Reintroduce the grammar schools: with a few small alterations | Alex Brown
Grammar schools. They provide an advantage in education and in later life for the brightest students. Evidence from the Institute for Fiscal Studies suggests that selective education can “stretch the brightest pupils, but at the cost of increased inequality”. This is an area in which Britain lags in on the world stage, with countries in Asia achieving much higher grades. But many will write off grammar schools as an elitist project with no intention of helping wider society. Well, they are wholly wrong.
Let’s examine the evidence regarding grammar schools for both their success and supposed failure. You will find that they are the exact inverse of an elitist project and worthwhile venture. However, I do not propose that in their current form, they are without fault - especially in terms of regional divides.
The main selling point of grammar schools is that they promote social mobility and this is certainly true. Evidence from the Education Policy Institute suggests that disadvantaged students who did not attend grammar school in areas of selection achieved 1.2 grades lower than their grammar school-attending counter-parts. This is clear empirical proof of the success of grammar schools at a younger age in terms of education. But looking further to later life in terms of earnings one study has suggested that grammar schools absolutely benefit the earnings of those who attend them, using the lives of students from the 1950’s and later as evidence. This is especially true of women who saw a 15% increase in earnings when compared to women who did not attend selective education.
But when establishing that grammar schools are successful on their own merits, we need to talk about why the probable increase in inequality is misrepresented. Grammar schools by design are meant to be for the more academically gifted pupils, so it is no surprise that when compared to the very varied cohort of comprehensive schools and academies, there is a clear distinction in terms of ability. And if grammar schools were gone entirely, those students would be placed into the mass cohort of mainstream state education, improving school grade averages, thus appearing to bring inequality down. So, in fact, it is simply because students are streamlined into different educational settings that inequality appears higher rather than there being actual inequality.
As well as this, where educational inequality is actually present, it ultimately stems from the external factors, such as the individual family lives of students. One study suggests that “the longer the time spent in a single parent family, the greater the reduction in educational attainment”. And this is also especially true for white males who achieved 1.7 years less education than white women. So to blame the failure of those students on the schools rather than their family life is a mis-accusation on the system. It is therefore clear that the problem of inequality has been dramatically misplaced at the feet of the grammar school system rather than the environment in which those students are brought up and live.
However, not only has the data been misrepresented; the disparity in the way we are discussing it isn’t as big a problem as some may suggest. Grammar schools serve their purpose of enhancing the ability of the brightest students, as shown by previous pieces of data. So when empirical evidence shows that not only do a large portion of grammar school students go on to university (74%) and onto Oxbridge (4%), it shouldn’t come as a surprise that this is more than mainstream state education which only has 60% of their students going onto higher education and 1% to Oxbridge. This is neither a problem nor a definition in any way of inequality since the very design of the grammar school system is to aid the academically gifted no matter their background. To compare it to a very varied cohort is unfair.
Despite all of this, grammar schools are not being utilized in any effective way in Britain. In 1998, the newly elected Labour government forcibly stopped the creation of new grammar schools on the flimsy grounds of – you guessed it – inequality. And though the crisis of grammar schools began with Harold Wilson and continued throughout all successive premierships, support for new grammar schools has been lukewarm in the Conservative Party since. There was, however, the prospect of change under our former prime minister Theresa May, but her backbenchers weren’t keen on the idea and she was forced to drop the policy upon her failure to gain a majority government in the 2017 general election.
This must change if we are to compete on the international stage in education as well as the opportunity for meaningful and self-made social mobility. But simply opening more grammar school is not the answer. We need both expansion and redistribution. There are currently 163 grammar schools in England which makes up only 0.67% of the 24,323 English schools - a shockingly low statistic. The figures are even worse in Scotland and Wales where there are, astonishingly, zero grammar schools in both countries; Scotland has schools with the title of grammar school but these denote no special status in the Scottish education system.
Social mobility will never occur if we simply open these new schools up in places which already have a high frequency of grammar schools, such as the South East. To start to achieve real change we need to open these new schools in the North, which is so lacking in this area. For example, the entirety of the North East of England has zero grammar schools.
If we look to Northern Ireland where there is a national grammar school system, it’s been shown that poorer pupils are able to compete equally with their wealthier peers. However, we must be careful not to flood any grammar system in the UK with students as this is not the intent behind them. We have to ensure that grammar schools are for the more academically gifted and do not become simply another comprehensive system.
To rectify the regional divides, we should not only open more grammar schools in the UK but also redistribute those already in existence. We should relocate grammar schools from the south of England to the North, Scotland and Wales, as part of levelling out the regional divide that exists on so many fronts. For example, in education with students in London being 17% more likely to access higher education than in the rest of the country. And by relocate, we mean to close down grammar schools in regions like the South East and invite staff who are willing to move positions into the new schools. This will help close the divide, achieve more effective social mobility and give students from poorer backgrounds a better chance at achieving their potential place, such as earning a place at a prestigious university.
This will also ensure the continued academic integrity of the grammar school as an institution. But just because there will be more grammar schools in the UK, doesn’t mean that there should be a relaxing of the entry exam. If anything, these requirements must be toughened up in order to maintain the intellectual rigor of these institutions and ensure that students are academically capable of being there.
Finally, the government must rule out any fee-paying grammar schools as this defeats the point of the institution and can easily be a barrier to gifted students whose families cannot economically sustain that burden. We are not suggesting that private schools be closed, nor do we believe they should be. This is a completely different debate.
Not only will this benefit the nation at large. It would also be in the interests of the Conservative Party to adopt a policy like this in order to hold on to the votes they were lent by northern voters in 2019. We are confident that the roll out of grammar schools across the North in a more government-orientated and statistically-lead approach will prove to those voters that the Conservative Party has their back on more than just Brexit.
Grammar schools are an important asset to the UK that have been heavily underutilized under the guise that they create more inequality than they are worth. As explained, this is an empirical falsehood and a gross misrepresentation of data. They not only increase social mobility for the right groups, but continuously offer education better suited to the academically gifted, meaning that the UK can streamline people into the right place for them, including this cohort of academically able.
So, let us not fear grammar schools. Let us not view them as elitist or unobtainable. Let us embrace them with open arms to improve the life chances of the gifted and the academic rigor of the country.
