Alan Milburn: 'End old-school-tie elitism over jobs'
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Independent Minds
Bright children from middle and working class families are missing out on professional jobs because of continuing "elitism", a government-commissioned report warns today.
The report, by a cross-party panel chaired by former Cabinet minister Alan Milburn, calls for urgent action to break "closed shop mentality" which, it says, still characterises the professions in Britain.
The panel found more than half of all the top professional jobs were still taken by candidates who were independently schooled, even though they accounted for just 7 per cent of all schoolchildren.
Failure to break this pattern will, it says, mean that the opportunity of achieving the most significant wave of social mobility since the Second World War will be lost.
The panel was originally set up by Gordon Brown to examine the barriers to entering the professions.
In more than 80 recommendations, it will argue that enhancing social mobility must be the top social priority for any government, now and in the future.
The report will show that while up to nine out of 10 new jobs in the future will be in the professions, they are currently drawn from a relatively narrow section of society.
It will say that the typical professional of tomorrow will be growing up in a family that is better off than seven out of 10 families in Britain, while occupations such as the law and finance are still dominated by people from independent schools.
Currently 75 per cent of judges and 45 per cent of senior civil servants were independently educated.
Among the advantages for children going to private schools or the best state schools are the chance to develop through extra curricular activities and mentoring schemes, which help to mark out candidates when it comes to applying for jobs in the professions.
Later on, when it comes to getting work placements or internships, it can often depend on "who you know", putting children with no connections to the professions at a disadvantage.
Among the measures it recommends for tackling the problem, is a new army of young professionals and university students to mentor young people and a national "Yes you can" campaign, headed by inspirational role models, to raise aspirations.
It also calls for a radical overhaul of work experience programmes, and a new focus on the teaching of "soft skills" in schools.
The panel wants armed services cadet forces - currently largely the preserve of independent schools - to be established as the norm in state schools - teaching team-building and confidence and opening up the armed forces at a professional level for all children.
It also recommends that the Government should examine proposals to give parents a new right of redress, when a school consistently fails them, to allow their child to go to a school of their choice and give schools incentives to take them on.
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Comments
FOR A START LETS HAVE SOME OF THE CURRENTLY DISCRIMINATED AGAINST ON ALL THESE GOVERNMENT COMMITTEES!
you dont say what your degree subject was, but assuming that it wasn't directly and seriously job-related and therefore that your course didn't include compulsory job experience and contacts, you have to just accept that your degree is just part of your general education and tackle the job market (such as it currently is) on the same basis as you would have done as a direct school leaver - but with 3 years added maturity!; forget about the hooray henries and henriettas, rediscover your selfconfidence by being prepared to go anywhere and do anything and doing it as well as you possibly can, and keep an eye open for opportunities which you are certain to discover along the way - sounds wishy washy but it works, jusr as long as you think a lot of yourself and convince the bosses to do likewise!
the trouble far too often is that graduates are not used to being at the bottom of the class, and openly resent it; and all the while the boss is watching to see if they are any good at the things employers really value - quick on the uptake; good at problem solving; sharp at picking up skills (practical, social or office-based); able to work with and get on with workmates; dependable;reliable;.... fill in the others for yourself!
any vacancy is worth having a go at in the current climate when so many employers are doing what you would do in their shoes- ie not creating many/any new vacancies; 'get on your bike' was never a popular motto, but its surely preferable to rotting your graduate brain away sitting at home being miserable- and i speak from personal experience!
I can't remember how many jobs graduates are supposed to create, but if it's true, shouldn't 'tyhelzdking' be creating a job for him/herself?
I thought that was the idea of a university education, that you had people who were head and shoulders above the rest of us.
So, 'tyhelzdking' get out their and start creating employment, both for yourself and for others less privileged (in terms of intelligence and education) than yourself.
Firstly you don't pay for unversity students, you loan to them; I have a debt approaching 20,000 pounds which I will have to pay back with interest.
Secondly I feel that you are confusing graduates with entrepreneurs and business people. I have, as jaffgyp recognised in his/her more helpful comment, a non-vocational degree in a non-Mickey Mouse discipline; I have not studied business. I have neither the type of education needed, nor the desire to set up a business.
I studied subjects I was interested in to improve my analytical skills, written and oral communication and general knowledge to prepare me for a wide variety of professional jobs of which there are now a paucity available to those without the right contacts and supposedly superior CVs which are actually anything but.
I have also accrued considerable amounts of work experience (local art school, the local SMR etc) inbetween part time admin and retail work.
Thanks to jaffgyp for the genuinely helpful comments and uanime5 for the less cheerful, but sympathetic insight.
Must say that I'm not surprised.
It did sound a bit odd when I heard it (I think it was on question time some years ago, but I also remember being told this by a University (York) professor).
I'll ask you a question though, in this economic climate, do you still have the choice that you feel you have? You may not have had any intention or inclination, when you started out on your career as a student, of working for yourself, but perhaps that is the only way that you're going to make a living. It doesn't necessarily mean that you will start a business, but, depending on ability and training, you may end up as a freelance or sole trader. Oh, and don't let the fact that you didn't do business hold you back, my nephew did business at Nottingham and he says that he hasn't used any of it since.
One thing that I've noticed about graduates, is that they can do the course and get the dgree, but some (by no means all) have no drive and no ambition (I have a niece who falls into that camp, she has a debt which will never be paid off).
Another question, the £20K debt that you have, how much of the true cost of your degree education did that cover? 100%, more? less?
One last thing, I'm not having a go at you. I suspect that your present situation has come as a bit of a shock. I wish you luck in your way forwards.
(ps. yes, you're right, I don't have a degree myself. I went to University as a mature student and dropped out in disgust at how poor it was.)
The old school tie and privileged, social net-working is rife and deeply ingrained in Britain. It is believed to keep "stability" amongst the class, which runs the Establishment.
It is fair to say that, it also obtains, much for the same reasons, amongst the lower orders, where relations and known friends are considered a "safe pair of hands" in professional organisations.
A meritocracy, Britain is not--this is why it takes so much of taxpayers' money to run a third-rate country with mediocre services.
Milburn is reciting a very old story and most people are aware of its fairy tale qualities.
It has always been thus - and the system is designed like this - so..............think on.
You have to change the system
Those with money - make money
those with no money ................don't -
they try and survive as best they can not knowing if their job will be there tomorrow.
But is that really the case? The truth of the matter is that things have not changed one iota in Britain during the last 30 or 40 years, certainly not in the last decade. Despite the political insistence on equality of access to education and education facilities to enable those from poorer backgrounds to become more socially mobile through a meritocratic system, large numbers of people still fall by the wayside.
Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that those who reach the top of organizations and professions do so not just on their known or even perceived knowledge and merits and their academic, professional or vocational qualifications and abilities but because they most probably had access to a better quality and higher standard of primary and secondary education, had contact with and the support of people already in positions of power and influence, had knowledge of how best to succeed in pushing oneself forward and, are, perhaps, beholden to that same group of people on a quid pro quo basis.
In fact, during the tenure of the latest Labour government in the first decade of the 21st century, with a remit, according to the words of the then Prime Minister in 1997 of replacing the elite establishment system of government by meritocracy through improving Education, education, education, there are now fewer children from poor backgrounds going to University than there were when the government came to power in 1997.
It has been shown that a great many people remain in the same socio-economic banding as when they were born and raised and that, in fact, only a very small percentage of those from the lowest quintile or even the two lowest quintiles in the economic structure of British society actually manage to move upwards more than one rung. This proves that social mobility, certainly in Britain, is something that has, perhaps deliberately, been avoided and has eluded the ruling political classes for centuries, they have done little or nothing to rectify that situation and achieve a greater degree of equality.
Indeed, the loss of the Grammar school system of selection based on academic ability, in many parts of the country, is not only a tragedy for meritocracy and for encouraging increased social mobility it has actually reduced the possibility of children from poorer backgrounds progressing not only into much higher education but also into higher-paid employment thereby increasing their chances of increased social mobility. I wonder if this is a case of political indifference, political complacency or a case of political and business paralysis.
A survey by the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) concluded that, in a comparison of 8 advanced industrial nations Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland had the highest rates of social mobility followed by Germany and Canada and the UK and the USA were at the very bottom, that whilst social mobility in the USA is steady in Britain it is still declining and, the primary reason is the divisive education system that allows children from wealthier families to benefit from selective and better education facilities in fee-paying private or public schools.
It seems that Labour governments, and some Conservative governments, are responsible for this situation developing by removing Grammar schools and insisting on people attending Comprehensive schools. What price political stupidity?