The battle for social mobility

The battle for social mobility

The failure to turn around the UK’s dismal level of social mobility may haunt Labour even more than Iraq or Afghanistan

The great debates over education and social mobility are increasingly framed in military terms – and for a very good reason: our children’s lives are quite literally at stake in this battleground.

here are 80 recommendations in all. This has been a genuinely independent exercise. But it also reflects the realisation that the social mobility battle will be won or lost in the fields of education

The fear is that the current economic recession will not only limit social mobility for the most disadvantaged but anyone outside the super-elites – as education budgets, university places and job openings are rationed.Read more at www.guardian.co.uk

Interesting report that locates the solution to the lack of social mobility in the UK in the education system. The last time social mobility was at a high level in the UK was with the enormous increase in white collar and managerial work created by the expansion of the public sector and a rapidly growing corporate sector, all supported by a consensus around Keynesian economic policy. While the labour market is shrinking, as it is now, even a successful policy to increase social mobility will only rearrange the deckchairs on the Titanic of (for those that haven’t seen the film) shuffle the pack. Every move up from the bottom10% means a someone else will take the place. There will always be a bottom 10% of course.