Katharine Birbalsingh is the Government’s Social Mobility Tsar. Its a Culture War job whose main purpose is for the holder to say things that annoy people and get media headlines.
On Thursday Ms Birbalsingh announced that working class people should forget going to Oxbridge & just focus on improving their existing lot a little bit.
One can understand that Ms Birbalsingh (BA Oxford) does not want Oxbridge places filled up with oiks that could otherwise be filled by her friends and family.
I never thought of going but did my first degree at Teesside University in the late 1970s. Perhaps the skills of organising demos, speaking at mass meetings and dealing with the media weren’t on the curriculum as such but they’ve stayed with me over 40 years (I got an upper second btw)
Even so Oxbridge is a key route to influence in society so why shouldn’t working class students aim to go? It could only improve the place
Ms Birbalsingh’s wider points were that more attention to improving skills particularly for the 50% who don’t go on to any form of education after they leave school is key. Indeed so. This has been an issue in Britain since the late nineteenth century. Many things have been tried around technical education, polytechnics etc etc but the challenge to engage, find what is relevant for a new generation of young people is key. Working with unions who know the challenges would be a start.
Here Ms Birbalsingh offers only really useless knowledge
Leave a Reply