The EU is facing an alarming crisis that only rarely makes it to the front pages of the media or the top list of political priorities. We are witnessing a major setback for social mobility as the recent progress on narrowing the education gap between poor children and the rest has ground to a halt.
There is ample evidence of this phenomenon provided in studies by NGOs throughout Europe. The UK Education Policy Institute in its latest report claims that between 2017 and 2018 students receiving free school meals (because of their distressed background) during their education were 18.1 months behind others in GCSE in English and maths by the time they left secondary school, compared with 17.9 months in the previous year.
David Laws, the institute’s executive chairman and former Liberal Democrat Treasury Secretary, argues that “Educational inequality on this scale is bad for both social mobility and economic productivity”.
He comments further that renewed policies based on evidence of what makes an impact, rather than on political ideology and guesswork are required.
The economic think tank Bruegel based in Brussels issued a report in 2016 that throws further light on the widening gap of social inequality. The economic crisis that started in 2007 and economic stagnation since then has meant that 15 per cent of 20 to 29-year-olds are unemployed while seven per cent of 50 to 64-year-olds are also without work.
The importance of primary school education is acknowledged by all educators
The jobs market is also polarising. The number of jobs for people with higher education has doubled over two decades while the number of jobs going to those with the least education has declined by 30 per cent in the same period. This disparity of job opportunities partly explains the resentment that millions of Europeans feel such resentment to the phenomenon of migration. Low skilled migrants are competing for jobs with Europeans with hardly any qualifications.
Education is critical to social mobility. Whether a child can attain a higher level of education than his or her parents is crucial for social mobility and a more inclusive society. Most educational systems in EU countries deliver benefits to the high achievers as well as those students who find almost unlimited support from their parents.
If children in middle-class families are struggling academically, the chances are that their parents will do what it takes to ensure they do not fall between the cracks of the educational system. Children who live in working-class families or even worse in deprived environments often find it difficult to find the support and motivation that they need to make the best of the years they spend in education.
The Bruegel report on social mobility has identified Malta, Portugal and Luxembourg as the EU countries where the highest share of low-education adults with parents who were also low-educated. The same report calls for reforms to education, tax policy and social welfare to reduce inequality and help Europe’s youth move up the economic ladder.
The strategic initiatives that need to be defined more prominently include investment in early childhood education. The importance of primary school education is acknowledged by all educators. Teachers must be treated with great respect and paid as well as other graduates in more glamorous industries like finance. This implies that only those who have the right aptitude and motivation to become teachers should be allowed to practice in the profession.
Skills development and social and creative intelligence need to be hardwired in our educational system. Once again, the successful implementation of this strategy does not depend solely on policymakers who define curricula in air-conditioned offices far from the stressful environment of the classroom. It depends on motivated teachers and lecturers who work on the coalface of education where students with mixed abilities need to be assisted to achieve the minimum level of skills to make them employable.
Families who struggle to put food on the table because of some unavoidable circumstances like physical or psychological poverty need to be assisted more tangibly while avoiding to make them dependant on handouts. More progressive tax policies are needed as a low tax environment hardly assists those who are already on a low income but with little prospects of moving up the social ladder.
Social well-being goes beyond measuring wealth in terms of economic output. It implies a collective commitment to reward those who make a success out of their education but also an even more steely determination to assist those who struggle against all the odds to make a success out of their lives.