Michael Kelly: Education equality requires fundamental reform

AFTER years of successive Labour governments trying to improve education we still have a system that its senior members shun. The action of Stephen Curran, a councillor and prospective MSP for Glasgow Southside in agreeing to his kids being educated at St Aloysius' rather than at his local comprehensive, encourages sarcastic condemnation.

Such attacks do Labour education policies no favours. But a more fundamental question is why is the perception of state education still so bad that Labour politicians opt out for fear of sacrificing their kids on the altar of political dogma?

Stephen Curran is just the latest in a long line of Labour elected members stretching right back to my own time on Glasgow Corporation in the 1970s. Then we were trying to democratise the few local authority grant aided schools that remained. The education convener, Dan Docherty, was ritually pilloried because he sent his own kids to St Aloysius' which was even more exclusive than the schools we were attacking. His excuse was that his wife made him do it. It didn't wash.

As the Labour Party's electoral support becomes increasingly middle class the party faces this dilemma over a whole range of social issues - to go with the selfish goals of individuals or to promote policies that will benefit the deprived by making radical changes. In contrast, the Tories are lucky in that they have adjusted their political convictions to sit comfortably with their conveniences - private health care and fee-paying schools being two luxuries they can both afford and encourage.

Defenders of the comprehensive system claim it works well over vast tracts of the United Kingdom. Where it fails is where the environment does not naturally provide the right social mix for a successful school. The problem is that these areas, our cities, are where a huge proportion of our population lives. And there most comprehensives have failed.

Education is a fundamental human right which influences the wealth, longevity and understanding of those who benefit from the best of it and condemns those excluded from opportunity and fulfilment.

Voters should be fired up to end such unfairness. Excluding education from market forces should be an easy sell to those who promote the equality agenda. And equality will only be achieved by fundamental reform. Start by abolishing all private schools. Why? Because they are there. They are a symbol of an elite that is determined to perpetuate itself and for those who want to buy their way into that elite. Not that the pupils have to be well-suited to an academic education. However thick, they build up the networks that will see them comfortably promoted for the rest of their lives.Nineteen Prime Ministers from Eton: imbalance personified.

Nearly a quarter of secondary pupils in Edinburgh and 12 per cent in Glasgow have educational advantage bought for them. Getting rid of their schools would allow state schools a better chance to balance the social numbers. And with all those aspirational parents around standards would rise and extra-curricular activities would be better funded and organised. Of course, to ensure social balance across the schools bussing would have to be introduced. But what's new? Parents already run their kids across cities to get them to the 'right' school. The principle is established.

Such an upheaval would allow the introduction of a flexible system that was based purely on merit with the most talented kids encouraged to reach for the heights and the mainstream helped find its level. Let's encourage elitism but base it on ability not ability to pay. When I outlined this simple thesis to some of my Labour Party colleagues this week it was greeted with horror. No doubt those facing election cringed at the thought of trying to sell it to the right-wing media. They cited freedom of choice, one condemning it as 'communism not socialism'. But freedom of choice is used by Conservatives as a device to allow them to hold on to their privilege, wealth and power. It fools the majority by conning them into thinking that they have the same choices. Truth is they will never be able to afford a genuine choice over where they send their kids. For them less freedom is a better choice.

Others abhorred the social engineering involved. But if society is broke, who better to fix it than an engineer? It is time to end the tinkering and go for a complete overhaul. Labour point to the fact that already many more resources are pumped into schools in deprived areas in an attempt to make things fairer. The success they claim is exaggerated. They talk about using town planning and other powers to create better social mixes in our big cities so they each become a little village where everyone is happy to attend the village school. There is talk of developing a diversity of schools with some devoted to the sciences, to the humanities, to sport and to vocational training.

It is all too cautious and too slow. Social justice demands a revolution. That is why the hypocrisy of some Labour politicians is a red herring. Society is not changed by people showing a good example. It is changed by changes in the culture and the law.

Earlier this week in these pages Allan Massie suggested different solutions to the problem of failing schools - selection and parents' choice. But the 'good' state schools are filled to bursting. Not everyone in Glasgow can move to Newton Mearns and hope to find a place at St. Ninian's. The market would answer his solution by returning us to the days of Junior and Senior Secondaries with children locked into a career path by selection at 11 plus.Like health, in education the rights of the many to insist on equal opportunities easily outweigh the narrow rights of those who want to buy their children a better chance. 'We need schools suited to the abilities of all their pupils,' argued Massie. I agree. My solution would bring it about. His would simply reinforce the strangle-hold the middle-classes have on our cities' schools.