Grammar power

The Government’s decision to release money for grammar school expansion is very welcome. At a time when there are calls for Oxford and Cambridge to open new colleges to help disadvantaged students, it is up to the Tories to shift the education debate to where it belongs: improving secondary education. Thanks to reforms begun by Michael Gove, many schools have got better – by raising standards and, crucially, increasing the diversity of institutions on offer. Only one kind of school was excluded from that experiment: grammars. The decision was particularly odd given that they so often stand head-and-shoulders above their competitors.

Some policy makers simply don’t like grammars, others perhaps felt that re-introducing overt selection would politically tarnish the effort to introduce academies or streaming by ability. It is argued that grammars tend to be dominated by richer parents who can move to a catchment area or afford private tuition. The obvious solution is to provide as many grammars as possible, so that competition for places is not limited by postcode. Failing that, the Government has chosen to expand existing grammar schools with the proviso that they reach out to poorer parts of society. Given that there isn’t a majority in the Commons at present for a renaissance in grammars, this is a compromise that makes sense.

There is a social mobility problem in Britain and education is at the heart of fixing it. Thank goodness we have a Government that is willing to use all the tools available and not rule out grammars on the basis of ideological antipathy. Labour’s outright opposition betrays both reason and the very people the party claims to speak for.