16/08/2013
Reintroducing Grammar Schools – providing the best for Tory Bastards?
It is interesting how often in British novels the working class boy (it is always a boy) who succeeds against the odds, usually by winning scholarships to a good school and then to Oxbridge, almost always turns out to be a secret posh kid born on the wrong side of the blanket. It's always the Earl who roggered the maid's son or the managing director who took advantage of the cleaner's boy who gets the grades and the education or the success.
Jeffrey Archer's Clifton Chronicles and Ken Follett's Century Trilogy are the latest that I have read, but it is a recurring theme, overused to the point of boredom.
But it makes one wonder if this recurring theme is really art reflecting life!
Is the Tory obsession with reintroducing Grammar Schools really based on the worry that the Comprehensive system isn't allowing their bastard children to raise above the hoi-poloi?
The crap novel reading public MUST be told!
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I'm a working class boy who has succeeded against the odds (sort of), thanks in part to the grammar school system. Sadly, I have no noble blood in my veins.
ReplyDeleteI'm afraid that despite the comprehensive system. the children of the privileged always rise to the top, because of private coaching, because of 'crammers' in the holidays before 'A' levels, and because of their parents' social contacts. Working class children tend not to do their work experience in a solicitor's office, for example.
At least here in Wales we are free of Gove's social engineering. Fortunately we have a Labour government at present. I dread to think what would happen if we ever had a Conservative - Plaid coalition.
"I dread to think what would happen if we ever had a Conservative - Plaid coalition."
ReplyDeleteNot possible for Plaid to serve under a Tory First Minister.
"Not possible for Plaid to serve under a Tory First Minister." We'll see.
DeleteLabour are happy to see the working class fail, captive voters. There's something wrong with our present day education system when the working class are less likely to suceed today than they did in the grammar school days.
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