HC Deb 18 April 1978 vol 948 cc237-40
8. Mr. William Hamilton

asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if she is aware of the widespread concern about the continuing small proportion of students from a manual worker background entering university: and what action she intends to take to resolve the problem.

Mr. Oakes

My right hon. Friend and I fully share this concern. What might be done to increase participation by this group is one of the matters on which my Department has invited views in its recent discussion document "Higher Education into the 1990s". Copies of the document are available in the Library.

Mr. Hamilton

Will my hon. Friend confirm that for the last 50 years the proportion of undergraduates with a background of fathers with a manual occupation has remained unchanged at about 20 to 25 per cent.? Does he agree that this eventually percolates through to the higher echelons of the Civil Service, to the great detriment and disadvantage of Labour Governments? Will he consider setting up a working party of sons and daughters of working men to see whether we can seek a remedy to this situation?

Mr. Oakes

I cannot go back 50 years at the moment, but I can confirm that in 1976 24 per cent. of successful university applicants were children of manual workers, and this proportion has tended to decline marginally over the last few years.

Mr. Rifkind

Will the Minister confirm that the purpose of our educational system is not to assist Labour Governments? Will he confirm that the Government will bring no pressure on universities to apply any form of positive discrimination regarding non-educational qualifications for entry to universities?

Mr. Oakes

I am not talking about positive discrimination, which can be insulting. However, I am concerned at the type of figure which shows that 50 per cent of the places in universities are taken by occupation groups whose parents represent 25 per cent. of the population. As the university population will inevitably decline in the 1980s because of the decline in the birth rate, universities must pay particular regard to the matter.

Miss Joan Lestor

I support the proposition of my hon. Friend the Member for Fife, Central (Mr. Hamilton). Does not the Minister agree, however, that it is not only the section that he mentions that is at risk? There is also the maintenance of children in sixth forms and children and young people going into further education. The lack of support for them militates particularly against the lower income groups.

Mr. Oakes

My hon. Friend makes a considerable point. The number of applications for universities from this group are less than they would otherwise be. I am concerned that financial considerations should not deter potential higher education students from staying on in full-time education beyond the age of 16. But it is important to recognise that a system of mandatory grants for 16 to 19-yearolds would be very expensive.

Mr. William Shelton

I believe I am right in saying—perhaps the Minister will tell me whether this is so—that the proportion in this country is higher than in Europe. It is higher than the proportion in France or Germany. Does the hon. Gentleman have those figures with him?

Mr. Oakes

I do not have the figures with me. The types of education provided in European universities, the staff-student ratio, and so on, are so totally different from our system that it would be misleading to give figures. On all sides of the House, we would be entirely complacent to accept the present figures. Something must be done to improve them.

Mr. Flannery

Does my hon. Friend agree with me that most people who send their children to private and so-called public schools do so because the classes are very small and, therefore, the teacher contact with each child is much greater than it is in State schools? Does not this underline that we need to reduce the number of children in our classes, to utilise all the teachers that we have available and to put more money into State education, so that the teachers will have smaller classes and can therefore teach the children better? Does my hon. Friend agree that this would help a great deal to ensure that the sons and daughters of manual workers have greater access to higher education?

Mr. Oakes

It might help somewhat. There is no doubt that class size and performance have a great relationship to each other, but many other factors are involved. I think that my hon. Friend hit upon one of them before, and that is money.

Dr. Boyson

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the Opposition are as concerned about this matter as any Labour Members? Compassion and social ability are not the monopoly of the Left. Does it not strike the Minister that the decline in the proportional intake to universities from the manual working classes has come at the same time as we have moved to comprehensive schools? These trends may be working in country and small town areas, but may it not be that in down-town areas in the centres of cities social ability has been reduced and that the deprived child from the poor background is not getting the way through that he did with good grammar schools?

Mr. Oakes

That is a travesty of the truth. It is because O-levels and A-levels are now available and open to a much larger range of students than in the past that future prospects look brighter than they otherwise would.