1) End child poverty by 2020?

When listening to the Prime-Minister’s speech to the Labour Party spring conference last week, I thought that it was only the cause of ending child poverty by 2020 and some utopian ‘world’ projects, such as abolishing malaria, that triggered any real audience applause and enthusiasm. Even the party faithful seem to be finding it hard to express their passion for the many re-announcements, such as rebuilding schools or the minimum wage. I know this observation is widely shared and quietly voiced in government and there is now sufficient political impetus to try to make progress on ending child poverty in the UK by 2020; however, is this a credible project? Could we really be living at such an amazing point in history, when child poverty was about to be abolished? The signs are frankly not good, with headlines such as ‘Whitehall forecasts child poverty failure’ http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/mar/03/children.tax and ‘poor children pay for non-doms’ tax break’ or http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/mar/03/economy.economics or ‘child poverty targets ‘will fail’’ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7273808.stm

However, it may surprise regular readers of this blog that I am not as pessimistic as these commentators. There are two reasons for this. First, a technical statistical point but one that is often misunderstood and confuses this debate: note that the government always speak of poverty being defined by 60% of median income; that’s average defined by the numerically middle household (whose income is then taken as a statement of average) this is not the way average is more commonly used (where total income for the population is divided by the number of its population to get the average income) which in statistical terms is called the mean. Why does this matter? It matters because as long as the magical median household remains on a static or only slowly rising income then what happens below and above them i.e. the rich and the poor, makes no difference to the calculation of average income and hence the income that represents the 60% poverty target. So it is statistically quite possible to upgrade everyone to beyond the 60% target without having to downgrade those above median income in order to keep the ‘average’ at the same level.

Secondly, I think some recent research has shown that specific and often localised factors seem to be highly influential as to why some families remain in poverty. For example, the recent London poverty review http://213.86.122.139/docs/capital-gains.pdf found that high housing costs were a major disincentive to work and suggested that changes to housing benefit rules might have a significant effect. While elsewhere in UK, such as the north-east of England, the emphasis would probably be on getting people off incapacity benefit and into work. There is also the question of rural poverty http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7273516.stm . I would argue that it is possible to analyse each of these areas, in turn, and identify specific and often relatively minor changes that would make a major difference to people. For me, this finding is a cause for optimism.

I’m not suggesting these things are going to be cheap or easy, far from it, but with serious money going into job training and support (see below) combined with localised measures, such as for example, changes to London housing benefit, then I see a real basis for taking another major bite out of the poverty figures. I don’t know if we will reach zero poverty by 2020, but as Larry Elliott concedes in the article above; to get to the Scandinavian level of 5% poverty would still be a stunning achievement.

2) A great scheme

A short report on a scheme to get disadvantaged students into St George's Medical School, University of London http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/students-from-poorer-backgrounds-catch-up-at-university-786755.html I think it interesting that course applicants academic results are judged, in part, by reference to their school peers and that this as a valid measure of potential has been proved valid by their subsequent course performance.

3) Jackpot

The government has announced a potentially enormous budget for getting people into work. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/plan-to-aid-jobless-will-cost-16375bn-789343.html £35 billion: you could build a hell of an e-mentoring scheme for that kind of money!

4) Sure Start Centres

While many of the disadvantaged seem to be mired in poverty, I think it is generally agreed that disadvantage is not the same as poverty. Sure start centres are at the very centre of the government’s attempts to combat disadvantage and this week saw the publication of a government sponsored evaluation and report into the effectiveness of sure start. The short summary report can be found at http://www.dfes.gov.uk/research/data/uploadfiles/NESS2008SF027.pdf The government press releases accompanying this publication stressed how this research found that having a sure start children’s centre in a disadvantaged area produced a positive effect, in most ways, in most communities; however, what was not said, was that the positive effects found were mostly rather modest. Still, it was positive.

5) Literacy and disadvantage

By any measure, being an adult and unable to read must count as a disadvantage. The story of Scott Quinnell, the famous Welsh rugby player, illustrates this article ‘Why a million UK adults cannot read this headline‘ http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/mar/02/socialexclusion.adultliteracy and a simple but apparently effective tool; the short story of quick reads http://education.guardian.co.uk/further/story/0,,2261782,00.html

1 Stunning: well, it should be

Last year, only 176, of the nearly 30,000 pupils who got three grade As at A-level were eligible for free school meals: that’s ½ of 1% ! http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,2259334,00.html Now, based on my personal experience and anecdotal evidence, I suspect that at least some of those golden 176 were children of recent asylum seekers and refugees; also, I suspect that a few will have been at private schools on scholarship programs for children from disadvantaged backgrounds. Consequently, I’m left wondering if any of the 176 who gained 3 As came through the mainstream school system. I might try and get a friendly Tory MP to ask the question. Perhaps that’s why Blair used to say education, education, education – there were three of them.

2 Crisis, what crisis?

The public accounts committee (PAC) recently reviewed university dropout rates and their report was generally critical of the efforts being made by the universities http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/education/article3423483.ece . The headline of their investigation was that nearly 25% of students fail to complete their degree courses and that course drop-out was more prevalent amongst students from disadvantaged backgrounds; that despite many millions of pounds being spent by universities to supposedly address the failure rate, which had not improved over time http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/higher/leading-article-dropout-waste-784623.html . Problem, what problem, seemed to be the view from HEFCE http://education.guardian.co.uk/students/news/story/0,,2259840,00.html

3 Mistake

Under the new legislation, the government are going to allow some young people to leave education and training before the age of 18 if they can show they are in difficult personal circumstances http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7258913.stm. In my opinion, the government seem to have learnt nothing from the experience of incapacity benefit. Building in these exceptions is a bad idea; it will mean the very types of people who are now teenage NEETs will remain so, as they will leave the education system of the back of one of these exceptions. Yes, it will be hard to keep all young people in education and/or training until 18 but that was bound to be the case. We didn’t need a legislative change to keep those in education who would remain in it anyway. Government should stiffen its resolve, and remember what happened when education leaving dates were raised in the past – within a couple of years they became generally accepted.

4 Strength through work

I thought this was a good example of the arguments about single parents in employment http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2008/feb/23/workandcareers.familyfinance. Note the calculation at the end, which shows how essential the in-work benefits are to make work pay, even at this marginal level. This cost is important when calculating the cost of single parents working to the rest of society. I often find that liberal advocates of tax credits are shy about the costs of these schemes. I calculate that this person’s untaxed income without benefits would be £88.32 gross, way below the level of benefits income; it has to be toped-up with negative income tax and housing benefit, to make the worker marginally better off. I’m not against the project; I just don’t think we can hide this truth as it has major consequences for the welfare budget as a whole.

5 Advice

The need for better advice, earlier, seems to be the recurring finding of analyses of educational opportunities and stories of stymied choice. Indeed, is this the real secret of private schooling? http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/schools/conor-ryan-pupils-need-better-advice-on-their-options-784622.html

6 It was good enough for the Foreign Secretary and Nance

A study claims to show that middle class kids do educationally OK even when they attend less fashionable comprehensive schools. I know it is asking a lot of parents or guardians to make such a choice and possibly sad that their children’s good performance seems to be because they stick with their own, but it would make schooling in the UK so much easier if everyone did it. http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,2258392,00.html

7 Your call is valuable to us

While there has been much debate recently about top grade A levels and elite universities, in my opinion, the equally important arena for improving skills and educational qualifications in the UK, that of the workplace has tended to be neglected. This article considers the practical advantages and costs that someone working in a call centre faces when considering investing in a work based qualification http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2008/feb/18/2

1 Bargain

According to this article, over the past 5 years the money spent on university widening participation schemes for the disadvantaged has amounted to £211,500 per extra student recruited http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=512336&in_page_id=1770 . I guess that we will be hearing more of this statistic when the government gets round to launching their plans for the next phase of Aimhigher, which were due to be published in January and yet, strangely, have yet to appear. I remain convinced that part of the reason for such limited success has been a strategic underestimation of the real and specific difficulties of attracting disadvantaged students into higher education. A recent piece of Sutton trust research, this time on university choice, sheds light on the subject http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/news/story/0,,2256262,00.html full report at http://www.suttontrust.com/reports/StaffordshireReportFinal.pdf

2 Mentoring for the gifted and talented

The government has moved to combine with what they see as the academically elite recruits in their ‘Teach First scheme’ with disadvantaged, but bright pupils, in a bid to raise their applications to Russell group universities. Pupils on free school meals and who have also been identified as "gifted and talented" will receive support from Teach First Advocates in applying for highly competitive courses http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7217619.stm The government sees this as a mentoring program and it will include participants from the Teach First scheme who have ceased teaching in schools and are now working outside of the education sector.

3 Attitudes to the poor and poverty

A report from the Joseph Rowntree Trust looked at public attitudes to the poor and poverty using data from the British Social Attitudes survey http://www.jrf.org.uk/bookshop/eBooks/1999-poverty-attitudes-survey.pdf . In summary, I think this survey shows that the majority of British people are sympathetic to those people living in some form of absolute poverty, such as those suffering inadequate nutrition or being unable to sustain life without going into debt but not towards those in relative poverty. Attitudes to the poor also seem to be hardening, as in the latest British Social Attitudes survey, one-third of the 3,000 people interviewed believed that poverty was "an inevitable part of modern life" and a rising number laid the blame on the poor themselves; 27% of those surveyed thinking that poverty was due to "laziness or lack of willpower", up from 19% in 1984. http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/jan/23/socialexclusion

4 Is this the future?

Last Sunday, Gordon Brown took the opportunity to place an article in the Observer newspaper where he tried to explain both the moral inspiration and the analysis that lies at the heart of this government’s education and economic policy: that educational opportunity and achievement is not only vital for personal development and personal economic success but is also essential for the economic success of the nation http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/feb/10/gordonbrown.education This argument is not new, it is built on the findings of the Leitch report of last year, which analysed the prospects for the UK’s economy for the next 20 years. This report was met with almost universal praise at the time of its publication and is now often wheeled out as an incontestable reference point. However, I fear that it makes a number of assumptions which are rarely discussed and which may cause problems in the future. First, for the most part, the report assumed that skills are the same thing as educational qualifications. The UK experience is that this is sometimes a fair assumption but sometimes it is not. Second, there is the much quoted assertion that by 2020 the number of jobs that require no qualifications will have shrunk from 3.6m to just 600,000. As this excellent article shows, this was an assumption about the nature of the future labour force not a projection of labour needs. http://education.guardian.co.uk/further/story/0,,2248309,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=8 I do not think these factors negate Brown’s admirable vision for the future, but I wish that his policy makers would face up to these types of complication when developing programs, rather than ‘discovering’ them through the failure of well meaning but simplistic policy initiatives .

5 Halt, who goes where?

A Government plan to construct a national database of the educational careers and achievements of all UK citizens seems to be underway http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/02/13/nschool313.xml While some may see this as part of a secret liberal plot to destroy the British way of life, I prefer to dwell on a more mundane consolation; that any such database will be a significant boost to educational research, as it will make the tracking of detailed educational outcomes a much more practical venture. A major difficulty for any such research, until now, has been the lack of any mechanisms to track individuals once they have left the schooling system. This has been true even when they have only moved into higher education, as school and UCAS reference codes were different and not easily matched. If this database is implemented, then I would expect to see some early results, especially in areas such as assessing the effectiveness of widening participation schemes into higher education. It would also facilitate longer term assessments into the significance of education and training for people’s lives.

6 Dads Army

Some suggestions, however bad, just seem to keep coming around http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7245122.stm yes, I’m sure that’s what disadvantaged pupils need: being taught by battlefield survivors who are working through the psychological trauma of their futile cannon fodder years. Why stop at teachers? Surely there is a role as detached youth workers where they could bring their insights to cross community dialogue http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/feb/15/communities.uksecurity .

1 The government plan for children

The publication of this plan is intended to be a major policy statement that will shape children and families policy for the rest of the time of this government. I know people complain that they don’t have time to read this kind of long report, so here’s the minister in charge, Ed Balls, telling you about it, jackanory style http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6sAnrRe7Xk If this inspires you, then there is a summary that covers the main points http://www.dfes.gov.uk/publications/childrensplan/downloads/Childrens_Plan_Executive_Summary.pdf or even the whole plan at http://www.dfes.gov.uk/publications/childrensplan/downloads/The_Childrens_Plan.pdf .The children’s plan is intended to be both a guide for the department’s work and a reference point for existing and future initiatives. If you intend to read one summary, of one government plan this year, I guess this is it.

2 University challenge

The government’s planned expansion of higher education continues to be rolled out http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7201228.stm. These plans for expansion are being supplemented by new widening participation initiatives such as the ‘First to go campaign’ http://www.dius.gov.uk/press/03-01-08.html However, this expansion seems at times to be contradicted by practice, for example the news last week that there was a major under spend of widening participation monies at some universities http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/news/story/0,,2245216,00.html?

If universities are unsure as to how to spend this money I’m sure we could help them.