Category: Economics – Education

The disturbing scenes in London over the last few days bring in to a stark contrast the competing challenges of the immediate, short-term need for social order and the extended, long-term need for social inclusion.

There are many thousands of pictures and words that will be written about this London summer.

Jonathon Freedland, writing in the Guardian says:

The soul sinks at the pictures – of a woman leaping from a burning building, of the owners of a family shop seeing their life’s work turned to ash, at the sight of a thug unzipping the rucksack still on the back of an injured teenager and taking from it what he wants. The soul sinks at the sight of people trashing the places where at least some of them live.

Zoe Williams, also writing in the Guardian about the psychology of looting says:

this is what happens when people don’t have anything, when they have their noses constantly rubbed in stuff they can’t afford, and they have no reason ever to believe that they will be able to afford it. Hiller takes up this idea:”Consumer society relies on your ability to participate in it. So what we recognise as a consumer now was born out of shorter hours, higher wages and the availability of credit. If you’re dealing with a lot of people who don’t have the last two, that contract doesn’t work. They seem to be targeting the stores selling goods they would normally consume. So perhaps they’re rebelling against the system that denies its bounty to them because they can’t afford it.”

Many are asking, “Is this a one-off or the beginning of wider, deeper unrest?”

I don’t know the answer to that question, but I suspect the longer-term response rests in the effectiveness or otherwise of some fledgling educational and social-enterprise experiments.

I am particularly familiar with Hackney, having visited and studied some of the educational institutions that have been developed in the area over the last decade, so the events there strike a personal and professional chord with me.

This is an economic struggle for social mobility and schools will be one of the keys to the success or failure of these communities, indeed the wider society.

Hackney and surrounds has been the site of unique educational and social-enterprise experiments [for want of a better word] with the introduction of the Mossbourne Community Academy  and the Petchey Academy. These were part of Tony Blair’s “Academy” programme established in 2000. These schools are directly funded by central government and are independent of local government control. These schools receive additional support from personal donors, benefactors or corporate sponsors, either financially or in kind, they are self-governing and many are  registered charities or operated by other educational charities.

Mossbourne community academy was established seven years ago on the rubble of Hackney Downs school, which was once dubbed the worst in the country.

Mossbourne Community Academy opened in September 2004 and is now an average sized

inner-city school with substantially more boys than girls. The proportion of pupils entitled to free school meals is very high, as is the proportion of students from minority ethnic backgrounds. The proportion of students for whom English is not their first language is well above average and the proportion of students with special educational needs and/or disabilities is above average. The academy specialises in information and communication technology (ICT). In summer 2009 the first group of Year 11 students took public examinations. In September 2009 the newly created sixth form began with a sizable group of Year 12 students. The academy is extremely heavily over-subscribed. It reflects a fully comprehensive intake drawn from the locality. The academy has a stable staff and high student stability.

The Petchey Academy specialises in health, care and medical science. The academy moved into its new premises in September 2007.  The students reflect the wide ethnic mix in Hackney; about half are of Black African or Caribbean heritage and a significant proportion come from homes where English is not the first language, but few are in the early stages of learning English. The local area is one of considerable disadvantage. About a quarter of students have learning difficulties and/or disabilities, which is higher than that typically found. The academy is significantly over-subscribed and draws its students from about 40 primary schools.

The initiative of the new Academy schools was [and still is] highly controversial, but the focus on producing achievement where previously there was none and focusing on access to employment and higher education pathways, where previously there were none has to be recognised as “drawing the line in the sand” for future generations.

Obviously, the proof will be in the results of these schools. The most recent Ofsted report [ Office for Standards in Education] clearly demonstrates exceptional and outstanding achievement rates for students attending the Mossbourne Academy and  good achievement for the Petchey Academy.

In 2009, it was reported that the Mossbourne Academy produced an extraordinary 84% of its pupils achieving five good GCSEs including both English and maths – a performance way above the national average, by children who started out below educational par.

In the context of these riots and civil disorder, one wonders what role these institutions are playing, or can play in the future?  This is a new dimension to the challenge of providing social mobility and the promise of participation in society for these schools.

Of course this is too early to tell, but the growing divides in modern societies in wealth, employment and more importantly, simple opportunity,  are challenges that we all need to consider.

The Gini index of income disparity since World War Two offers some insight in to the challenges we can expect to see in countries around the world, as in many cases, fewer and fewer people not only possess more, but more importantly fewer and fewer seem to have access to any pathways, traditionally provided by a “good education” to the jobs, incomes and therefore the lives that are part of a traditional social contract.

The question for for our democracies seems to be, when is enough inequality enough?