Political comments and soundbites are rarely grounded in sensible, policy-based thinking. They mostly bear little attention, since they are meant to grab headlines and influence polls, rather than actually impact the serious business of public service.
However, the comments by the prime minister that children of wealthy parents have access to private tutoring “because of their parents’ hard work” drew the expected and justified scorn and mockery on Twitter and among wider commentators.
As former Tes editor Ann Mroz rightly pointed out, the real issue is that those now responsible for setting education policy - and funding it - actually believe these sorts of sentiments.
This narrative is increasingly grounded in the consideration of tutoring as a preserve that has now been opened up to the masses, and in rarefying it as a commodity that defines success.
Covid catch-up: Is tutoring the answer?
By placing the current recovery funding on this axis, it is clear that this is intended to land as a point of access, not denial. The statements appear to be defining successful parenting as the ability to pay for children to have advantages that other children do not: a way to circumnavigate any levelling-up agenda through entrenched privilege.
The position on tutoring is predicated on the idea of social mobility and that some may be able to access these opportunities - in itself, this is an admission that the system must be broken, if success can be bought.
It is another strain of low-level plutocracy that seeks to see opportunity as access to a privilege that is entrenched and enshrined. See also the manufactured culture wars on woke, which are focused on social justice, lest we believe that the system and its politicians may have responsibility for poverty, exclusion and fragmentation.
Regardless of the inappropriateness of Boris Johnson’s comment, we have a largely privately educated, well-credentialed group who are responsible for education policy. And comments like this show the myopic lens through which they see disadvantage.
Sixty-five per cent of the current Cabinet went to independent schools and, though this is not inherently wrong, this statistic points to a closed set of experiences that reinforce the status quo, to the disadvantage of the vast majority who are outside - and who will remain outside - the benefits that these structures accrue.
Showing us the servants’ door
I grew up in the 1980s and 1990s, when I would hear messages that my mum, as a single parent, appeared to be responsible for most of society’s ills.
In fact, the year I received the school prize, there had been a particularly pernicious attack othering those on benefits as being feckless, prone to spending every penny on cigarettes and alcohol, and having zero aspirations for their children.
That narrative, which spoke of the vulnerable in our communities as “benefit scroungers” or some other iteration of the undeserving poor, had ceased to be a significant voice in our society.
Then during the pandemic, I heard comments that took me right back to those days as a child of hearing that my type of family was subnormal, subpar. Mark Jenkinson MP: “I know in my constituency that, as tiny a minority as it might be, food parcels are sold or traded for drugs.”
The discourse from elected politicians must mirror our aspirations for British society: to become increasingly equal and equitable, and to bring to life the true fundamental British values that are most perfectly encapsulated within the Nolan principles: integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty, selflessness and leadership.
My experience in education - and, indeed, life - has been that these values tend to be best understood, lived and modelled by those who have had to earn them through merit and striving, not through private tutors.
This is much less a case of “Look, all of this could be yours” and far more “There’s the servants’ door”. Fortunately, within education, we are servant leaders.
Dan Morrow is CEO and trust leader for Dartmoor Multi-Academy trust
