Oddly, perhaps, it was not mainly by reading thoughtful analyses or arguing with perceptive critics that I gradually formed my views about what was wrong with the educational system — and the educational establishment which lived off it — but rather by practical, almost random, experience of what was actually happening in schools.
Take primary school education. Few would quarrel with the assertion that those first years of schooling are essential to a child’s formation. But what were these young children actually to be taught — and how? The Plowden Report commissioned by the previous Conservative Minister of Education, Edward Boyle, and regarded by almost everyone as the last word in expert opinion, leaned strongly in favour of teaching in small groups and even one-to-one, rather than classes. I had no strong views on the matter when I arrived at the DES, and the report was well argued. But I now suspect that it sent primary schools in the wrong direction for a generation. Again, my doubts only started to surface when I visited schools and found that in reality individual children were often not being taught in a group, let alone in a class, but were largely left to their own — not necessarily very useful — devices. I saw how in large, open-plan classrooms, groups were inclined to disintegrate into a disorderly hubbub in which quieter children felt lost and even intimidated. I came back to the department and told the Ministry’s architects’ department not to encourage this type of open-plan school.
What I rejected right from the start was the idea, fashionable among the middle classes as much as among experts, that the best way for a child to learn was by self-discovery. This belief entailed the abandonment of the kind of education my generation had had as mere ‘learning by rote’. In fact, any worthwhile education involves the teaching of knowledge, memory training, the ability to apply what one has learned and the self-discipline required for all of these. In all the frenzy of theorizing, these truths were forgotten.
STUDENT PRINCES
Whether or not the acclaim for my defence of the primary school building programme was justified, it soon faded away as a new agitation over the financing of student unions got under way. Unlike the controversy over school milk, this was largely a campaign organized by the hard Left. It was, therefore, less politically dangerous. But it was very vicious. Nor was it just directed against me. My daughter Carol, reading Law at University College, London, also had a hard time. I was thankful she was living at home.
In both Europe and the United States this was the height of the period of ‘student revolution’. Looking back, it is extraordinary that so much notice should have been taken of the kindergarten Marxism and egocentric demands which characterized it. In part, it was a development of that youth cult of the 1960s whereby the young were regarded as a source of pure insight into the human condition. In response, many students accordingly expected their opinions to be treated with reverence.
Yet the student protests of the time, far from being in the vanguard of progress, were phenomena of a world which was about to pass away. The universities had been expanded too quickly in the 1960s. In many cases standards had fallen and the traditional character of the universities had been lost. Moreover, this had occurred at a time when market principles were in retreat and the assumption was near-universal that everyone had a right to a job and the state had the power to give it to them. So these rootless young people lacked both the authority which had been imposed on their predecessors in the 1950s and the discipline which the need to qualify for a good job would place on students in the eighties.
The Left had managed to gain control of many student unions, and therefore of the public money which financed them, using this position to mount campaigns of disruption which infuriated ordinary taxpayers and ratepayers and even many students who simply wanted to study. There were two aspects: first, the financing of student bodies, and second what those bodies did. On the first, the main source of money for student unions was subscriptions out of mandatory grants received from their local education authorities. Union membership was normally obligatory and the union subscription was then paid direct to the student union. As regards activities, some student unions took advantage of this to spend the revenue on partisan purposes, often in defiance of both their constitution and the wishes of their members.
In July 1971 I put proposals to the Home and Social Affairs Committee of the Cabinet (HS) for reform. I had considered setting up a Registrar of student unions, but that would have required legislation. So I limited myself to proposing something more modest. In future, the union subscription should not be included in the fees payable to colleges and universities. The student maintenance grant would be increased slightly to enable students to join particular clubs or societies on a voluntary basis. Responsibility for providing student union facilities would then be placed on each academic institution. The facilities of each union would be open to all students, whether or not they were members of the union. Besides dealing with the question of accountability for public money, these changes would also abolish the closed-shop element in student unions which I found deeply objectionable on grounds of principle. HS was not prepared to go along with my proposals immediately, but I came back to the argument, fully recognizing how controversial they would be, and gained the Committee’s approval.
Bill Van Straubenzee was the minister directly responsible for dealing with consultations on the proposals. But I was the one immediately marked down as the hate-figure to be targeted for them. Student mobs hounded me wherever I went. In early November in Leeds, where I was laying a stone to mark the construction of new buildings, about 500 students tried to shout me down. Later that month 2,000 screaming students tried to prevent my presenting the designation document of the South Bank Polytechnic at the Queen Elizabeth Hall. A dozen mounted police had to protect my car. In December the student protesters found time from their studies to organize a nationwide day of protest. My effigy was burnt at various universities.
By now many of the Vice-Chancellors and college authorities were giving tacit approval to the protests. Edward Boyle even addressed a mass meeting of students at Leeds to declare his opposition to my proposals. Since these had only been put out for consultation — though ‘consultation’ is not the most obvious description of what had occurred — it was perfectly possible to allow tempers to cool and to delay action, which I did. The main problem was that until university authorities themselves were prepared to uphold the values of a university and exert some authority, no proposal for reform was likely to succeed. This was also the time when freedom of speech began to be denied by groups of students, who were then indulged by nervous university authorities. University intolerance was at its most violent in the early seventies. But, less visible and more institutionalized, the same censorship continues today.
TRYING, STILL TRYING…
1971 had been a crucial year for the Government and for me personally. The pressures which mounted were all the more intolerable because they were cumulative. As I shall describe, the Government’s self-confidence broke in early 1972.[17] Somehow, although under greater strain than at any time before or since, my own held.
But a number of commentators, with varying mixtures of relish and regret, thought that I was done for. On my return after the Christmas holiday at Lamberhurst, I was able to read my fate openly discussed in the newspapers. One described me as ‘The Lady Nobody Loves’. Another published a thoughtful article entitled ‘Why Mrs Thatcher is so Unpopular’. But I pushed the stuff aside and concentrated on my red boxes.
In fact, it was not long before the tide — for me personally, though not for the Government — began to turn. Probably the ‘milk snatcher’ campaign had in any case come to the end of its natural life. The far more serious issues of 1972 were now upon us — the miners’ strike and the various elements of the U-turn[18] — and these dwarfed the personal campaign against me. And, of course, I was evidently not going to buckle or depart — at least voluntarily. But I owe a debt of gratitude to Ted Heath as well.
Ted as
ked me and my officials down to Chequers on Wednesday 12 January to have a general discussion about education. I took with me an aide-mémoire summing up the situation and looking ahead. In spite of all the difficulties, there was only one pre-election commitment which still remained to be implemented: the expansion of nursery education. More money was needed if something substantial was to be achieved. The other area in which our supporters were disappointed was secondary school organization. There the problem was, as I put it, ‘many of our own local councils are running with the comprehensive tide. The question is what sort of balance should be struck between defending existing grammar schools and leaving local education authorities free to make their own decisions?’ We discussed both these points at Chequers, as well as other irritants such as school milk and student unions. Ted was clearly interested. He was keen on nursery education; he had been pressing for action on student unions; and he very reasonably asked whether we could not use educational arguments in justifying our policy on selection, rather than just resting on the arguments about local authority autonomy.
From my point of view, however, at least as important as the discussion was the fact that by inviting me down with my officials Ted implied that there was no intention to move me from Education in the foreseeable future. This was a useful, indeed — facing the problems I did — a vital reinforcement for my authority. Ted went on a few days later in the House to list my achievements. Why did he give me such strong support? Some felt that he needed a woman in the Cabinet and it was difficult to find a credible alternative candidate. But I like to think that it also showed Ted’s character at its admirable best. He knew that the policies for which I had been so roundly attacked were essentially policies which I had reluctantly accepted under pressure from the Treasury and the requirements of public finance. He also knew that I had not tried to shift the blame onto others. However unreliable his adherence to particular policies, he always stood by people who did their best for him and his Government. This was one of the better reasons why his Cabinet reciprocated by remaining united behind him.
Ted’s expressions of support provided me with no more than a breathing space. But it was enough. From the spring of 1972 the chilly political climate in which I had been living began noticeably to thaw. My speech to the NUT in April was well received, not just by most of the audience (which cheered me at the end) but, more importantly, by the press in general. Unusually, the proposals it contained appealed across the political spectrum. I announced an increase in the school building programme, now running at a record level. I also announced the setting-up of a committee to inquire into the teaching of reading in schools and the use of English — matters which were already the subject of widespread concern. I hinted at a further expansion of nursery education, though drawing attention to the problem of financing it. But what seized the imagination of the commentators was my criticism of giant comprehensive schools. (I elaborated on this last point at a press conference after the speech, noting that I had just rejected plans for a school for 2,700 pupils in Wiltshire.)
As I stood up to speak, there was an ill-mannered walk-out by a number of left-wing delegates. But this turned out to be an added bonus. The media not only liked the emphasis on the merits of smaller schools, but had some harsh things to say about the example given to their pupils by teachers who were not even prepared to hear the arguments. In May the same newspaper column which had described me as ‘The Lady Nobody Loves’ was celebrating ‘The Mellowing of Margaret’. And the irony was that the theme which had struck home — my advocacy of small schools — was one which I had held to since my days as a schoolgirl in Grantham.
It was, however, the Education White Paper, published in December 1972, which restored the fortunes of our education policy. The decision to publish it stemmed from discussions of the three Programme Analysis and Review (PAR) Reports which we had prepared in the department.[19] The title was the result of a last-minute decision at Cabinet. Education: A Framework for Advance was the original suggestion but, in a change which appears in retrospect to be all too typical of these over-ambitious, high-spending years, this became Education: A Framework for Expansion. The White Paper set out a ten-year plan for higher spending and better provision. There were six main points to it. There was a programme for improving or replacing old secondary schools. The building programme for special schools for handicapped children would be increased. There would be a modest improvement in school staffing ratios. To help pay for this, the rate of expansion of higher education would be restrained. We published our response to the James Committee’s recommendations on teacher training. But the most important aspect was the announcement of a major expansion of nursery education. This would be provided for up to 90 per cent of four-year-olds and 50 per cent of three-year olds, subject to demand, with priority being given in the early stages to deprived areas. In retrospect, the White Paper marks the high-point of the attempts by Government to overcome the problems inherent in Britain’s education system by throwing money at them.
The White Paper received a disconcertingly rapturous reception. The Daily Telegraph, although making some criticisms about the lack of proposals for student loans or vouchers, said that the White Paper established me ‘as one of our most distinguished reforming -and spending — Ministers of Education’. The Daily Mail described it as a ‘Quiet Revolution’ and commented, ‘there has been nothing like it since the war’. More unsettling was the Guardian’s praise for a ‘progressive programme’ and the comment — I hoped tongue in cheek — that ‘apart from not mandatorily ending 11-Plus segregation, Mrs Thatcher is more than half way towards a respectably socialist education policy’.
REALITY BITES
With the exception of some vigorous exchanges with Labour’s new and highly articulate Education spokesman, Roy Hattersley, about the rate of increase of education expenditure, the early months of 1973 were as near as any at the DES to being quiet. But the consequences of the Government’s fiscal and monetary policies were shortly to catch up with us. The first instalment was in May — a round of public expenditure cuts designed to cool the overheated economy. Capital spending in education, particularly the less politically sensitive area of higher education, was an obvious target. In the event, I staved off Treasury pressure and my building programmes were not cut.
But there were other problems in the DES budget. As inflationary pressures pushed up prices in the construction industry, an increasingly alarmed Treasury refused to sanction higher spending. The rest of the school building programme had to be slowed down as well. As October — the time for firm public expenditure decisionmaking — approached it was increasingly clear to me that public expenditure cuts were essential, and that it made political sense to agree early with Patrick Jenkin, the new Chief Secretary, on reductions in my education budget. In the event, there were cuts in the school building plans and in teacher training, and school meal prices were increased.
Nor was this the end of the search for savings. As the effects of the oil crisis and the miners’ strike bit in December, Tony Barber began a frantic search for further cuts.[20] Capital spending is the only area in which large immediate public expenditure cuts can be made. So ministers were required to reduce their capital programmes by a fifth and their procurement of supplies and other current expenditure on goods and services by a tenth. Accordingly, I implemented further cuts in the school and higher education building programmes, including most painfully a moratorium on replacing older primary schools; for the longer term there would also be a reduction in the rate of expansion of student numbers. The reduction in the DES budget for 1974/75 was £182 million — out of £1,200 million total cuts in public spending. But I did manage for the time being to salvage the nursery school programme and also building programmes for special schools.
By now, however, my mind was fast focusing on the cataclysmic events overtaking the Government. It was not long before I would have to mount my soapbox and defend the policies I had pursued in my yea
rs at Education. I found no difficulty in doing so, for on almost every front the record was one of advance. And if the measures by which ‘advance’ at this time was assessed — resources committed rather than results achieved — are accepted, it was also a record of genuine improvement. Nearly 2,000 out-of-date primary schools in England and Wales were replaced or improved. There was a substantial expansion of nursery education. I pushed through the raising of the school leaving age, which the Labour Party had had to postpone. Fewer pupils were now taught in very large classes. There were more qualified teachers and more students in higher education. But too much of my time at Education had been spent arguing about structures and resources, too little in addressing the crucial issue of the contents of education.
Equally, it was clear by the time of the general election that both the figures and more fundamentally the approach of A Framework for Expansion had been by-passed by events. There was no way that a programme of universal nursery education was affordable. Schools would have to make do with leaky roofs for many more years, until declining pupil numbers and school closures allowed resources to be better used. The Robbins Report principle — that ‘courses of higher education should be available for all those qualified by ability and attainment to pursue them’ (paragraph 31) — would have to take second place to the demands of financial stringency.
However frustrating it was to watch the shrinkage of my cherished plans and programmes, I can now see that it was unavoidable. And it may have had the side effect of forcing us to think creatively about how to get the best value from our suddenly limited resources. In the economic sphere, the crises of 1973 to 1976 led to a deep scepticism about the value of Keynesian demand management and to a new appreciation of the classical liberal economic approach of balanced budgets, low taxes and free markets. Similarly, in education and in other areas of social policy too, the realization that remedies must be found other than increased public expenditure opened up a whole new world. Fundamental questions began to be asked about whether the education system in its present form could deliver the results expected of it. Did it not in practice largely exist for the benefit of those who ran it, rather than those who received it? Was the state — whether the DES or local education authorities — doing too much, rather than too little? What did the — often superior — results of other countries’ education systems and methods have to teach us? It was becoming necessary to rethink these policies; and we were shortly to be granted plenty of time to think.
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