Katharine Birbalsingh is right about celebrating achievement

Katharine Birbalsingh, the pioneering head of Michaela community school and the government’s new social mobility tsar has, once again, sparked a mild stir. This time for suggesting that getting children from poorer backgrounds into Oxbridge or the elite professions should not be the only measure of social mobility. Last month Birbalsingh ruffled feathers by branding it “natural” that fewer schoolgirls study physics than their male counterparts.

Birbalsingh believes that we should do more to celebrate “smaller steps” towards upward social mobility - for a young person to secure a reasonably paid job in their local area, for instance, rather than becoming a barrister on a six-figure salary in London. For many people, she argues, particularly in deprived areas, this will still be a significant achievement.

Naturally Birbalsingh’s remarks triggered righteous condemnation from the great and the good, but she is right that “rags to riches” stories are not the only measures of success. Less than one per cent of school-leavers went to Oxbridge (and only eight per cent to Russell Group universities). 

It would be wrong to assume these are the only routes to meaning and fulfilment. For those with bigger hurdles to overcome, becoming a hairdresser or restaurant manager will rightly be a source of great pride. And there is nothing patronising about this.

But there is also a danger of feeding the harmful idea that elite universities are simply “not for” certain people (which is the exact opposite of what Birbalsingh is trying to do). Talent is spread throughout the country, even if opportunities are not, and far too many children from deprived homes settle for less than they are capable of, wrongly perceiving the top universities and professions to be out of their reach. We cannot let politicians off the hook when it comes to properly investing in and maintaining the highest standards in education.

Unfortunately, ours is an era where rage and confected outrage very often trump nuance. I would suggest that two things can be true at once. Let’s celebrate all achievements, while also encouraging the poorest to believe that anything is possible.