Mind the gap!

What price a good education and should it be free for all? Yesterday, I wrote about the young Malala Yousafzai who is campaigning for the every child in her native Pakistan to receive a free education. I wish her luck not least because she has already shown extraordinary bravery. Being shot in the head would normally suffice to deter most people so she evidently has great fortitude. While Malala takes on the Taliban in Pakistan, it would be a trifle fanciful to claim things are perfect over here. Just today, the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University is arguing about the sustainability of the current standard price of an Undergraduate Course. He argues that the current £9,000 per annum tuition fees can't be standardised for all institutions. He claims that an Oxford degree costs nearer to £16,000. Be that as it may, all he is actually doing here is to highlight an aspect of our society with which the majority are uncomfortable. The growing divide between the mainly privileged students who enjoy an Oxbridge education and the rest becomes more striking by the year. Surely the real issue here is to ask ourselves as Malala is doing, "Just how important is education?". The question is arguably rhetorical because nobody could possibly argue against the importance of good education. As with the provision of a good Health Service though, that requires proper investment. It should though be available to everybody in the UK irrespective of their socio-economic background. What a student makes of their opportunity is another story but at the very least, they must first be afforded that opportunity. If the gap between education in Pakistan and education in the UK is big, the gap between the privilege of an Oxford education and the rest isn't far behind. It is difficult to justify such an obvious disparity and my advice to the elitist Vice Chancellor would be this; If other institutions can provide tuition for a frankly exorbitant £9,000 per annum, what makes you so special? Aside from its name, Oxford is after all just another University albeit with enhanced selection criteria. It would be fair to say that Oxbridge Universities receive far more in the way of private investment and legacies than the others so the gap to which he alludes is probably not that big anyway. The real aim here is to aspire for equal teaching standards across the board rather than try to accentuaute an already unfair advantage for the Oxbridge elite. As a country, we invest just 1.4% of GDP on our education system. This is low compared to our neighbours who spend nearer to 2%. Given that education will ultimately dictate the future prospects of the nation, I wouldn't have thought this investment could even be viewed as optional. The job in hand is to increase funding in education and distribute the proceeds more evenly to create opportunity for all children rather than the chosen few. It isn't reasonable to overly burden students with debts before they've even started work. By all means put a price on an education but don't do so at the risk of turning people away. That is becoming a very real prospect unless real action is taken soon.