If you are old enough – and have any interest in politics or, indeed, children – I’m sure that you will remember as far back as 1997 and a young, energetic Tony Blair calling for a huge change in the numbers of young people accessing higher education. Famously the New Labour government wanted to see 50% of all 18-year-olds attending university.
Now, whilst there a great many valid arguments about whether such a target was a sensible one – purportedly leading to a huge rise in non-qualifications – each successive government has broadly stuck to the same aspiration, and generally speaking a highly developed economy needs young people capable of taking on highly complex and technical jobs. As a global leader Britain needs our young people to go to university.
Over the years the proportion of young people attending university has increased significantly. As a nation we’re not too far off that 50% figure, albeit that application numbers have seemed to take a significant dip this year with unprecedented numbers of vacancies still available at leading universities as we enter the clearing period.
But what is also clear is that there is still a gross inequity when it comes down to where young people entering higher education come from.
Last year 69.5% of school leavers living in the leafy London borough of Wimbledon went to university. Similar, if slightly lower, proportions went from equally leafy Hammersmith and Chiswick, Battersea, Richmond Park and Twickenham.
Contrast that to just 13.1% of school leavers from Barrow and Furness going to university. Many down at heel seaside resorts such as Great Yarmouth, Blackpool South or Lowestoft didn’t fare much better.
It’s always been this way and always will be. The more affluent (and educated) amongst us understand the benefit of education, the more deprived, arguably, less so. Barriers are placed in the way of those in poorer areas, some are societal, some are familial. Successive governments have – to a greater or lesser extent – tried to remove barriers at the same time always being mindful that there is an element of personal responsibility too. No matter how many access initiatives a government introduces you can take a horse to water but you can never make it drink.
But whilst the inequity is a national issue it’s also a very local one too.
You see, parts of Coalville are amongst the very worst in the country when it comes to accessing higher education.
Last year, as a parliamentary constituency, just 29.1% of
school leavers in North West Leicestershire went to university[1].
That’s well below the national average.
But that figure really does bely disparity within the constituency.
Using slightly older data from the Office for Students[2] the percentages attending university from ‘Middle Layer Super Output Areas’ around Ashby and Castle Donington (and their surrounding villages) hugely prop up the constituency wide picture and effectively hide the dire situation around access to higher education in Coalville.
It’s notable that MSOAs E02005406 (roughly the streets around Coalville Park) and E02005405 (roughly Greenhill and Agar Nook) rank amongst the lowest neighbourhoods in the country for accessing higher education. Both rank in the lowest quintile nationally. Greenhill and Agar Nook particularly ranks lower than many of those deprived seaside resorts with less than 2 in 10 school leavers accessing higher education.
All of this really matters. It matters because educational outcomes link directly to earnings, to health outcomes, pretty much to all quality-of-life indicators.
And whilst the Office for Students data I’m quoting is slightly older than I would like – newer data isn’t publicly available at MSOA level yet – the trends are indicating that the inequity is only going to get worse.
Of course, we can always say ‘government should be doing more’. But governments have been doing more for years to remove barriers to education. In many cases what government is doing hasn’t worked. But as residents of Coalville we have to take responsibility too. We have to see that if we want our kids to have a better life then we have to help provide it.
We have to teach our kids about the value of education. The importance of them working hard in school, of taking every opportunity that comes to them, of instilling respect to teachers, professionals and responsible adults.
We can only expect government to do so much. It’s the people of Coalville who have to get ourselves out of this hole. Because, if we don’t, we can’t complain when those who do scramble out chose to leave us to it.