Anthony Seldon

Cannabis smoke lingering along the sidewalks of Washington D.C. was the most palpable fruit of liberty since my last visit to the US capital. I’m in town to give a talk at Britain’s dazzling Lutyens Residence about the evergreen ‘special relationship’ ahead of the US’s 250th anniversary next July. Acting ambassador James Roscoe has stepped up with aplomb to fill Peter Mandelson’s big shoes, aided by his renaissance wife, the musician, author and broadcaster Clemency Burton-Hill. America’s anniversary will fall on the watch of its 47th President.

Universities are facing their biggest crisis in modern history, yet most are in denial and living in la-la land. Warning bells have been ringing for some years, but the descent has been precipitous. Just 25 years ago, Tony Blair unveiled the ‘knowledge-based economy’ to be powered by universities. They stood tall, untouchable, almost universally admired. As late as 2020, despite Britain having less than 1 per cent of the world's population and 3 per cent of global GDP, it had 11 of the world's top universities, including more in the top 50 than the whole EU combined. London alone boasted four of the top 100, the capital outperforming some entire G20 nations, including South Korea and Japan. It was a golden age.  But now?

Schools are a relatively new phenomena in human history. In Britain, they expanded in the 19th century and early 20th century in step with industrialisation and urbanisation, but in many places in the world, what little education the young receive occurs at home. The assumption most share, not unreasonably, is that where there are schools to attend, parents should send their children to them so they can avail themselves of the opportunities for academic learning, for socialisation and working through what they might do after they leave with the rest of their lives.

The news over the weekend that Russell Group universities are letting in students from overseas on lower grades than home students has provoked understandable fury. Having been the proud vice-chancellor for five years of the university Margaret Thatcher helped found, Buckingham, I wince at the story. The fact that undercover journalists for the Sunday Times winkled out the widespread practice made it sound even murkier than it is. The response of the Russell Group that the lower offers applied to ‘foundation’, not undergraduate degrees, and that numbers of domestic students are rising more quickly than overseas students, has been lost in the noise. Universities need to get their act together and be on the front foot, focusing more on the experience they are giving students.

Daunt Books in Marylebone was full last Tuesday evening for the launch of The Path of Peace, my book about walking from Switzerland to the North Sea, to help realise the vision of a young subaltern, Douglas Gillespie, killed in September 1915 shortly after unveiling his idea in a letter to his headmaster at Winchester College. He envisaged after the war a ‘via sacra’ being created along the entire Western Front and he wanted every man, woman and child to walk the trail as a reminder of where war leads ‘from the silent witnesses’ on both sides. A ‘brilliant idea’ was how The Spectator described the suggestion during the war. But the vision lay buried for 100 years.

Thursday 3 April 1721 was an unremarkable day in political London. No fanfare or ceremony surrounded King George I’s appointment of Robert Walpole as First Lord of the Treasury (Prime Minister), merely a paragraph buried in the press: ‘We are informed that a Commiffion is preparing appointing Mr Walpole Firft Lord…’ Yet here was the start of what has become the longest-lasting head of government job in the democratic world — and its 300th anniversary falls on 3 April this year. Expect no fanfare or drone pyrotechnics in political London to mark the occasion. Our leaders will, inevitably, be attending to the pandemic and other pressing concerns. But that does not mean that we should let the moment pass.

The traditional edifice of sixth form, university in Britain, and a job for life is still the norm for many, but major cracks are beginning to appear in the infrastructure. As the father of three children, two of whom have been through university and one who is still there, as well as headmaster of a school which sends more than 200 young -people to university each year, I have to say that I am neither surprised, nor indeed sorry, that the traditional model is beginning to implode. Increasing numbers are beginning to question whether higher education is right for them at all. Too few ask themselves the question, ‘Why am I going to university?’ Too many sleepwalk their way through the experience, without making the most of it as a result.

None of us would accept being treated by a doctor or by a nurse who hadn’t had extensive training, nor would we want legal advice from someone who hadn’t been through law school. Nor would we be comfortable with our company accounts being managed or audited by anyone not trained to a high level in accountancy. So why should we accept teachers coming into our schools who haven’t been properly professionally taught how to teach in a college or university? Schooling is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and poor teachers, as research shows, destroy life chances. How can we play dice with our children’s lives?