustine
You entirely miss the point
Aspiration cannot be dealt with when there is nothing to aspire to unless you are in the top 10% (or less) and you are instinctively aware that they are making darned sure that social mobility is reducing so your chance of breaking in is being reduced
As that is currently true we have no choice but redistribute to a) break the stranglehold of the minority b) provide resources for the majority to
provide them with the capital they need to back their aspiration
Richard
Dear Richard
You say that I entirely miss the point, if so, I am remiss but I thought that in saying “he’s also absurdly wrong in offering his comment” about a culture of low aspiration, you were dismissing the importance of aspiration in helping to change the opportunities available to those children living in deprivation.
I guess I must be wrong in thinking the the phrase “absurdly wrong” is a comment on and response to what purports to be a factual statement made by Richard Lambert.
What I was trying to do in my response was to understand your assertions which in turn were a response to Richard Lamberts analysis. I am trying to make sense of what you are saying and testing what you say against what I assume to be true with a view to obtaining a clearer view on matters that are important.
For example, you say “Aspiration cannot be dealt with when there is nothing to aspire to unless you are in the top 10% (or less)”.
If this statement is true then I am puzzled as to how the Labour and Co-op movements etc developed and using a more recent example, how Nelson Mandela came to lead an African country.
Is it not the case that introducing those living in deprivation to aspiration is one way (not the only way) in which their state of deprivation might be changed?
Returning to you statement about the top 10%, I suggest that if you were to stop 1,000 people in the street and ask them whether they agree that if they are not in the top 10% (of what) of people in the country it is not possible for them to apire, you would be met by incomprehension. This suggests that what you actually mean is different from what you actually write which is not useful in somebody committing to furthering understanding about very important matters.
What troubles me, and I am reluctant to believe this to be the case, is that you might be advocating that those who at present are to be considered deprived are not to aspire (and indeed based on what you say, cannot aspire) and it is down to individuals such as you (and not the deprived) to generate the change that alleviates deprivation? And this change can only be achieved through redistibution. If so you are shouldering a burden that is almost certainly unnecessarily harsh (I am aware from a number of your other entries that you might welcome such a burden).
Perhaps there is sense in what Richard Lamberts says. As one who benefited from free school means, I know that it was not my state of deprivation that changed but the culture of aspiration in which I lived that changed my life. This is also true of many of my friends and colleagues.
As before I wish you well and also wish I could understand more clearly what you are trying to say.
With kind regards
Augustine
Augustine, I suggest you read The Spirit Level, which explains that it is not absolute poverty which creates this sense of low aspiration, but gross inequality, which is now far more observable in today’s mass-communication society.
Dear Richard,
Once again you exibit a tendency that is common throughout your blogs and responses. You give the appearance of wanting to dismiss egagagement rather than engage in discussion. You have not answered me, you have not addressed the points I raise, rather you simply raise another point and/or point me in another direction.
Now, that is OK by me, but it reflects, I think, on the nature of your desire to seek the truth.
I will continue to suspect that your grasp on the importance of engendering aspiration in all our citizens is lacking because you have not stood back and reflected on the ordinary individuals you know (if you know any)and what they aspire to achieve for themselves, their children, their family and friends. Supporting and introducing aspiration into our fellow citizens is very important and should not be dismissed as “absurdly wrong”. To think otherwise suggests a lack of sympathy and imagination.
I acknowledge that the achievement of aspiration requires both a realism in the aspiration (we cannot all be international footballers, famous celeberities or even successful opinion makers) and structural realignments in society but even so apiration is important.
Progress in dialogue is rarely achieved by the behaviour of diverting attention or dismissing those that question what you state. Go back and look what Mo Mowlen did in Norther Ireland, she did not refer the Protestants to Joyce and did not refer to Catholics to William of Orange she famously sought accomodation by entering into dialogue with both sides.
In respect of what I take to be given in good grace a reference to a publication of note, I readily admit that I have no idea what “The Spirit Level” is and I would be grateful if you would please enlighten me.
Your response reminds me of the Fathers at the Brompton Oratory (I do not live in London or attend the Brompton Oratory), who often assume that everybody in the congregation understands Latin. The Fathers may be very smart but it doesn’t assist in engendering the aspirations of those in the congretation who do not understand Latin.
Given you religious background, I ask you not to be so dismissive of the points I raise. I understand that blogging is part of your life and you need to respond and exhibit clear opinions. Even so, you invite comments and these comments should, I suggest, be part of an ongoing dicussion in which we all seek truth.
You have not responded to the relationship between aspiration in deprived communities and the achievements that arose from those communities. Do you simply ignore, what history teaches us about the bringing abour of change (the Laboru Party, the Co-Operative movement, Nelson Mandela (the list, as you know, could continue)).
As ever I wish you well.
Kind regards
Augustine
The 2009 Christmas edition of New Scientist magazine carries an interesting article on psychological studies of the extent to which being flash is about seeming sexy.
An implication is that, in a society where there is no longer an expectation that people will be celibate until and unless they marry, seeming sexy will be important, and to the many who cannot depend on their status to make them attractive, clothes and cars are the next best thing. This is tapping into deeper instincts than work ethics.
In a more equal society, young men are still going to prioritise showing off to the girls, one way or another. Tangible and visible achievement, however shallow or dishonestly attained, will always trump mere dreams, which is what aspirations are.
Another thing; it seems to me that there is too much aspiration already, and thus too many disappointed people pining for what they could never have had at all, and too many crooked people getting by foul means what they could never have had by fair.
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