Martin Luther King once said: “I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits.”
This sentiment resonates with me – it symbolises the positive spirit politicians need to encourage others to support policies that achieve these laudable goals.
Poverty is a constant, grinding force that shackles people to lives of misery and drudgery. It leads to shortened lives, ill health and higher levels of suicide. Despite that, most people don’t give up, but carry on and live a fulfilled life.
One of the reasons they do so is the thought that they can strive to pass on something better to their children. Education is one of the most important, if the not the most important, way to enable social mobility for those who have not been born with financial security.
This is the reason I support academic selection in our schools – to promote social mobility.
More than two months ago, I wrote in my Heat Street column that I wanted to see a grammar school revolution across the UK. I proposed 50 new grammar schools, by allowing existing schools to switch to academic selection, in the 50 poorest boroughs in Britain.
I’m passionate about education and what it can give to people, simply because of the hope and life chances it gave me as a young boy.
As a council estate kid, winning a scholarship to St Bedes College in Manchester at the age of 11 changed my life. A good, decent and varied education is a right for every child. Academic selection, in the form of grammar schools, should form a crucial part of our education system.
Brexit will lead Britain into a new era. We must now look at our nation, identify the deep-rooted problems that exist, and use our democracy to change things for the better – including by tackling poverty.
But today social mobility today is slowing down compared to other developed countries. Education is one of the most important ways we can reduce this and – as with myself – give more children better life chances.
I welcome Theresa May’s announcement on grammar schools. In many ways her proposals go much further than mine. It’s a bold move that I fully support, and a policy which has been in the UKIP manifesto for over a decade.
Social mobility has been in decline since grammar schools began to close in the 1970s. According to the OECD, in the 1970s, university students from poor households were outnumbered by their richer peers four to one. Just a decade later, it was five to one.
The reintroduction of academic selection is not a return to the past. It will give those academically gifted the ability to excel, regardless of race, gender, status or income.
Our top sportsmen, get state help from publically funded organisations like UK Sport to train abroad, with the best support, to take them to the highest level. Why should academia be any different?
This is not to say that those who don’t go to a selective school should be treated as second best. In conjunction with the reintroduction of selective schools, I would urge the government to reinvest in technical and vocational colleges – to allow for the further development of those who excel in specific vocations.
We must accept that no two children are the same. Some excel in sports, in the arts – many excel in academia, many excel in science.
Our education system should reflect this and cater for different skills, talents and abilities. Academic selection, whether called grammar schools or not – is a crucial part of any varied education system.