Illiberal studies

State education in Wales seems at odds with the historic values of liberalism. Instead, it echoes a more leftist approach to both society and schooling, argues Richard Kelly.

When he wrote his famous work, On Liberty in 1859, John Stuart Mill – the father of modern British liberalism – asserted that “individuality” lay at the heart of any liberal society.

According to Mill, rational men and women had a passion for self-determination and a society where individual development, and individual choice, were prioritised by governments.

In pursuit of this enlightened goal, Mill consistently stressed the importance of formal education – even stipulating that universal adult suffrage must be preceded by universal schooling.

At the time of On Liberty, Mill was much impressed by developments in Wales. Nonconformist Christianity, with its stress upon self-improvement, had led to a proliferation of voluntary schools throughout the country; and such schools would later produce a range of effective, liberal-minded MPs.

Cardiff-born Leo Abse, who, championed the legalisation of homosexuality in 1967, was one such example; Abersychan’s Roy Jenkins, who unveiled a series of concurrent progressive reforms while Home Secretary, was another.

But it is unlikely that Mill would be impressed by Wales today. In its latest scores for numeracy, literacy and science among teenagers worldwide, the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) delivered a series of dismal verdicts.

In maths, Wales scored 7 points below the OECD average and 10 points below its PISA mark in 2022. In science, the Welsh score was slightly up from 2022, but still 6 points below the OECD average.

Meanwhile, PISA’s scores for reading in Wales showed a decline of 7 points since 2022 and, alarmingly, a decline of 17 points since 2018.

As Mark Mansfield reported here on Monday, these grim figures left 36% of Welsh learners performing below PISA’s ‘baseline proficiency’ in maths, while 31% and 27% fell short in reading and science respectively.

These scores were especially embarrassing for defenders of devolved government. The attainment gap between England and Wales is now wider than ever (36 points in maths, 38 points in reading, 40 points in science), leaving Welsh pupils over a year behind their English counterparts in all three areas of study.

The PISA report merely corroborated another respected study released in March: that of the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

Pointing out that education services in Wales were “substantially poorer than before the Covid pandemic… and poorer than in England”, the IFS observed that pupils in Wales, from households with average income, were doing no better than pupils from the poorest fifth of households in England.

‘Unfair funding’

Neither could this be attributed to different average incomes within the two nations: among all grades of household income, the IFS noted, the performance of pupils in Wales was worse than their peers’ across the border.

The IFS dismissed any suggestion that this could be attributed to ‘unfair’ funding by Westminster, noting that spending allocation per pupil in Wales had risen by 14% since 2019-20 (a higher increase than in most English regions).

The IFS thus concluded that “a lack of funding…does not appear to be the key driver of current under-performance relative to England”.  What, then, is the ‘key driver’?

Given that the IFS cited “policies and the way services are delivered”, liberal educationalists might point to a series of illiberal policies delivered by successive Welsh governments.

For example, individual autonomy and institutional diversity are vital to the management of a liberal society. Yet Wales has seen a clear rejection of the free schools, academies and multi-academy trusts that have had a diversifying, and transformational, effect in England (where PISA scores have soared in recent years).

Instead, Welsh governments have chosen to keep Welsh schools under tight, bureaucratic control, in a way that seems contrary to the liberal spirit of devolution.

As a result, talented school leaders in Wales – and I know from being a school governor there are many – have not enjoyed the flexibility granted to most schools in England; have rarely felt the direct benefits of increased government spending (being at the mercy of an arcane filtering process involving both Cardiff and local government); and have seldom enjoyed the decentralised power historically championed by liberals.

Likewise, subject leaders in schools (SLs) are granted far less freedom than their counterparts in England. When determining which GCSE or A-Level courses best suit their pupils, for example, SLs in England can normally choose between the offerings of various exam boards. Yet, in Welsh secondary schools, SLs can usually adopt only the related courses of the Welsh Joint Education Committee.

Furthermore, parents in Wales cannot see which schools have coped best with this illiberal, closed-shop arrangement.

League tables

Although GOV.UK publishes annual league tables for England, allowing parents a brisk comparison of schools’ results, no such comparative data is released in Wales – the Welsh government having abolished its own league tables in 2001 to “reduce pressure” on schools.  Parental choice is duly obstructed, while accountability – a perennial liberal concern – is gravely compromised. (The IFS cited weaker accountability as a likely reason for the poor performance of Welsh schools.)

Despite the advent of voters aged 16 and 17, education attracted remarkably little attention (from either politicians or media) during the Senedd elections. And, judging by its manifesto, our new governing party may be reluctant to engage with the liberal concerns raised by both PISA and the IFS.

Indeed, the Cabinet minister for Education and Welsh Language, Anna Brychan, chose to highlight a different finding of the PISA report: that the attainment gap between our most and least disadvantaged learners (in socioeconomic terms) is significantly narrower than the OECD average. Saluting this metric of progress, the minister promised “an equitable education system that works for all”.

Her use of the word ‘equitable’ – as opposed to ‘meritocratic’ – is revealing. For it betrays an essentially socialist agenda that is distinct from the liberal objectives associated with successive education ministers at Westminster (who have routinely lauded a ‘liberal education’).

‘Equality of opportunity’

Liberal educationalists have accordingly stood for ‘equality of opportunity’, and competitive exams that are blind to pupils’ socioeconomic background. And while this inevitably produces unequal outcomes, this is defended on the grounds that a liberal education will, eventually, raise everyone’s standards and everyone’s opportunities.

By contrast, socialists are inclined to argue that equality of opportunity is impossible without first securing ‘equity’ – that is, greater equality of outcome.

Quoting the Magnificat, Nye Bevan once argued that it is insufficient for the humble and meek to be exalted; the mighty must also be put down from their seat. Yet, as liberals have contested, the problem with such ‘equity’ is that less inequality of outcome often means lower standards for all – what former Liberal Party leader Clem Davies (Llanfyllin elementary school and Cambridge) once termed “an equality of frustration”.

The record of Welsh education under devolution, and Plaid’s response this week, suggests that this liberal/socialist divide will only widen in the years ahead. It remains to be seen whether Welsh liberals – both big and small L – are alive to this attack on their philosophical tradition.

Richard Kelly is a lecturer in adult education and co-author of Political Ideas (Hodder-Education, 2023).

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