I left school nearly forty years ago in 1980 aged 16 since then I have come across countless numbers of people who express surprise that I didn’t go into further education and obtain a degree.
My response is usually that I have been to the ‘University of Life.’
I am of course far from alone, sent to a poor quality comprehensive in an area where my contemporaries with parents who had the necessary means went to the private school nearby. I was put through a ‘sausage machine’ designed to push me out at the end fit only for low paid work.
I received no individual attention, nothing unusual there nor did any of my fellow students. At 13 I was required to choose 8 subjects, only half which really interested me. When it came time to leave any careers advice or guidance was non existent.
I have never gone back to that school and have no desire to.
Wind forward to the present day and we have an Education set up that is still failing millions. A system where overwhelmingly those from a higher social strata get to go to the top universities and then onto the top jobs.
Our parliament, civil service and judiciary isn’t even close to being representative of the wider population.
Some on the left advocate the abolition of the private schools, others suggest measures like the ending of their charitable status and the levying of VAT on fees. However the answer as far as I am concerned is to look at fundamentally improving the state system.
State schools need to be given more freedom through greater local control, class sizes have to be a lot smaller and teachers encouraged to deliver individually centred tuition.
Entry to the profession should be opened up and recruitment widened to encourage those with expertise in a particular area to take up a role in teaching. This already happens in the FE sector.
The role of the regulator Ofsted needs to be examined closely and its remit changed to ensure schools are judged on a variety of measures including those mentioned above.
All of this of course needs money and we should advocate the increased spending needed to provide a first class state education so that in future no child is left behind.
* David is a member of Horsham and Crawley Liberal Democrats