Is academically selective state education contrary to Christian principles?
by Julian Mann, Christian Today:
Mail on Sunday columnist, Peter Hitchens, a practising Anglican Christian, does not think so. He has written a book, due to come out in November, arguing that the closure of hundreds of state-funded grammar schools since the 1960s has severely undermined British education.
It is noteworthy that Britain’s first woman Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, a grocer’s daughter, attended an academically selective grammar school in Grantham, Lincolnshire, from 1936 to 1943.
It is certainly true that since grammar schools began to be phased out, fee-paying private schools have grossly outperformed state schools. This has significantly reduced social mobility in Britain because most of the previously very effective competitors to private schools – selective grammar schools – either went independent or comprehensive.
So, if the re-introduction of state schools with an academically competitive entrance exam would enable clever children from modest backgrounds like the late Lady Thatcher to develop their God-given talents without disrupted classes, then why does a government committed to ‘levelling up’ not get on with rolling them out? Perhaps the current Conservative government has more in common with the socialist politicians who created comprehensive education in 1965 than it would care to admit.
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