Education and Attainment of White Working-Class Boys

Karl McCartney Excerpts

Wednesday 12th February 2020 Westminster Hall

[Karl MᶜCartney (Lincoln) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir George. I rise to make a brief speech to welcome the initiative of my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Ben Bradley) in securing this debate. I agree with every word he said. Three years ago, we had a similar debate in this Chamber on this subject, which I had the privilege to lead.

Secondary school league table data just published by the BBC on 6 February confirms that England’s schoolboys have had worse exam results than girls for 30 years. Another notable fact, reported by Ally Fogg on the politics.co.uk website, is that among every ethnic group, boys perform markedly worse than girls. Among the most deprived children, that effect is greatest. Across the board, a girl from a free school meals background is now 52% more likely to go to university than her male equivalent. Most worrying of all is that while there has been a welcome narrowing of the equity gap in ethnicity over the past two decades, and even the FSM gap has shrunk slightly, the gender gap has been going the other way. The difference in attainment for girls and boys is now markedly greater than that between white and black, Asian and minority ethnic students. The trend is best illustrated by the Higher Education Policy Institute in 2016, which calculated that if current trends continue, a boy born that year would be 75% less likely to attend university than a girl by the time he is 18.

The Men & Boys Coalition has done some sterling examination of this area of education and has unearthed some more stark effects for our colleagues in the Government, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and the Minister here today to digest. In 2019, 62.9% of males received grade 1 to 4, A* to C, GCSE grades, while 71.7% of females received the same results. Only 54.2% of 16-year-old boys achieved a grade C/4 English language GCSE, compared with 70.5% of girls. Some 59.9% of boys achieved grade C/4 in maths, as did 59.2% of girls. In the 2018 cycle, 196,105 men or boys domiciled in the UK accepted places at university, compared with 263,180 women or girls, a gap of 67,075 or 35%. The figure in 2008 was 177,780 and 226,075 respectively, a gap of 48,295 or 27%. Those figures are from UCAS.

However, I will end on a positive note. Recently, the head of three Muslim schools that came top in England for progress has vowed to help white working-class children, as analysis shows a widening gap between coastal and city schools. Government tables published recently reveal that the best three schools for progress were part of Star Academies. Although all its schools are in deprived inner cities with higher numbers of ethnic minorities, it is now focusing on deprived coastal areas with mainly white populations. It has taken on schools in Blackburn and Morecambe on the Lancashire coast.

I promoted a career academy in my first term as a Member of Parliament, in partnership with Steve Penney, then deputy head at the City School on Skellingthorpe Road in Lincoln, to assist pupils. I urge anyone with an interest to seek out the rebranded Career Ready charity, which seeks to raise the career aspirations of all pupils of whatever background in our schools, using business mentors and those who wish to offer a hand up the ladder of aspiration. Some universities have tailored approaches to widening participation for different under-represented groups. The national collaborative outreach programme is a national initiative focused on extending higher education opportunities to specifically disadvantaged wards across the country. The programme operates in Lincoln through LiNCHigher, which involves Bishop Grosseteste University and the University of Lincoln, and I encourage anyone and everyone to view their various outreach programmes.

Universities UK is also currently conducting a major review into admissions to look at how to make the application process fairer for all students. It tells me the review will be published in the spring, and I hope it will include the views that many hon. Members have expressed today and in recent debates on the subject. I thank hon. Members for their forbearance.