"We're not yet living in a society where everyone has an equal chance… We obviously need to work harder on getting an equal chance for all young people"
University of Oxford
27 October 2008
Good afternoon everyone. It's a great pleasure to be here today.
As you can imagine, the theme of your conference is one that matters a lot to me personally. I hope to be able to share with you some of my own experiences and the perspectives they have given me.
But there are also many reasons why I approach this speech with rather mixed feelings.
Let me start with the title of Dr Byfield's book, “Black Boys Can Make It”.
Well, yes they can. If becoming a barrister, an MP and a Minister count as having made it, then I suppose I'm proof of that.
But in this country people like me are still the exception rather than the rule. And the same is even still true in the USA, where a black man could be elected President in a few days' time.
So we mustn't let the fact that some black people do make it lead us to become complacent.
Because let's be honest about it, we're not yet living in a society where everyone has an equal chance. I'm not talking about racism, and this isn't just an issue that concerns black boys or even kids from black and ethnic minority backgrounds. It's equally true of white boys and girls from less well-off families.
But black boys do exemplify the scale of the challenge faced by those of us who want everyone to have the chances in life they need to make the best of themselves.
I'm MP for Tottenham. As you probably know, Tottenham's not the most privileged place on earth. It's full of great people and they're full of potential. But when that potential isn't directed and offered an outlet, it's replaced by frustration.
And I can tell you that when that happens you get too many boys - a lot of them black - running around the streets with knives or guns in their pockets.
You get too many of them winding up in prison.
And you get too many of them having their lives cut brutally short, with devastating results for their families and communities.
Finding that outlet for potential starts at school, but shouldn't end there. We know that, on average, black boys tend to do less well at school that any other social or ethnic group. They're also three times more likely than white kids to be excluded. This can blight their chances of doing well in life and of breaking the circle of deprivation and underachievement from the very start.
But the opposite is also true.
Take my own example. I think I did pretty well in higher education. I studied law at SOAS, passed the Bar exams 4 years later and 3 years after that went on to become the first black Briton to study a Masters in Law at the Harvard Law School.
But I was lucky. Back in 1990, I only got into SOAS through clearing. I got my chance and never looked back. But it's still true that nowhere near enough black boys get that chance in the first place.
It doesn't have to be that way. Because there's talent and creativity there that could be of tremendous benefit to this country. We just haven't yet found a way of releasing enough of it.
And I can tell you for a fact that the black community - African as well as Afro-Caribbean - has a terrifically strong culture of aspiration and self-improvement. And most black parents in this country are determined that their children should do better in life than they have.
It doesn't matter that two-thirds of families of Caribbean origin are single-parent households. Mine was and it didn't stop my mother doing everything she could to encourage me.
We need to find more ways to tap into that culture of aspiration, and harness it.
And that has consequences for places like this. If you look at the last three years for which we have figures, the proportion of university students who were black Caribbean boys hovered at just over 1 per cent, although their absolute numbers went up very slightly.
Now I know how much effort is being put into encouraging more black applicants, here and elsewhere. And the effort is bearing fruit. Overall, black and ethnic minority participation is rising. The position is much better than for black girls and for boys of black African origin that for boys of black Caribbean origin.
The position also varies between institutions and areas. At my own local university, the University of East London, 30 per cent of students are black. At more selective institutions, it tends to be far lower.
I don't say that as a criticism because it's clear to me that at least part of the explanation for this is that young people's performance at school largely determines their prospects for admission to very selective institutions.
If we wait until kids are 18 before we try to convince them that, with talent and hard work, they can aspire to go to any institution that suits their needs, then we leave it far too late.
And that's one reason why, since 1997, we've put so much effort into trying to raise school achievement across the board. That effort is bringing results which will feed through into university entrance in time. In 2007, almost half of black Caribbean pupils achieved 5 or more A-C grades at GCSE, compared to less than a third 5 years before. The increase for black African pupils over the same period was fifteen percentage points.
It's also why the Aimhigher programme is so significant. Now Aimhigher's funded by the Government. But it's not the Government direction that makes it work. It's the efforts of local partnerships and a lot of dedicated people in local communities.
That's an approach that I've seen succeed time and again in this and other areas. Local and individual initiative empowered by central Government support.
The principle that underpins Aimhigher is that a real example is worth more than any number of words. That we shouldn't tell kids that they should aspire to university, but show them that people like them can aspire to university.
That's why, back in April, we announced a new strand to the programme. We're investing £21 million in the Aimhigher Associates scheme. That will allow around 5,500 university students recruited to provide long-term individual and face-to-face support to more than 21,000 pupils in schools and colleges across the country.
There are other interesting things going on, too. For example, last March, funding was announced to complete national Lifelong Learning Network coverage. These networks now involve over 90 per cent of all universities in England and over 300 colleges.
Lifelong Learning Networks have an important role to play in widening participation. So we want all of them to develop progression agreements for the new 14-19 Diplomas as they are introduced. They should also provide clear progression routes into higher education for people on vocational programmes and also for workplace learners.
But getting more people from under-represented groups into higher education, including into the most selective institutions, can't be just, or even mainly, a Government-led exercise.
That's why I want to recognise publicly today how much universities like this one are doing on their own account, though outreach, by working directly with schools and by other means.
It's 135 years since the first black man graduated from Oxford. His name was Christian Cole. He was an American and, like me, he became a barrister after university.
Last year, the number of black and mixed-parentage entrants to Oxford was over 20 per cent up on 2006. That's progress. It's the result of the university's willingness to engage with bodies like the National Black Boys Can Association and the Aspire programme, which has been backed by the Reverend Jesse Jackson, among others.
That's something that should be both celebrated and built on.
There are good things going on in other institutions, too. Only last month, nine of our most selective universities announced a "pooling talent” scheme to help them recruit more kids from less well-off homes. That, too, is a very welcome development.
But the final thing I want to say today is this. We obviously need to work harder on getting an equal chance for all young people. And, from everyone in universities and outside that I've spoken to over the last couple of weeks, I know we will.
But there are millions of people out there who think their chance of a higher education ended when they left school at 16 or 18. We mustn't give up on them, either.
As the number of 18 year-olds in the population falls, and as our national high-level skills needs become ever-clearer, we're encouraging universities to reach out increasingly to employers.
I know that institutions all over the country are responding. They're thinking about how to get into a dialogue with employers that will help them offer the skills that real businesses and real people need. They're thinking about how best to educate adult part-timers and about how to get more higher education off the campus and into the workplace.
That can help everyone who missed out first time around. And it can help redress the legacy of inequality with which we currently live.
It's been a great pleasure to talk to you. I know you've got lots to talk about. And I hope you enjoy the rest of the conference.
Thank you.
