Earlier this summer, a comprehensive school student from the north-east was refused a place at Oxford University, despite having exceptionally high examination grades. The Labour Party, in a populist outburst which even by their standards of cynicism and hypocrisy could only be described as breathtaking, ranted against elitism in the education system.
Of course, the education system in Britain is elitist. A little over 6% of children attend private schools, yet they provide around 50% of the intake to Oxford and Cambridge universities. The fact that Oxbridge admission tutors can seriously claim that they choose students on academic merit only goes to emphasise what immense advantages must be provided by a private education.
Class sizes in private schools are half those in the state sector. School resources and facilities are superior. Add to these all the privileges of a secure and comfortable upbringing and the influential connections of the middle class network, and it is hardly surprising that private school students come to dominate the top universities.
But the Labour government has done nothing to upset this cosy state of affairs. The Labour Party is committed to the perpetuation of capitalism, and the elitist education system is part of the mechanism by which the capitalist and middle classes reproduce and modulate their membership. Many members of the Labour Party, like Prime Minister Tony Blair himself, are products of the system.
Far from being under attack from Labour, in the last few years private schools have never had it so good. Middle class parents have been deserting the state sector. The number of private school pupils increased by 15,000 between 1996 and 1999. These are the people whose privileges Labour must defend to retain power. They are never going to touch the private system.
Elitism and privilege don't just begin at the gates of Eton and Harrow. For those middle class parents who can't afford to leave the state system, Labour must sustain some forms of privilege within that system. This Labour has done with a vengeance, retaining or intensifying all the policies initiated by the Tories — and more.
Labour also realised that the outward form that schools take is not as important as their internal organisation and function in generating advantages for their middle class constituents. For instance, a comprehensive school which admits the majority of its pupils from affluent areas or which segregates children into academic streams and offers some pupils superior access to the best teachers, resources and status can operate a system that is every bit as elitist as a selective grammar school system.
So Labour has concentrated on generating mechanisms and practices within schools that open up greater opportunities for middle class pupils to isolate themselves and pull away from working class pupils, to reduce the prospects of falling into the working class abyss. This process of social differentiation through schooling has been mystified behind an ideological smokescreen, but it has nonetheless been effective in maintaining middle class advantage.
'Raising standards' and 'parental choice'
Crucial to this process has been government control of the curriculum, which has enabled it to establish the national tests and put test and examination results at the centre of the educational process. Test results are used to make educational outcomes appear more objective and so legitimise (without necessarily excusing) educational success and failure. Schools receive statistical data which supposedly demonstrate the near impossibility of a child ever achieving good test grades at age 11 if they performed below par at age seven.
Contrast this with the attitude in socialist Cuba, where tests are also used to find out what children know or don't know, but where just about every child is considered equal and capable of "passing" the tests given extra time and teaching, and where schools and pupils are expected to help each other, not compete against one another.
In Britain, the publicly reported test and examination results provide a ready indicator for parents to target the best schools for their children. Of course, mobile middle class parents with their own transport, more time and money, have a massive advantage over working class parents.
Many middle class families even move home if local residence or membership of a local church are part of a favoured school's admission criteria. They take with them the extra cash, resources and voluntary support that can give further tremendous advantage to any school working on an otherwise tight budget.
At the other end of the seesaw, they leave behind schools struggling with all the problems and deprivation of a divided society. For these schools, Labour only offers closure, special measures, Education Action Zones, naming and shaming, Superheads and all the other discredited humiliations.
End elitism
However, elitism in the education system is not simply a failure of Labour Party policies. This would be to suggest, as many on the left do, that elitism and disadvantage could be eradicated if only the right policies were carried through.
Elitism in education stems from the class inequalities of capitalist society. The education system under capitalism must play its part in reproducing and reinforcing these divisive social and economic relations. It has always been used, and must continue to be used, to indoctrinate a submissive work force and to legitimise hierarchy.
As a Department of Education official said in the 1980s, when the present Labour Party policies were being initiated by the Conservative government, "People must once more be educated to know their place".
Labour might rail against elitism when it suits it, but this is the necessary reality of the system. Elitism will only be eradicated with the destruction of capitalism, with the advent of socialism and so with the end of the class system.
By Jim Craven
[Abridged from Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! Visit <http://www.rcgfrfi.easynet.co.uk>.]