A few years ago we had this thing called the ‘comprehensive system’ it meant all kids regardless of their ability or social status could get an education without being divided at the age of 11 into ‘successes’ and ‘failures’. We also let those kids from council estates and little terraces and flats who didn’t have trust funds go on to university without having to pay for it with money they didn’t have. Those kids became teaches, doctors, academics, writers, scientists, hell some of them even became politicians. No matter what they did with their degrees they had the opportunity to learn, to challenge themselves and to think. The kind of experience any civilised society (or at least one with the pretence of civilisation) should aim for. They also paid taxes their entire lives and now have to pay for their kids to go university, often money they can’t afford or simply don’t have. Not to mentions the millions who didn’t go to university but think maybe their kids would like to and maybe they’ve been saving a bit but then they’ve had to pay a huge mortgage or stupidly high rent because people encouraged an unrealistic housing market with stupidly high prices only the few could afford without getting into debts the size of the Himalayas.
These cuts and fees are not necessary (how many degrees could the security fees for the royal wedding pay for? just one wee example) they are ideological. They are borne from a mindset that does not value education, that places more value on its citizens as worker bees than human beings. That does not deem it fit for those who have so much (often gained at the expense of so many) pay their way.
Education cannot and should not be valued as a way to make money. The opportunity to study something you are passionate about, to gain knowledge, confidence and many skills than can’t be defined in some bullshit ‘skills for life as a slave to the markets’ checklist, should not be the preserve of those lucky enough to be born with a trust fund or have won the lottery or other such one in a million occurrences of pure LUCK that determine your financial status.
There are more consequences too, I cannot speak for all academic subjects but I know within archaeology and history a lot of the information we have is governed largely by the interpretations of those who study it. These interpretations reflect the inequalities in our society and over the last 30 years or so real progress has been made to make sure the voices of minorities have been heard in these subjects, and others too. We have started to glean insights into the history and cultures of the majority of the world who aren’t rich white men. We have started to appreciate and discover art and literature written by people who aren’t rich white men, we have studied ideas and inventions of people who aren’t rich white men. I will use a small example form my dissertation, I was collection references to the En priestess of Sumer and one I came across had been translated as ‘SON of so and so’. This is an interpretation that was based purely on bias, the original Sumerian read ‘child of’ (the sumerians had no word for son/daughter but one word for child/offspring). It took about 40 or 50 years for feminism and women’s liberation to filter through into academia before people even THOUGHT to research the lives of women in the past as we (and by ‘we’ I mean rich white guys) assumed women in the past had a status reflecting women of their society, i.e. subservient and not really worth bothering about. The sheer eurocentricity of the general view of world history and ‘civilisation’ is only now beginning to be challenged in a wider arena. Another example, the fabulous Ife heads of west africa, some of the most stunning sculpture you will ever see, have been studied and interpreted for years by mostly white guys. It was first assumed they must date to after the Portuguese conquest as Africans couldn’t possibly have invented such complex techniques themselves. Later it was found out they did and they dated to hundreds of years before white people ever set foot there and are part of a long tradition of a complex society. These are just small examples of how having everyone’s history interpreted by the few we do everyone a disservice. Things in archaeology and history are beginning to change yet I fear that if we persist in seeing education as a privilege (especially a humanities education and not a degree in making more money for corporations) to be undertaken only by the few who can afford it we risk creating a real bias in research and what is seen as ‘worth studying’, not only in these subjects but all subjects. Michael colossal tit Gove’s education reforms for schools worry me greatly in much the same way. In the words of the wonderful Mrs Lintott in the History Boys by the wonderful Alan Bennett (who if he was to go to university today, erm probably wouldn’t what with him being northern and not from an especially rich background, he’d probably work in Tesco fishing out cream crackers from under the shelves.)
“History is a commentary on the various and continuing incapabilities of men. What is history? History is women following behind with the bucket. “ and to women we can add ‘anyone who’s not a rich, white, abled bodied, heterosexual male’. Which is actually most of us.
No one is free of bias, all research is affected by our biases that emerge from our background, these biases should be challenged by any good academic but we cannot un live our lives and emerge a blank slate, we need the opinions and experiences of a wide range of people to ensure that academic research (which despite popular misconception does affect the lives of those outside academia however subtly) reflects these issues. To deny this is to pretty much ensure academia becomes even more of an ivory tower with no relation to the outside world and focused upon the needs and interests of the few. The best way to combat this is to ensure everyone has access to education, to recognise the importance of education as something any civilised society should support. We all benefit from education is it so abhorrent that our taxes be used to pay for something that is of benefit to our society than to burden those who will pay taxes throughout their lives anyway, (often for things they don’t personally benefit from, but hey that’s what living in a society is about!) with more debt?
To shut down access to education like this not only affects those who stay on at college or university but us all. This is not just about individual students, this is about society, something I think we need to rediscover (in a real way not Cameron’s ‘big society’ which exists only in his head and possibly involves talking bunny rabbits on clouds or something). Rampant individualism has to die, we do not live in vacuums and we owe it to ourselves and to everyone else we share our houses, streets, cities, countries and planet with. Like or not we do live in ‘communities’ even if it’s a bit too scary to some contemplate a word that sounds like ‘communism’. We do bear a responsibility to other people and so many in power have been shirking it for so long but the shit is starting to hit the fan now and this is only the beginning, there are millions like me and we won’t shut up and co-operate quietly while we see our lives and our future lives ruined by people living cloud cuckoo land (a.k.a ‘the big society’) using ‘the deficit’ as an excuse to bring in ideological reforms akin to workhouses and sending kids up chimneys.
Discussion
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