I was educated at a comprehensive school and a large Sixth Form that is also an Adult Education College. I am radically committed to state education. It is clear that many of the injustices in our society are caused or exacerbated by the UK’s attachment to the right of parents to buy social segregation for their children, a phenomenon that does not have counterparts in the educational systems of our European neighbours, whether Italy or France. I support the campaign group Comprehensive Future and have worked extensively to encourage students from non-selective state schools to apply to the prestigious universities at which I have worked.
My research on the history of education and the birth of the humanities in the Renaissance period gives me perspective on the short-sightedness of the marketizing Higher Education policies of modern-day governments. These range from the injustice of tuition fees to the absurdities of the Teaching Excellence Framework, in which quality of teaching is judged not by observing lecturers at work but according to pay packets of graduates and the whimsical responses of the consumer-style poll that is the National Student Survey. I am a member of the Executive Committee of the Campaign for the Defence of British Universities, an organization that works to scrutinize government ‘reforms’ to the university sector. Our aim is to protect the values that make universities such distinct and essential institutions, contributors both to individual and to public good. If you believe in the good of universities, then do sign up!
