Education and Society

Lord Chartres Excerpts

Friday 8th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Chartres (CB)]

My Lords, having been recycled in your Lordships’ House, this is in the nature of a second maiden speech and perhaps, with two maiden speeches, I might be described as extra virgin, double pressed. It is an extraordinarily timely debate, most eloquently introduced by the most reverend Primate, and we have heard why from a number of other noble Lords. The sense of urgency of the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, particularly resonated with me, as did the words of the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, about real dangers for democracy, which I take very seriously indeed.

Aristotle has already been invoked on a number of occasions in this debate. He has been put in his place, of course, by the earlier sages of the Indian subcontinent, but Aristotle warned that there was a recurring pattern of democracy disintegrating because the demos ceased to have any shared moral compass or shared narrative. They became a crowd of atomised individuals. When that happens, democracy fades and you have some kind of administrative tyranny. Therefore, the comment about the real danger to democracy in our time is one we all ought to heed.

Having heard other contributions to this debate, I feel somewhat like Ruth gleaning after a combine harvester, but it is clear that we are all agreed that places of education are where we incubate a better future. It is true historically that educational strategies have been at the heart of the various economic and social shifts and have been involved in the Industrial Revolution and the growth of a knowledge-based economy. However, we are now well into a century of challenge for humanity as a whole, most eloquently described by the noble Lord, Lord Rees, in his book, Our Final Century. I note that the title, worryingly, is not supplied with a question mark.

In this time of huge challenge for humanity from various sources, we need to complement the Tree of Knowledge with the tree of wisdom, which sets knowledge in the context of human flourishing. In a society dominated by technology, which has opened up new possibilities, we need to rediscover our heart. If we want to avoid moving into an ice age of humanity, we must give more weight to reasons of the heart. People have been working to develop computers that can think. The Japanese are experimenting with care robots to assist in the care of the elderly. As far as I am aware, no one has suggested developing a computer that can love. Our fulfilment and enjoyment in life, or the misery we suffer, do not in the end depend on what we know or do not know but on whether we love and are loved. Skills help us to land the job; character is what people talk about when you die, when what you did in design and technology at GCSE matters very little.

As the father of a Teach First graduate teaching in a state school in Tower Hamlets, I very much resonated with the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths, about the huge gap between the aspirations described by noble Lords around the House and what is actually happening on the ground. I hope the Minister can offer us all the assurance that serious consideration will be given to widening the scope of the EBacc.

In conclusion, I draw attention to a skill which has not been explicitly mentioned so far in this debate, but which I believe is crucial if we are to cultivate a future in which we substantiate our claim that, even if we leave the EU we are not leaving Europe—namely, the provision of better language training early in life. One of my last acts as Bishop of London was to open the new Saint Jérôme School on Harrow high street, a state-funded Church primary school. It does not merely offer language teaching; the whole curriculum is delivered in French and English. It is virtually a trilingual school, because the language of most of the pupils is Gujarati. It seems that facility in another language is an important contribution to building the wisdom economy we need and to securing the best possible and most flourishing future if we leave the EU.

Education: Pupils and Young People

Lord Chartres Excerpts

Thursday 28th October 2010 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of London]

My Lords, I join other noble Lords in thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, for introducing this significant debate. The content of the phrase “excellence in education” obviously depends on our view of human beings and our understanding of what constitutes fulfilment in life. If we are simply fodder for the economy, or consumers who have to be equipped with critical tools to make choices, then we shall look for excellence in number-based subjects. If, on the other hand, without despising our role in the economy, we regard the overarching story of a human life as claiming freedom from dependence, becoming independent and then being equipped for interdependence in those mutual relationships that for most people bring joy and meaning to life, then our understanding of “excellence” will be wider.

I declare an interest as president of the London Diocesan Board, which has the privilege, every day, of educating 50,000 young people in London north of the Thames. Many of our schools are hundreds of years old. I echo my right reverend brother in saying that they were established to serve the whole community and not just the Anglican part of it. We reject the category “faith school” because it is misleading about the motivation and operation of our educational work. I have often wondered what is supposed to be the opposite of a faith school; perhaps it is a “doubt school”. Every school is informed by an educational philosophy and assumptions about human life. It is simply that our schools’ philosophy is clearly stated and not concealed.

It seems to me that every child has a right not to be under pressure at school to convert to any particular philosophical or faith position, but every child has a right to be equipped for a good life with three things: religious literacy, ethical clarity and spiritual awareness, which is often best developed by music and the arts. Our schools serve a diverse constituency. I asked one of the imams in Tower Hamlets why he sent his child to the church school. His reply was simple: “God is honoured in our church school”.

My daughter recently did her GCSEs at the Grey Coat Hospital, an 18th-century foundation close to your Lordships’ House. Out of just over 1,000, 664 pupils are from ethnic minorities. The deprivation indices are high but the contextual value-added result is 1,021—one of the best scores in the country. As your Lordships will know, the UK average is 1,005.

Excellence is not to be confused with elitism and we have also been grateful for the initiatives of the previous Government, and the present one, aimed at increasing access to excellence for all. We have opened four new academies in the diocese, and the fifth has the theme of science and religion. The noble Lord, Lord Winston, and I will be playing second and third fiddles respectively to the Secretary of State when it is opened towards the end of November. The proposed St Luke's School is in the first wave of the new free schools.

I am aware of the helpful conversations which have been going on at a national level between the department, the Church of England, the Roman Catholic Church and those responsible for education in the Jewish community to achieve a consistent designation of any new schools with a faith-based character, so that their proper freedom is secured while the possibility of supportive relationships with wider groupings is preserved. The vision of the big society, as the noble Baroness pointed out, recognises the contribution of those intermediate bodies, the little platoons that occupy the ground between the state and individual units. It would be wasteful to neglect the additional resources available through church, mosque, temple and synagogue-based educational charities.