Educational Opportunities: Working Classes

Lord Kirkham Excerpts

Thursday 5th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kirkham (Con)]

I speak today from my vantage point as chairman of the trustees of the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, deputy patron of Outward Bound, and also from my personal experience of social mobility, as the adopted son of a south Yorkshire coal miner, raised in what I might describe as loving poverty.

It is an indisputable fact that the lack of opportunity for those born into what we regrettably still describe as the working class is a significant drag on the potential prosperity and overall happiness of the UK—not that academic or material success can guarantee happiness. However, if we do aspire to upward mobility, we should ask ourselves what is the great advantage that the middle classes, and particularly privately educated children, enjoy in their pursuit of lucrative careers?

I contend that that specific advantage is the quality of confidence—confidence allied with the interpersonal and social skills needed to work effectively with others in a team. I have spoken before of the desperate need to ensure that all our young people, particularly those from poorer backgrounds, leave school educated and trained in basic life skills—the essential skills so necessary to enter the world of work and to develop into responsible citizens, to help to keep our society cohesive and healthy, and to maximise their potential and their social mobility.

It is a proven fact that extracurricular experiences with organisations like the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award and Outward Bound can often do much more to equip a young person for life than an academic education alone, important though that may be. Schools should undoubtedly increase their focus on teaching life skills, embedding them in day-to-day education, for the benefit of everyone.

I deeply regret the ever-increasing focus of state education on core subjects—English, maths and science—and the fact that teaching is relentlessly centred on exam results. Learning modern languages and nurturing an appreciation of art, music and drama can all do much to grow a young person’s sense of self-worth and enjoyment of life, regardless of background.

Happiness, fulfilment and learning can also be greatly enhanced by getting away from the classroom and experiencing the outdoors. Nearly two-thirds of British schoolchildren spend less than five hours a week outdoors—less time than a prisoner spends in an exercise yard. Indeed, there are 1.6 million kids from poorer backgrounds in the UK who have no garden, and who in the course of a year never set foot in a park, let alone go to a beach or enjoy a holiday. That should concern us all, because, in the wise words of Sir David Attenborough,

“No one will protect what they don’t care about; and no one will care about what they have never experienced.”


Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness—the guiding principles of the American declaration of independence —should feature high on our agenda as we move on from our membership of the EU. We should not value people simply by the level of their exam results or the size of their pay packets but rather by their contribution to the sum of human happiness—whether they are content in their own lives, and how much they contribute to the happiness of others.

Let us broaden our approach to education so that we give equal value to every facet of it, combining creative, academic and vocational skills, indoors and outdoors—whatever may help to nurture a rounded, confident and happy individual. And we should make that opportunity open to everyone. Let us also break down the ludicrous and outdated distinction between technical and academic education, to enable the apprentice to feel as highly valued by society as the Oxbridge graduate. That would help us to build a fairer state, in which no one fails to achieve their full potential because of the circumstances in which they were born, or where they may live.