Political talk about the need for improved education to promote social mobility is never lacking.

Educationists boast how much we are spending on education, on the new schools we are building, on the number of free gadgets we distribute to students, and on the high qualifications of many of the educators who face our children and grandchildren in our ‘inclusive’ classrooms.

Those who are closely following the debate on the reintroduction of grammar schools in the UK know how divisive it is to define excellence in education.

Even more difficult is finding the best educational system for students with mixed abilities.

Undoubtedly, social mobility is the objective of most political leaders whether they come from the right or the left of the political spectrum. But when it comes to implementing tough educational reforms they seem to struggle, simply because such reforms can take a generation to bear fruit.

Politicians, contrary to statesmen, have a short perspective of the future.

The gap between the haves and have-nots in western societies in getting bigger.

Those with low skills as a result of poor educational attainment face a bleak future.

Even those with the wrong academic qualifications are struggling to find the dream job they worked so hard for because the new economy is based on the Fourth Industrial Revolution where new employee skills are demanded by employers.

Politicians, contrary to statesmen, have a short perspective of the future

By 2022 in Britain alone it is estimated that 9.2 million low-skilled people will be chasing 3.7 million low-skilled jobs. The Association of Graduate Recruiters in the UK recently published a study that found that “half of employers say new employees struggle with teamwork and problem solving”.

So something must surely be wrong with many of the educational systems in the EU including our own where the number of unskilled workers remains stubbornly high.

Yet no one seems to have as yet discovered the silver bullet that will resolve the problem of social immobility and underperformance by so many students.

The UK Prime Minister passionately believes in the reintroduction of grammar schools that have a reputation for strict focus on academic achievement.

It is based on the concept of streaming that many educators today consider as outdated because it is socially divisive.

A minority, including myself, believe that despite the politicians’ hubris, streaming is still being practised – even in today’s politically correct systems based on the philosophy of educational inclusiveness. Theresa May in a question time session in the UK parliament taunted a number of shadow ministers opposing grammar schools for having attended grammar schools themselves in their youth or who are today sending their children to selective schools. It would be interesting to know how many of our own MPs have had a private education or send their children to private schools that are certainly more selective then state schools.

The reality is that no country can have a one-size-fits-all education system. Parents need to have a choice where to educate their children. Today this choice is only in the hands of the well-off families who can afford to provide safety nets in the form of private tuition for their children where the education system fails.

Most working class families often cannot afford this luxury.

A cross-party alliance of British MPs recently wrote in The Observer to oppose the Prime Minister’s flagship education reform based on the reintroduction of grammar schools.

One just hopes that their intentions are not tainted by political manoeuvring to cause as much trouble to their leaders as they can. The cross-party alliance says:  “Those championing selection as the silver bullet for tackling social mobility, or as the panacea for creating good new school places are misguided. All the evidence is clear that grammar schools damage social mobility, while they can boost attainment for the already highly gifted, they do nothing for the majority of children who do not attend them.”

So the judgement is still out on whether educational streaming can improve the educational achievement of the majority of students. But one tough reality that all educationists have to face is that the root cause of poor educational achievement is often linked to poverty in the home where some students live.

As long as we measure success in education by how much we spend, or how many PhDs we have in the teaching profession without listening to the sad reality that most educators face on a daily basis in the classrooms, we will continue to miss the wood for the trees.

johncassarwhite@yahoo.com