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The Prime Minister today (Friday) gave a wide-ranging speech on education. As her first speech as Prime Minister addressing the domestic agenda, it’s well worth taking a look at.

The head-line grabber will be the move to allow more grammar schools, which is to say allowing selection by academic criteria. This is obviously a symbolic departure, but without more details on what is being proposed it’s impossible to know what the practical implications will be. Some I spoke to afterwards were worried, but not for the reasons you might expect. Who’s going to run them? Who gets to define admissions criteria? What will be the effect on teacher recruitment and retention in non-selective schools?

The Government’s decision to drop the 50% cap on places open to faith-based selection criteria for new faith schools will likewise prove controversial. As May said, the measure as it is has little impact on Jewish, Hindu or Muslim schools. Even if they become oversubscribed (at which point the cap kicks in) they will have relatively few non-Jewish, non-Hindu and non-Muslim applicants who want a place. From the cohesion and integration point of view, therefore, the measure has had limited effect.
Rather the cap, which was part of the coalition agreement around new faith-based free schools, has chiefly had the effect of providing a disincentive to the Catholic Church (which claims that canon law prevents them from opening schools which might have to turn Catholic children away on the basis of the quota) from opening any free schools.

Predictably, the BHA, Accord, et al. have reacted to the announcement  by going off at the deep end. Looser regulations will only likely effect a small number of schools (i.e., any free schools the Catholic Church now chooses to open). If there’s any argument against them applying faith-based selection criteria, I would say that it’s a theological one (but that’s another blog). Let’s not forget that the huge majority of new faith schools being opened are opened by the Church of England, and that more often than not these have no religious selection criteria.

These are interesting notes, but we should also pay attention to the key in which the speech was delivered. The speech was about much more than education, and I think is intended to frame her administration’s approach. I initially thought that May’s speech would have a strong One Nation flavour. The phrase ‘ordinary working class people’ must have been used ten times if it was used once. May is clearly intent on pursuing the agenda she set out on the steps of Downing Street on the day she became Prime Minister. But the speech took quite a self-conscious turn towards ‘meritocracy’, a word that must have been used 30 times. “I want Britain to be the world’s great meritocracy – a country where everyone has a fair chance to go as far as their talent and their hard work will allow”.

Which is fine… I would prefer a meritocratic Britain to an aristocratic Britain or a kakistocratic (look it up) Britain. But you have to define your terms – merit in what regard, and why is that the thing we value? What are the factors that contribute to merit, and how do you measure it? No child ever got anywhere on his or her own merits. They’re always encouraged, supported, helped and valued (or not). The language of meritocracy has a devil-take-the-hindmost feel, and could easily see May backslide from her position as a One Nation Prime Minister.

It’s great that May has made a clear commitment in principle to the idea of a diversity of providers, and to the freedom of parents to find schooling which, all things being equal, reflects their religious values. But that’s not the most important thing about this speech. May wants schools to be able to stretch the ‘academically gifted’, and there’s nothing wrong with that. The question is, will the rest be understood and catered for as otherwise-gifted, or simply not-gifted. The idealist in me hopes for the former. The realist in me suspects that it’ll be the latter. 

Paul Bickley is the Director of Political Programme at Theos 

Image from UK Home Office via flickr under creative commons 2.0