Learning and Skills

The Government’s preposterous, admittedly inherited commitment to fifty per cent university admission (though note, please note, completion) is contrary to the whole purpose of universities, entrenches the view that education is really only something for the very young (on whom, in fact, it is largely wasted), and depends on the assumption that a life without a degree (or, rather, without a “university experience”) is not worth living.

Of course, if we can afford the Iraq War or the “renewal” of Trident, then we could instead afford free undergraduate tuition (at least). And of course, if the Scottish Parliament can abolish tuition fees without using its revenue-raining powers, then its block grant should simply be cut by the cost of extending that restoration throughout the United Kingdom.

But, just as there should be generous maintenance grants, wholly regardless of parental income, for academically the most able students going to universities, so should there be for the most promising entrants to vocational courses and apprenticeships. The latter would be produced in sufficient numbers if we had proper technical schools. And the former would be produced in sufficient numbers (nowhere near fifty per cent of the total) if we brought back grammar schools.

Furthermore, all manner of economic, social, cultural (not least, academic) and political good would be done if, between the secondary and the tertiary stages, there were universal non-military, but nevertheless uniformed, ranked and barracked National Service, doing good works while travelling around the country and beyond, and while meeting significantly broadening the range of one’s friends and acquaintances.