Educational Inequality

In this essay, I am going to examine the inequalities that face our education system and how we should solve them. I will discuss the consequences behind such inequalities, and name various contributing factors to the ever growing issue. Furthermore, I will delve deep into the realities that many people are suffering in the UK and the effects that unequal education has had on our growing capitalised society, where sadly, even facets such as education are taken into ones selfish greed, due to the privatisation of schools.

The left wing Marxist would argue that private schools are wrong, because the only way to guarantee fairness would be to have everyone’s lives governed by the same thing: The Government. Opposing Karl Marx would be Adam Smith. A right winged capitalist who believed that one should live in the free market, and have some sort of inequality, in order for humanity to progress. The things we do in the free market are not for others, but for ourselves and this allows us to control our own lives with the money that we make. This is perfectly acceptable, however a flaw in this argument with regards to education is that it relies on the fact that everybody starts on a level playing field and that simply is not the case. How is it truly fair if we are not given the same tools to start with? As Karl Marx once said “Democracy is the road to socialism”. In a democratic government, the people choose what they think is right, and the power is not held by the few. However today, the quality of education is unevenly distributed, so lower social classes do not actually have a choice in the matter at all.

The idea of inequality, especially in education, is present in so many literary works. Charles Dickens makes great use of the issue in his novels, particularly in Great Expectations when we see Pip struggling to better himself through his education, then all of a sudden being given a large fortune, thus receiving a better education, because he actually deserves it. Furthermore, 

if we look at 20^th century American writers, the idea of struggling to better yourself and wanting success is there, but many can’t do that, because they are not given the tools that get you there. Many just expect to get lucky. This is present in Fitzgerald’s works, such as The Great Gatsby. In The Great Gatsby, we witness Gatsby living his luxurious lifestyle; the lifestyle that he was so obsessed with, as he was growing up poor. Gatsby is so desperate to escape this lifestyle, that when he finally is rich, he changes his name and lies about his past. This theme of desperately seeking social mobility and a better future is present in a lot of American literature. Another example would be John Steinbeck, and “The Grapes of the Wrath” as the Joad family go through so many traumas, desperately trying to survive. Furthermore, it is also present in “Of Mice and Men”, as George and Lennie dream of owning their own house, and having all the other luxuries and in fact, many of the other characters dream of getting something out of life and working hard to get it.

We may not live in early 20^th century America, but the sad thing is that the issue of inequality is still present in our modern society.

Bringing it to a more modern context, the way wealth is currently distributed in the UK is frankly what I would call… unequal. In the UK, the richest 20% own more than 60% of the whole of the UK’s wealth, and the poorest 20% have 100 times less than that, having only 6% of the wealth (The Guardian, 2013). To put it into perspective, out of every £10 in the UK, the richest 20% will have £6, and the poorest 20% will have just 6p. Furthermore, in a recent survey, the Office of National Statistics has said that the richest 1% of the UK have accumulated as much wealth as the poorest 55% of the population (Office for National Statistics, May 2014). Understandably, in every meritocratic society, some have more than others, but this has completely been blown out of proportion. The scale is entirely imbalanced, and it is tipped in favour of the wealthy. This huge economic gap is greatly affecting the working-classes and is also growing.

Thomas Piketty, the French economist, examines this issue nicely in his book “Capital In The 21^st Century”. He gives us a historical account of economic inequality, explaining that wealth was only really distributed in a more egalitarian fashion during the time of the first, and second wars, and during the depression. Only when there is very little, is wealth equally distributed, which is quite interesting considering the wealthy people are the most powerful, and in a capitalist society are typically in control of the wealth of others through monopolies. Thus, in times of desperate need, wealth is distributed evenly as it is the most the wealthy can receive without completely ‘killing off’ the economy.

Currently in the UK, the richest 20% will have on average £18,680 spare money each year to put into a savings account and invest, whereas the poorest 20% will be on average £1910 in debt (The Guardian; May 2013). As a consequence, the money that the richest receive is growing, and the money that the poorest have to give servicing their debt is growing, thus widening the economic gap. This has a great deal of consequences on other important aspects of life in the UK.

Wealth greatly affects the health of the poor. On average, people living in the poorest neighbourhoods will die seven years earlier than those who live in the richest neighbourhoods (Marmot, 2010). One of the causes of this would be that those in poorer neighbourhoods do more unskilled, manual work, whereas in richer neighbourhoods, people tend to do non-manual work. Countries with more income inequality suffer from more health issues (Wilkinson and Pickett, 2009). These include: obesity, life expectancy and infant mortality.  The physical health of people is not just affected, but the mental wellbeing of many also follows the same correlation. Statistically, countries with higher income inequality have a much worse index of health and social problems (Wilkinson and Pickett, 2009). Yes, with income inequality arises many a social problem. Common social issues being: underage pregnancies, substance abuse, lack of social mobility, homicides and imprisonment. Where I live, I see these kinds of things every day. I have neighbours that have been in prison numerous times, and when I am out, it is hard not see drug dealers gallivanting around, feeding people drugs as though they are sweets. Is that the kind of childhood you had to deal with? This makes my chances of being able to socially mobilise become significantly reduced. It makes me limited in the places I can go in my life, all down to the background I come from. How exactly can we solve these issues? How can we tighten the gap between the rich and the poor, thus reducing all these health and social issues? Well, the first thing I would say is education.

In general, changing a part of the education system impacts the wider society, as the next generation changes in an economic or ideological sense.

Piketty also recognises that inequality in general is affected by the education we receive. He said: “Over a long period of time, the main force in favour of greater equality has been the diffusion of knowledge and skills” (Piketty, 2014). This means that as time goes on, inequality is increasing as knowledge is being diffused to the wealthy. As a consequence of this, very little opportunities are offered to me as a student from a socially-deprived background.

We should give children from socially deprived areas good education, so they are able to go out in the world and become more socially mobile. This gives them a good platform to start on, so that they can climb the ladder out of social poverty, and have a sense of self security. Education is the basis for every society, so changing it allows one to flourish. However a huge problem that we face is that income inequality heavily affects the education system, probably more than it affects the health and social problems our country faces.

In our country, socio-economic background highly dictates the places you go in the future, which is, we will probably all agree, highly unjust.

What Is The Problem?

Why is it that kids from socially deprived backgrounds, result in statistically being the worst performing in their exams? Why is it that only 35.5% of students eligible for Pupil Premium actually achieve 5 A*-C by year 11, as opposed to 62.8% of other children? (HM Treasury, 2008, p.26) Why is it that young people from low-income households are approximately 3 times less like to gain a degree, compared to their more affluent counterparts? (Bynner et al., 2002) This is huge problem that many people are failing to recognise. Furthermore, it only makes this economic gap larger. Students from deprived backgrounds earn less than their parents because of a number of contributing factors. Whereas students from more affluent backgrounds are given high standards of education and other things, leading them to be earning more than their already highly earning parents. Some may argue that the education system is not flawed, it is due to the fact that University’s like Oxford and Cambridge fail to reach out to state secondary schools, and in fact build a lot of relationships with alternative private schools. But I would further argue that state secondary schools fail to teach students to achieve the high standards that Oxford and Cambridge set. Students in state schools are not able to reach these standards unlike their private school peers, because of educational inequality. This is a huge problem in our schools, and not the university admissions system in particular.  It is a sad truth that many of us fail to acknowledge. In our society, social mobilisation is only for the already mobile. Young people from socially deprived backgrounds are consistently limited by the schools they go to. Schools in poorer areas have low quality teaching, under-staffing and under-budgeting. I am currently a victim of this.

In the school that I currently attend, 51% of pupils achieving 5+ A*-C including English and Maths is the best results my school has ever had (DfE: School League Tables, 2014), despite that, it is still below the national average. More than half the pupils at my school come from the poorest 30% in the UK (IDACA score, 2014). The amount of pupils at my school eligible for Pupil Premium is well above average, and so is the number of EAL (English as an additional language) students largely above average (Ofsted report, 2013). In the most recent Ofsted report (December 3^rd-4^th 2013), my school was deemed “Requires Improvement” for all four categories that are inspected. My school has recently come into budget problems, closing the Sixth Form, making numerous redundancies, and axing subjects such as Drama, Music, Citizenship and IT. As a consequence, classes are highly overpopulated, and space is tight. Regardless, new students come to my school pretty much every day, and many can’t speak English to a good standard. I have seen many of these students are actually thrown into Set One classes like my own, making the classes far more mixed ability.

In the school that I go to, I believe a very careless attitude is given to the quality of education given. They do not give a very holistic education to us students. I say this because the priority of my school is to ensure that it gets as many EAL students as possible, thus receiving further funding for EAL support. Their priority is to get the lower achieving students as many GCSE’s as possible. This is something I can’t exactly moan about. They have no choice, due to the fact that they have unfilled spaces, and they can’t exactly refuse the spaces to these people. This is the only way my school can actually carry on, especially since they have a very limited budget. As a consequence, it takes a very utilitarian attitude towards the school body, and will prioritise the majority, those being weaker, and usually EAL students. A very ‘one size fits all’ attitude. I don’t want to completely insult my school, because the things that my school has done for EAL are amazing. There are many I have known from year 7 who could barely speak a word of English, and now they are in the top sets getting the best grades in the year. I can’t fault that, but I don’t belong within that. I am not part of the schools priority, and the schools general ethos which is something I will discuss later on.

For people like me, it limits what I can do. I live in a socially deprived area of Birmingham, and as a consequence, I go to a challenging school. Generally, the area that the school is in is reminiscent of how good it is, and as a consequence, the area that you are from can typically dictate your intellectual capabilities, and how far you will go in life. For people like me, it means that I am a victim of a poor quality education and much less support and attention, because high ability students from socially deprived areas are quite commonly forgotten about. I am consistently not challenged enough, because the needs of weaker students come first. I am never really understood, and am often pushed down to the standards of weaker students, because that’s what many teachers assume me to be, when in fact, I deviate so much further away from that. 

This starts when kids are really young, and sadly gets exponentially worse as they get older. Studies that have assessed child ability over time have showed that children who scored highly on tests aged 22 months, but were from low socio-economic backgrounds, were eventually overtaken by their more affluent peers (British Cohort Study, 1970). People from lower socio-economic backgrounds are forgotten about, because many only see potential in the wealthier children. This does not make the future look very promising for lower class students, which is why their potential is wasted. I don’t want to be that person that is forgotten about, and thrown amongst other forgotten students. One of the reasons behind wealthier kids gradually overtaking their peers is because of the many luxuries their parents can provide them. Their parents can provide them with things like books, extra tuition and visits to museums and theatres, which overall enhances their education and thus their academic ability. People of low socio-economic background are not really provided with an intellectually stimulating environment, therefore the notion of being curious, or wanting to pursue further academic attainment is not really present within these households. This is generally because the level of education their parents have received is most likely poor. This again relates to the idea that Piketty puts across about the “diffusion of knowledge” (Piketty,2014), as if we live in an intellectually stimulating environment, where academia and intelligence is around us all the time, then we are far more likely to become that type of intelligent person.

Many people are surprised to know that both of my parents left school without a single GCSE or without any qualifications at all for that matter. My parents are just like many of the parents of my peers at the school I go to, however I am relatively lucky compared to my peers, because both of my parents are employed (it is worth noting that many people who are employed are still in poverty), and consistently encourage me to pursue a more academic future. Despite this, I still suffer just as greatly as my peers, which says a lot about how the best education, support and attention is only given to the wealthiest, and the large majority is forgotten about. In fact, children of non-manual workers are 2 and half times more likely to go to university than someone like me, a child of manual workers (Hirsch, 2007). Yet there are many people like me who want so much out of life, and have the potential to do so, yet we are still limited by the schools we go to.

That is probably one of the biggest issues I have. The fact that  many of the students in the UK who are hungry for academic success, and have a thirst for knowledge are just forgotten about, whereas wealthier students, who may not work as hard, or may not want it as much are given a better quality of teaching and support! In fact, there are studies that suggest that state school students that make it to University actually do better. Of those students who achieved ABB at A-level, some 69% of students from independent schools went on to gain 2:1 or above compared with about 77% of students educated at state schools (BBC, 2014). This is clearly because state school students are just as smart, and have just as much potential and because, like me, they have a good work ethic, and a drive to do well. We have had to fight more for our education. Understandably, there are many kids from lower classes who genuinely don’t care, so why should they be given a good quality of education? Their attitude is down to who they are influenced by, not our system of education. But even so! Despite the fact that the quality of education is poorer in low socio-economic backgrounds in general, it is even poorer for those from low-socio economic backgrounds who actually care about their education. Ironically, more support and attention is given to careless students, rather than bright academic students, especially in schools like my own.

What Are The Causes of This?

There are many things that contribute to all the inequality in the education system of the UK. The first cause I will talk about is an extension of what I talked about in the previous section.

Careless Students

There are many comprehensive schools across that UK that house some of the naughtiest kids. These types of kids are disrespectful. They couldn’t care less about their education, or anyone else’s for that matter. This is a huge problem, and not caused by our schools in particular, but more by the students home environment. Nevertheless, schools are expected to deal with it, and as a consequence are often blamed for the problem. Schools already receive very little funding, despite the fact they have to try and deal with these oblivious kids. This results in most of the support and attention being given to the kids who misbehave, rather than the kids that actually want to learn. I have been in many a lesson, where the whole period has been devoted to aimless screaming at students to stop misbehaving, thus not allowing the teacher to teach us what they need to, and help those who deserve help.

Furthermore, the whole environment of the classroom contributes to how much one can learn. Being at the school I go to, you eventually have to learn to build resilience against noise, and be tolerant of other people’s stupid behaviour, in order to actually get something done. However, I still have difficulty trying to concentrate on what I am doing, because there are so many children in one small classroom, causing a riot and making a deafening sound. I quite frequently feel the urge to walk out most of my lessons, because I can’t physically concentrate, but I resist.

As a consequence of this, support and attention goes to careless students, telling them to be quiet etc. Thus, the potential of hard working students from lower socio-economic backgrounds is wasted. Simply because if the majority is weak, then the attention and support will go to the weak, which many of the attendees of our lower class schools are.

It is unfair, how the only way I can push myself in school is to sit at the back of the classroom with a GCSE textbook, and take my learning into my own hands. I shouldn’t have to do that. I’m sick and tired of it, and you can only get so far with a textbook. I crave for someone to be able to give me the help that I need, rather than me just sitting at the back of the classroom, having to essentially teach myself.

Comprehensive vs. Private schools

Everybody knows that richer and wealthier children are given the opportunity to go to private school. Hold on, one can get a better education if their parents are rich? Well… yes, and that is the sad reality. In no way does this allow social mobilisation, if the already wealthy are being given better tools to become even wealthier. Some may argue that many private schools are just like comprehensive schools, and they are not really given that much of a better education at all. Well, I’m afraid the statistics say differently. On average, nearly £4000 more is spent per pupil in the private sector, than in the state sector (Est. DCSF 2009 & Independent School Council). This inevitably means more opportunities, better resources and better teachers.

Speaking of better teachers… Overall, 13% of all teachers teach in an independent school, and out of that 13%, 54% of them went to an Oxford or Cambridge college (Smithers and Tracey, 2003). This is opposed to the fact that 83% of all teachers teach in a Grammar or Comprehensive school, only 45% of all those went to Oxford or Cambridge. So clearly, those in private schools are getting better, more intellectually qualified teachers.

Another huge contributing factor that means private education is better than comprehensive education is class size. Many argue that having a larger class size is actually better, as it creates more of a community within a classroom, and helps students in a social aspect. However, this isn’t the case in a class in a socially deprived school. As already mentioned, in lower class schools, behaviour is something that needs to be dealt with a significant amount of the time. Therefore, having large classes tends to make the classroom environment comparable with hell for those who actually want to learn.

It is clear to see that going to a private school gives you a significantly better education, which is what I would argue to be extremely unjust. It means that our academic achievement will be dictated by our parent’s wealth; a factor that we can’t control.

On the other hand, Grammar schools will open students up to the idea of exclusivity, not by our parent’s wealth, but how hard we work. This is thus a good motivation for students to work hard for academic purposes, as it shows that academic achievement in itself does actually mean something as opposed to our social class. This is something that attracts me to the idea of going to a Grammar school.

Lack of Ethos or Value

This point is similar to the first one. Many comprehensive schools fail to adopt any proper ethos, or try and teach certain values. Many will brag on their websites about how they instil these certain values in every aspect of the school and they have a certain ‘history’, but the reality is that they don’t. In fact, these are the schools like my own, where they don’t particularly care about the futures of the kids, just the futures of the school. The types of schools that couldn’t care less if students are aware of how much progress they need to make or have made, but when Ofsted come, it’s a completely different story! That’s when we become experts in how much progress our students make. Or maybe that’s when we start furiously writing levels on people’s books and spoon-feeding them what to say when Ofsted come.

Without having any ethos of value, for many students school becomes a boring and horrible place to be. Just a place where you have to go and work hard all the time, and for many students, it is meaningless and they don’t want to do it. Whereas, with some sort of ethos, students then begin to understand why they are doing something and perhaps start to enjoy it.

Another problem with schools in socially deprived areas is that of the very little ethos they have, their consistent reasoning behind doing hard work is “to get good grades” and “to get a job”. The fact that going to school is reduced to just “getting a job” is quite sad really, because it doesn’t encourage students to enjoy something, or develop a passion for something, which makes them less inclined to do it all together. Whereas in better schools in better areas, for them, employment isn’t a priority, as it is certain they will be in a job of some sort. As a consequence of this, students are given space to become interested, rather than just doing it for the sake of doing it. This is why statistically, those who have qualifications in higher levels of education such as A-Levels, Degrees and maybe even a PHD are generally happier than others (Ipsos Mori, 2008). This is because they go to work not to earn money, but to do something that they love, and that they are passionate about.

This becomes a problem for more socially deprived schools, because students feel pessimistic about the future, and feel that job prospects are bleak. But the thing is, I do not want that. I am hungry for success, and I aspire to go to the best colleges and universities. I don’t want “employment” to be a factor that contributes to academic success. I want to at least go to a Grammar sixth form, and attend an Oxbridge College as the ultimate goal. I know where I want to go, and I want it so badly. It is no exaggeration to say that one of my emotional purposes in life is for academic success. But sadly, as already said, I am statistically not the person for that, and from personal experience, I know I am being held back.

General Environment

People who live in socially deprived areas are surrounded by so many negative aspects of society. Whereas, if you have wealthy, successful parents, then it is far more likely you will be in an environment with good people, who surround you with academia, and education, because it is typically what their parents live and breathe. At the dinner table, you will see successful people like lawyers and managing directors. This kind of career and this certain level of academic success comes by influence, because it is the type of thing that surrounds you every day. However when you are from a working class background, it is highly unlikely that you will be surrounded by this intellectual environment. In communities like where I live in Stechford, I will see what one might describe as the complete opposite of this every day.  Being in a place like this, there are two ways you can go:

a    

•       Observe these social issues day to day, and acknowledge how bad they are. This gives you first-hand experience with the issues, and only then can you truly understand how horrible they are. This way, you understand the realities of society. Furthermore, this encourages you socially mobilise, as it makes you ambitious, due to the fact that you already have very little, so it motivates you to want more.

Or

b

•         This is the world you were born into and these are the laws you abide by. The idea of being in a gang and having social dominance is appealing to you, due to the fact that being academically dominant is out of the question, too difficult, and “uncool”. Committing crimes and being rebellious is something frowned upon by others, but admired by “us”, the people in your area and the people who are part of this ideology.

The sad part is that many people from lower class areas opt for the latter. It is easy in the short term. It gets you a reputation, and it gives you something to feel “proud” of, as if you have “achieved” something. I have a neighbour who has been to a number of Pupil Referral Units, and would never be able to attend mainstream school. Sadly, he is the type of person to end up in prison and we all know it, however when questioned on his actions, he doesn’t particularly care. The sad part is that his parents don’t either, and there is nothing that angers me more than careless parents. It builds up the stereotype that the parents of socially deprived backgrounds are careless about their children, and sit around all day encouraging them to do these bad things, with no moral compass. Wealthier children are often taught earlier certain values, and as a consequence, they have more of a sense of social construct, and how to behave. Furthermore, they are less likely to succumb to these ideologies that the media espouses to young people because they are given poor education that doesn’t inform them of the real world. Fundamentally, people want attention and too many people will commit crimes because it is admirable to ‘some’ people. This is the only and easiest way that kids in socially deprived areas get ‘attention’. In fact, it is sad that the media spurs this on, by featuring news stories about violent youth, who have nothing going for them, whereas young people who are academically successful and do so much good in these communities are hardly recognised.

How Can We Solve Educational Inequality?

In any great society, there will always be unfairness, and we can never completely solve the growing problem of educational inequality. However we can greatly reduce it in a number of ways.

More financial investment into Comprehensive Schools

This seems like a generic way to fix a problem, however I feel it is something that we really need. Investing more money into poorer, comprehensive schools will boost social mobility, thus boosting the economy.

Moreover, to get the best teachers into these schools, we need to give teachers a good salary. Someone who has graduated from Oxford or Cambridge is not going to settle for a teachers wage, thus making these graduates not want to go into teaching. Raising the salary of teachers will certainly make more academically-minded people feel more inclined to go and teach in lower class areas.

Overcrowded classrooms, poor resources and low quality of teaching are not what poor children deserve. We deserve exactly what our wealthier peers get. Furthermore, I generally believe that privatising something as basic as the education we get is wrong. It is creating monopolies out of education, and that shouldn’t happen.

Investment of Time and Knowledge

As well as investing financially in these schools, we should invest more of our time and knowledge into these schools as well, especially with regards to employment.

In many comprehensive schools, we are consistently told that we need to be able to get a job when we leave education, however we are never given the skills to be able to get a job. Furthermore, we are never told about respected qualifications or advice on the types of things we should be doing. I have had this issue with my year 9 options, where my school has offered a range of BTECs and other non-GCSE qualifications, but have failed to tell us the actual value of these qualifications; it is sad to know that many in my year have chosen terrible, disrespected subjects. As a consequence of this poor guidance, it is likely that they will not receive the highly prestigious jobs.

In fact, people who went to private school account for only 7% of the population; however 75% of judges, 70% of finance directors, 45% of top civil servants and 32% of MP’s went to private school (Unleashing Aspiration Report, 2009). That small part of the population take up most of the well respected and well paid careers. One of the reasons behind this would be that higher class students are given the correct guidance on what qualifications to take, in order to get them where they want to be. This is different in many Comprehensive schools. Should my education actually limit what I should do in later life?

Emphasis on Grammar Schools

Grammar schools are unlike independent schools. I have already mentioned that Grammar schools open students up to exclusivity not by the background we come from, but by how hard we work. Regardless of how much you can pay a Grammar school, you can only get in if you can reach a certain academic calibre, and that is what society should be about. Grammar schools are the main engines of social mobility, because they stop people from being trapped within a certain class. They offer the same learning environment that private schools would offer, to those who can’t afford it, meaning that these students can do just as well as those in private schools. A meritocratic society should hugely advocate the use of Grammar schools. It is about academic ability, over socio-economic background and it always should be.

Generally, we are too often judged by our parent’s wealth, and that should not be the way it is. We shouldn’t let our backgrounds define who we are, because that doesn’t make room for change. Social mobilisation will boost the economy, and reduce income inequality. The way to boost social mobilisation is through the way we distribute good quality education.

Educational inequality is a huge issue that many are ignoring, and an issue I know I have the potential to address, by becoming involved in Social Policy and an advocate of equal education in later life.