Ewan Crawford: Textbook lessons in how not to bridge the inequality gap

Only a fool would believe that children in Govan are somehow less intelligent

IN HIS best-selling book The Audacity Of Hope, Barack Obama tells a truly shocking story about the state of the American education system. During a visit to a mainly black high school in the Chicago suburbs the then young senator discovers that pupils are sent home at 1.30pm every day because the school district cannot afford to pay teachers to come in for the afternoon.

A couple of chapters later Obama discusses President George W Bush's tax cuts – nearly 40 per cent of which were directed at the wealthiest one per cent of the population.

This is inequality on a grand scale – massive tax cuts for billionaires; no school for poor African-Americans.

In Scotland, of course, many of us like to think our egalitarian, common-weal values would ensure such a social outrage could never happen here. But the facts are less happy.

In 1951, during the supposed golden age of Scottish education before all the child-centred nonsense came in, the historian TC Smout reminds us that the vast majority of Scots had left school at 15 or younger.

"The system," wrote Smout, "had defined the overwhelming majority of the population as stupid, and reaped the miserable consequences."

Today we can still hear a variation of that ethos from some politicians, such as the sainted Vince Cable, the Lib Dem Treasury spokesman, who seem offended at the notion that half of young people should have the opportunity of a university education.

In fact, as the former Labour cabinet minister Alan Milburn pointed out last week in his report on social mobility, Fair Access to the Professions, the issue for those on low and average incomes is not that there are too many opportunities but too few.

The report's central claim – that social mobility is getting worse - has generated much comment although, surely, little surprise.

Here in Scotland, we have in effect our own annual social mobility report. It's called Scottish Schools Online and details the relative performance of all the country's schools.

Although not of Chicagoesque proportions, the inequality highlighted is still staggering. Take our largest city – Glasgow. Last year, 9 per cent of leavers at Govan High School went on to university (Vince is probably happy about that). Up the road in the West End, the comparable figure for Hyndland Secondary was 44 per cent. And further along Great Western Road, 86 per cent of pupils at the fee-paying Glasgow Academy left to go to university.

Only a fool would believe that children in Govan are somehow less intelligent than those who live in Hyndland or whose parents have healthy bank balances and decide to go private.

Sure enough, every year when these figures come out we are told to look at deprivation indicators such as the number of children on free school meals. There is of course a clear relationship.

But I have never understood those who say these tables should not be published because they tell us what we already know – that educational attainment is related to family income. The website should be a daily reminder of how far our country is from what many of us think it should be.

The more difficult question is what to do about it. Working as a strategist for the SNP, during those far-off days when the Bank of Scotland and RBS made huge profits year on year (yes, they really did), I can remember conversations about how we should respond to the bankers' apparent success.

At the time the SNP was becoming increasingly (and rightly) interested in Scotland's relatively poor rate of economic growth. We felt it was important to celebrate good results, not denigrate them, as might have happened in the past.

This emphasis on growth soon caught on – to the extent that the then First Minister Jack McConnell surprised us by announcing that it was to be his number one priority. This inevitably opened up a new debate. The issue of business taxation – and lowering it to give Scottish firms a competitive advantage – became a serious point of discussion. For a time there seemed to be the possibility of some sort of consensus emerging.

In the event Labour retreated from the idea, worried about the constitutional implications of equipping the Scottish Parliament with such powers. The results of that decision are clear: as things stand, any Scottish government – SNP or Labour – has limited ability to boost growth in good times or bad.

For equality (and social mobility) there is a clear lesson. Firstly the SNP should not be shy in talking about these issues more, therefore lifting them up the political agenda. That does not mean a retreat from the sustainable growth agenda. There is no contradiction between growth and greater equality.

Labour in Scotland then has to engage in the debate. It's interesting that in England the issue of equality is being taken more seriously by even devout New Labour figures such as James Purnell. North of the Border the party's strategy consists essentially of demonstrating its hatred of Alex Salmond in the hope that everyone else will too. That leaves no room for ideas.

Ultimately, though, like growth, tackling inequality in Scotland means being serious about getting hold of more than just marginal tax and benefit powers, and as the Calman report makes clear, that is a step too far for our more timid politicians.

Ewan Crawford was private secretary to SNP leader John Swinney, 2001-2004