Why I could do without Michael Gove's declaration of love

11 Jun 2013
It may be that my political career does not survive the toe-curling announcement by the education secretary Michael Gove that he is "in love" with me because of my support for the principle of educational rigour.

So it is probably as well to set out what I meant when I said "if your family doesn't have social capital ... you need the assurance of rigorous qualification and, if at all possible, core academic qualifications" in today's education question time in parliament.

My parents left school in rural Jamaica at 14. They migrated to Britain where my mother was a nurse and my father was a sheet metal worker. Growing up, I didn't know anyone who had gone on to higher education. In fact I did not know anyone who did anything other than the standard occupations of working-class West Indians of the era: nursing, public transport, factory work and manual labour. No one in my family circle had any practical advice to give, any strings to pull or any contacts to help me in the world of white-collar work. To make matters worse, I was obstinately left-wing. So I owe everything in life to my string of A grades at O- and A-level and my Cambridge degree.

I did not know at the time what a phenomenon it was for a working-class black girl to have acquired a string of academic qualifications. But I have grown to understand the benefits of academic rigour. First and foremost I was challenged at school and grew to love my studies. So I get depressed when I hear educationalists arguing that working-class children should not be expected to study anything they don't initially enjoy. I did not enjoy learning strings of irregular verbs and Latin grammar. But it helped me understand writing and literature, which has not only given me a lifetime of pleasure but has also been a retreat from the world in times of trouble.

And it was my academic qualifications, and the confidence that they gave me, which made everything possible for me in later life.

So, as I said in today's education debate, an emphasis on academic rigour and core academic qualifications is not against the interests of working-class children. On the contrary, the children who need academic rigour and "gold-standard" qualifications the most are precisely those who are the first in their family to stay on beyond the official school leaving age, whose families do not have parents "who can put in a word for them" in today's horrible job market.

Michael Gove must be the most unpopular education minister since records began with the education trade unions. Nor can I vouch for the detail and implementation of his proposals. I can do without his protestations of undying love. And his wife may have a view on that. But I stand by my belief that no one needs academic rigour more than working-class children.

This article was first published here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/11/michael-gove-love-diane-abbott?CMP=twt_gu

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