When research turns out to be counterintuitive, it’s time to turn to common sense.
Back in 1996 I was approached by the late Sir Robert Ogden, who had made millions from reclamation projects in Yorkshire and beyond.
He had an idea to invest in the education of young people in the South Yorkshire coalfield, paving the way for them to potentially attend university. Three years later I had the chance to evaluate the impact of Sir Robert’s investment in one of the most deprived parts of the UK. That programme, linked to the University of Leeds, provided the basis for the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA).
By 2004, the EMA had been rolled-out across the country. It invested in 16 to 19 year-olds so they could continue learning and develop ambition way beyond the cultural and educational backcloth from which many of them sought to emerge.
In other words, to inspire, raise aspiration and expectation by enabling youngsters to buy books, purchase emerging computer equipment, afford bus fares to get to college and achieve the same footing as their wealthier counterparts.
Surprise and bewilderment over IfS research
I received – from young people and tutors in post-16 education – universal acclamation for the scheme and felt great despair when it was effectively abolished in the 2011 austerity cuts.
Imagine my surprise and bewilderment when I heard about the research produced by the Institute for Fiscal Studies and funded by the Nuffield Foundation.
All these years on, this research – far from highlighting the massive upsurge in take-up of further education by young people in the period the study covered – decided to trash it.
The researchers claimed that because young people from disadvantaged backgrounds were receiving the maintenance allowance, they didn’t experience the world of work post-16. This apparently discouraged them from earning at that time, and limited potential earnings later in life.
In plain speak, they weren’t having to survive by going out to work (and they even mention full-time work), whilst also studying.
So let’s turn the tables over: Do we think it’s been a very bad thing that young people from wealthier backgrounds have not been made to go out to work post-16 whilst studying at school and college?
Would it not have been better if those from wealthier families tasted the world of work much earlier, giving them the capacity to earn then and to earn more later?
If you believe the answer is yes, then you’re entirely in tune with these researchers.
If, on the other hand, you believe that facilitating young people being able to buy the learning materials, get to school or college (I’m presuming the researchers live in London and therefore don’t understand that free transport doesn’t exist in most of the rest of the country, post-16) then you will think that the investment made was worthwhile.
Sometimes common-sense overrides ‘clever Dicks’
Sometimes common-sense overrides what my grandfather would have called “clever Dicks”. That’s why I used the experience of young people in my own constituency of Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough to determine whether the policy was beneficial or not.
One outcome was the most enormous uptake of young people continuing education post-16 and entering university in substantially larger numbers, at least in North Sheffield. Sadly, before that investment in young people and post-16 education my constituency was the country’s third lowest area for progression into higher education.
The correlation between deprivation and opportunity is well documented by researchers over decades; researchers who don’t equate low level, badly paid menial work with progression into educational opportunity or higher paid jobs.
So too is the link between university education and future earnings – even if the far right is constantly trying to reinvent the facts, and most of those preaching the opposite encourage their own offspring to take up exactly those opportunities.
If there’s a serious question mark over whether we should be encouraging young people to take up full-time education between the ages of 16-19, then a much more thorough and extensive piece of research is needed. Not least because this would demonstrate that the whole of our thinking over the last century, and the vast amounts of money spent by a small proportion of the population educating their children privately to the age of 18, is completely thrown into doubt.
Work experience is crucial to good careers advice and guidance, and, for some, a mix of working life and continuing education or apprenticeships will be entirely the most appropriate route. But offering a choice and enabling many to take up and progress in full-time education is a moral as well as an economic imperative. I wanted my children to have that choice, and I want other youngsters to have it too.
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