The education gap

There's an immense and very damaging gulf between some of our children who start life with every possible chance, and others who start life with little to hope for. A 2005 report* showed that your chances of getting into higher education are dramatically affected by where you live.

Some might be surprised to learn that Basingstoke & Deane includes wards where children are among the most severely disadvantaged in the country, compared with other parts of the borough that are near the top of the table. The gap is extraordinary. In some parts of the Borough fewer than 38 children in a hundred achieve five GCSEs at grades A, B or C; in other wards the figure rises to over 60%. That's bad enough, but then look at the consequences. In the wards with lowest reults, fewer than one in six young people stay on into further education, contrasted with the highest placed, where up to half or more of all young people do so. Think about the impact on a young person's life. One has every opportunity to go to a leading university, get a good degree and enjoy a prosperous and fruitful life. Another sees university (if they think of it at all) as a distant prospect, "not for me".

Of course some kids go to uni, fall apart and drop out in the worst possible way, while other kids surface from impossible-looking circumstances to lead distinguished careers; yet others lead happy and contented lives without the benefit of a degree or a job that others would consider exciting. What bothers me is the inequality of opportunity, with some fighting against all the odds while another gets all the breaks. What also bothers me is the impact on all our futures if we just let this problem fester. The future prosperity of Basingstoke & Deane depends on attracting and keeping the industries of the future, who increasingly demand and need highly qualified, well educated workers at all levels. More and more routine, lower-paid jobs will inevitably shift to low-cost areas. Kids with few GCSEs will find it harder and harder to get a well paid job. Their kids in turn will have poor educational opportunities - a spiral of despair.

So what's to be done? Clearly this isn't something that can or will be easily fixed, but here are some thoughts.

First, we need to recognise and agree that this is a problem for all of us, not just for those who live in or near the areas where kids face the problem. Poor education breeds unemployment and poverty; unemployment and poverty breed crime and antisocial behaviour; crime and antisocial behaviour affect all our lives, whether we live in the countryside, the leafy suburb or the 'problem estate'.

Second, we need to accept that this isn't just a problem for the schools and the education system. Try as hard as they might, even the best teachers in the best equipped classrooms will not fix this problem if their pupils and students get the wrong sort of pressure from parents, from the neighbourhood gang, and from older brothers and sisters. I was born in a council house when going to uni was an even remoter possibility for us back street kids than it is today - and I know from my daughter (a local secondary teacher) just how much damage can still be done by the wrong message from parents, even in an excellent school with a good record of university success.

I'm delighted that in Basingstoke and Deane we've accepted that the Borough council has clear responsibilities to work on educational improvement, rather than shrugging it off as a 'County' matter. But just as the education system cannot solve the problem, neither can governments - local or national. This is a problem in and for communities. And as Christ reminded us, in this as in so many ways "everyone is my neighbour".