British education failing Black students

UK black university students who receive the poorest quality education are facing the prospect of being charged the highest fees.

The British racial divide between black and white just became a yawning chasm. The publication of university league tables and an analysis of student fees reveal a grim picture for black young people in the UK.

Central to the social contract between the state and the people is the provision of opportunities that offer access to avenues of economic and social justice. All poor communities aspire towards upward social mobility. The dream that holds society together is the idea that through hard work and commitment anyone in the UK can change their social standing and improve their economic prospects.

The promise of British society is that as a supposed meritocracy where anyone can succeed regardless of class, race or creed. The fact is that for many black people and poor white communities here in the UK that promise has become an illusion.

For most parents, their hopes and aspirations for their families is that they will go on to be both better educated and earn more money than they did. Today we see the delivery of that fundamental promise between state and community, between parent and child being increasingly determined, not by merit, hard work and commitment, but by class, income and race.

The prospect of a black or white child from a less well off family achieving a higher level of education and earning more than their parents in the UK is “ relatively low”.

The UK has one of the worst levels of social mobility of any western economy and racism magnifies that deep social exclusion.

The majority of black people live in the most deprived neighborhoods in the UK. Public sector cuts will increase black employment, increase rates of child poverty and see the destruction of critical front line services.

Racism compounds, magnifies and seriously aggravates this grave situation and yesterday the publication of university league tables confirms what some race equality campaigners have been predicting is the literal death of 'hope and opportunity' in many inner city communities.

What they indicate is that a higher education desperately fails Black students. The big metropolitan universities attended by the vast majority of black students in the UK are not only failing to provide good quality education but the massive hike in students fees means that the number of black students attending university will plummet.

With the prospect of increased costs, if your poor you will have to go to the 50th university in the league table before the fees drop below £9,000. Today we have more black men in jail than at top universities, I believe that in the next few years this terrible state of affairs will get much worse,

The Guardian reports that

“Universities with low rankings are almost as likely to be intending to charge maximum tuition fees of £9,000 in 2012 as those with high rankings.

London Metropolitan University, which comes bottom of the Guardian tables, intends to charge between £4,500 and £9,000 for its degrees from autumn 2012. Salford, Liverpool John Moores, Manchester Metropolitan and the University of East London – all of which rank in the bottom 20 of the Guardian tables – want to charge £9,000 for at least some of their courses.”

These figures speak volumes and reveal the reality faced by both poor black and white students. To use a sailing metaphor: 'whilst we are all aboard the same ship, some of us are forced to live in the bowls of the ship whilst others stroll on the decks'.

It won’t get any headlines in the mainstream press but the death of hope and opportunity battered by the violence of malign neglect, racism and poverty will leave a festering seething underclass of alienated embittered young people. If Government cannot maintain the access to the road to opportunity then the most basic of social contracts between the citizen and the state is broken and the consequences will be profound, expensive and long lasting.

National Union Students Black Students Campaign annual conference will be held on May the 21st in Birmingham and you can get more information here.

Lee Jasper