Yet another ‘new plan’ by New Labour was unveiled on December 11. The function of this particular review is to try and square the circle between the supposed devotion of the New Labour to ‘education, education, education’ and the ranking of the UK in world league tables: 18th for reading, and one from bottom at 24th for maths.
What cannot be disguised is that a perilous slippage in standards, down from 3rd in reading for instance has occurred over the ten years of New Labour management. So how will the proposals such as ‘texting a parent if a child dosen’t turn up at lessons’, or ‘bringing foreign language lessons’, (when one in five currently leave primary school semi-literate) or more information for ‘parents using the internet’ help when the elephant in the sitting room is invariably ignored.
An utterly damning Unicef report nine months ago found that Britain was failing its children and youth. The Unicef study put the UK at the bottom of a league table for child well-being amongst 21 industrialised countries. NHS records show that there were for instance 4,241 attempted suicides by children under 14 in the 12 months up to March 2007. Take into account the rise in gang culture and the murders of a further 26 teenagers this year and its easy to see what Unicef is getting at.
The UN children’s organisation examined 40 indicators including poverty, family life, education, health, smoking, drinking, drug-taking, and unsafe sex and teenage pregnancies. Britain was bottom overall below Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Austria, and the United States. It propped up the table for family relationships and risky behaviour and came 18th out of 21 for poverty, 17th for education and 12 for health. Predictably Ministers sought to play down the findings, saying much of the data used was several years old.
But this is a line devoid of a shred of credibility unless standards could be shown to have climbed dramatically in the interim. If anything, with 200,000 children joining those living in poverty last year the situation is arguably getting worse.
Professor Jonathan Bradshaw, from York University, one of the reports author’s pinned the blame on the UK’s dismal ratings on long-term under-investment, that has resulted in a “dog eat dog society”. He said: “In a society which is very unequal, with high levels of poverty it leads to what children think about themselves and their lives. That’s really what’s at the heart of this.”
Class divisions in the UK are just as wide as they were 30 years ago, according to new research.
They are so stark, according to the report, that a three-year-old child from a poor home who shines in tests is likely to be overtaken by a low-performing child from a rich background by the age of seven.
The report by the Sutton Trust, the education charity set up by Sir Peter Lampl, says social mobility in the UK remains at the low level set in 1970 – when the country was bottom of an international league table. Only the United States amongst Western democracies is on a par with the UK.
It adds that children born today face “stark inequalities”, with 44 per cent of young people from the richest fifth of the population going on to university, compared with only 10 per cent of those from the fifth of the population living in the poorest households.
It also says that the expansion of higher education has – almost exclusively – been achieved by increasing the number of well-off students from middle-class or rich families going to university.
Indeed, the proportion of children from the poorest-income homes dropped from 11 per cent to 10 per cent between the early 1990s and 2002 – while those from the richest groups rose by four percentage points.
Sir Peter described the report’s findings as “shameful” and called for an independent inquiry into how to break down class barriers. “It is appalling that young people’s life chances are still so tied to the fortunes of their parents and that this situation has not improved over the past three decades.”
Or putting it another way; inequality of income, leads to inequality in opportunity resulting in inequality in outcome. Social mobility in the UK fell sharply between 1958 and 1970, according to the report, and has stagnated ever since.
Yet another ‘new plan’ by New Labour was unveiled on December 11. The function of this particular review is to try and square the circle between the supposed devotion of the New Labour to ‘education, education, education’ and the ranking of the UK in world league tables: 18th for reading, and one from bottom at 24th for maths.
What cannot be disguised is that a perilous slippage in standards, down from 3rd in reading for instance has occurred over the ten years of New Labour management. So how will the proposals such as ‘texting a parent if a child dosen’t turn up at lessons’, or ‘bringing foreign language lessons’, (when one in five currently leave primary school semi-literate) or more information for ‘parents using the internet’ help when the elephant in the sitting room is invariably ignored.
An utterly damning Unicef report nine months ago found that Britain was failing its children and youth. The Unicef study put the UK at the bottom of a league table for child well-being amongst 21 industrialised countries. NHS records show that there were for instance 4,241 attempted suicides by children under 14 in the 12 months up to March 2007. Take into account the rise in gang culture and the murders of a further 26 teenagers this year and its easy to see what Unicef is getting at.
The UN children’s organisation examined 40 indicators including poverty, family life, education, health, smoking, drinking, drug-taking, and unsafe sex and teenage pregnancies. Britain was bottom overall below Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Austria, and the United States. It propped up the table for family relationships and risky behaviour and came 18th out of 21 for poverty, 17th for education and 12 for health. Predictably Ministers sought to play down the findings, saying much of the data used was several years old.
But this is a line devoid of a shred of credibility unless standards could be shown to have climbed dramatically in the interim. If anything, with 200,000 children joining those living in poverty last year the situation is arguably getting worse.
Professor Jonathan Bradshaw, from York University, one of the reports author’s pinned the blame on the UK’s dismal ratings on long-term under-investment, that has resulted in a “dog eat dog society”. He said: “In a society which is very unequal, with high levels of poverty it leads to what children think about themselves and their lives. That’s really what’s at the heart of this.”
Class divisions in the UK are just as wide as they were 30 years ago, according to new research.
They are so stark, according to the report, that a three-year-old child from a poor home who shines in tests is likely to be overtaken by a low-performing child from a rich background by the age of seven.
The report by the Sutton Trust, the education charity set up by Sir Peter Lampl, says social mobility in the UK remains at the low level set in 1970 – when the country was bottom of an international league table. Only the United States amongst Western democracies is on a par with the UK.
It adds that children born today face “stark inequalities”, with 44 per cent of young people from the richest fifth of the population going on to university, compared with only 10 per cent of those from the fifth of the population living in the poorest households.
It also says that the expansion of higher education has – almost exclusively – been achieved by increasing the number of well-off students from middle-class or rich families going to university.
Indeed, the proportion of children from the poorest-income homes dropped from 11 per cent to 10 per cent between the early 1990s and 2002 – while those from the richest groups rose by four percentage points.
Sir Peter described the report’s findings as “shameful” and called for an independent inquiry into how to break down class barriers. “It is appalling that young people’s life chances are still so tied to the fortunes of their parents and that this situation has not improved over the past three decades.”
Or putting it another way; inequality of income, leads to inequality in opportunity resulting in inequality in outcome. Social mobility in the UK fell sharply between 1958 and 1970, according to the report, and has stagnated ever since.