UK comes near bottom in social mobility table
Researchers at the London School of Economics claim educational opportunity has diminished under the Blair administration.
British schoolchildren were adjudged to have one of the worst records for social mobility in the developed world, the report said, with children from poor families less likely to fulfil their potential compared to other developed countries.
Britain and the US came bottom of a social mobility league table of eight European and North American countries.
Norway came top followed by Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Germany and Canada.
Wealth was more clearly coupled with educational attainment in Britain than in the other countries, with working class children stuck in the worst schools and less likely to progress into tertiary education.
The report said the expansion of higher education in the 1980s had inadvertently benefited more affluent families.
It claimed the percentage of children from the poorest fifth of society earning a degree rose from six to nine per cent, while those from the richest fifth of families rose from 20 to 47 per cent.
“The expansion of higher education since the late 1980s has so far disproportionately benefited those from more affluent families,” the report said.
“Family income in the childhood years does make a genuine difference to educational outcomes. Income inequality has risen at the same time as the gap between the educational attainments of the richest and poorest has grown.”
Sir Peter Lampl, chairman of the Sutton Trust, the educational charity sponsoring the study, said the findings were “truly shocking”.
“This is a damning picture and there simply isn’t enough urgency to try and do something about it,” he said.
“The results show that social mobility in Britain is much lower than in other advanced countries and that it is declining.”
Sir Menzies Campbell, Liberal Democrat deputy leader, said parents of less privileged children were deterred from university because of the costs involved.
His party is fighting the election on the ticket of abolishing tuition fees.
Sir Menzies said: “We believe that universal provision open to everyone is the best way to deal with these problems.
“That is why we are opposed to tuition fees and top-up fees.”
“We would ask people who earn over 100,000 pounds a year to pay a little bit more to eliminate these obstacles.”
Meanwhile, David Willets, Conservative work and pensions spokesman, said catchment areas in poorer neighbourhoods were primarily responsible for denying children access to a high-quality education.
“The catchment area for local schools sometimes constrains opportunities,” he said.
“Parents should be able, when they choose the school that is best for their child, to have a much better chance of getting the kid in there.
“What we have are parents who have got the right judgement about what is in the interest of their child, but what they can’t do is have the money from the state following their choices.
“This is a government where things are going backwards.”
Tessa Jowell, Culture Secretary, blamed eighteen years of Tory government for the problems appearing in the here and now.
“What it shows is that if you do nothing, then social mobility remains constrained,” she said.
“Across the maternity hospitals of every major city today, children’s life chances are handed out at the moment they are delivered by virtue of who their parents are.”
