If I ever want to feel depressed – or merely feel sorry for myself – I just look back at my childhood. More specifically, I look back on my (lack of) education. I never thought I was thick, as such, although all the available evidence – one ‘O’ level – suggests otherwise. Due to a variety of circumstances, I never had a chance. I wasn’t the only one.
I read in today’s Guardian newspaper that in super posh Clifton, 100% of school leavers go to university. In the south of Bristol stands Hartcliffe, a few miles from where I lived as a child and indeed as a grown-up. Only 8.6% make it to university. If you can find a better example of inequality and unfairness in Broken Brexit Britain, I’d be surprised. Or maybe I wouldn’t be surprised. There are far worse places in our country than Hartcliffe. Some would say in terms of community, there are few better.
Bristol university is part of the renowned Russell group of elite universities and almost a third of its intake are from private schools. Given that just over 6% of children in the UK attend private schools, you are sitting on a scandal of biblical proportions. It is possible for working class children to succeed at university, despite the very obvious disadvantages they face. Both my sons proved this and I am very proud of them. Others are not so fortunate.
It is difficult, given the wealth of statistics available – some real, some entirely bogus – to establish for sure just how many people live in poverty and everything that goes with poverty, such as poor equational attainment. Given a lifetime of experience in the real world, I would suggest that class differences are more entrenched than ever.
Even I had been a dazzling intellectual, I had no aspiration to attend university. This was just as well since once my school life was done, there was a need to put bread on the table. I couldn’t leave it for my mother to provide, seemingly forever. She had sacrificed large parts of her life to bring me up as best she could, making sure I never went hungry, patching up my clothes and generally keeping a roof above our heads. It was as basic as that. Anyway, one ‘O’ level was never going to interest even a modest polytechnic, never mind a world class university. As I entered the world of work, I began to realise that not only were there other people like me. There were people who were far, far poorer than me.
I find it hard to accept a society that allows such divisions on the basis of geography caused by wealth and the lack of it. That 91.4% less school-leavers go to university from the Hartcliffe estate than in leafy Clifton, is obscene. It makes a mockery of the so-called land of opportunity in which we live. The injustice is simply wicked.
I felt the affects of a stunted education all my life. I still feel them today. I know that I am reaching the latter stages of the one life I shall ever live and I regret the choices I made and the choices that were made for me by a horribly unequal country. The differences between Clifton and Hartcliffe prove nothing has changed.
