Interviewed in today’s Independent on Sunday, Nick Clegg has called for 65,000 nursery workers to be recruited as part of his social mobility drive:
“Every parent wants their child to do better than they did, and every parent wants their child to fulfil their potential,” he said.
State intervention to teach children as young as two will form the centrepiece of his “obsession” which will see childcare made the coalition’s highest priority social policy. Next month he will make a major announcement on his “passion” for shared parental leave and for extending the rights of flexible working.
And he pledged to take on those with the “sepia-tinted 1950s” opinion that mothers should not work, after attacks on his City lawyer wife Miriam, claiming her critics are as “weird” as homophobes…
Early intervention in the lives of children is “one of the most radical things we are doing and don’t shout about enough”, he said.
From next year, 260,000 children from the poorest 40 per cent of families in England will receive 15 hours of free childcare during term time, in a move costing £650m.
He expands on this point in the interview itself:
“If you scratch below the surface and ask what really makes me tick, it’s the liberalism of trying to promote freedom and opportunity. Promoting social mobility is one of the keys to that.”
The coalition is now “shovelling in resources to younger children on a scale that has not happened, ever”. He becomes almost emotional, banging the table and fixing me with a hard stare. He has been “very affected” by research on the “profound level of social segregation” in the UK. “Despite all the money and good intentions under Labour, when times were good, the needle of social mobility didn’t twitch. It’s because we didn’t start early enough.”
There are those who fear an arms race for ever younger intervention. But Clegg is determined; childhood policy is now an “obsession” and the Government’s top social policy priority. “I say this as a young dad seeing children going into primary school: I don’t think we should underestimate the formative effect on a child of those first years in primary school.”
And in the quickfire question section:
Yes Minister or the Thick Of It? The Thick of It. But there is nowhere near as much effing and blinding in the Liberal Democrat press office.
* Mark Pack is Party President and is the editor of Liberal Democrat Newswire.
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7 Comments
At the same time as schools are incentivised to push kids towards the more academic English Baccalaureate, Nick seems to be calling for an army of school leavers with more vocational qualifications, e.g. child care. Some joined up thinking would be nice.
@ Peter
Not sure why it has to be either/or. Why not both? A good standard of core education should be a basic requirement for all. Failing to meet that standard is one of the main reasons why we have such poor social mobility in the UK.
have people forgotten MOTHERS why are we allowing the state to take over like this and erradicate motherhood?
@RC
Exactly. It should be both.
Putting the Eng.Bacc. into the league tables puts pressure on schools to push kids in that direction even if it is not appropriate. In this country we undervalue vocational training and qualifications.
Equally, I think it is too much to expect individual schools to offer a full range of options at 14+ which is why I would rather see an education system in which coordinated networks of local schools collaborate to offer the best opportunities to all children, rather than the divisive competitive market-driven free-school approach the tories and Lib Dems have chosen.
I welcome extra money for early years provision, and additional staff numbers too, as a way of ensuring that children are given the best opportunities at the most crucial point of their development. Can I also suggest that we pay childcare staff a better salary? At the moment it is appalling which is not going to make the career as attractive as it should be given its importance.
mandy – this is about helping mothers, not replacing them. if they don’t want any support, they don’t need to take it. But if youthink our society on the whole produces less-well balanced children,and therefore adults, than countries with lots of support for partents, like denmark or sweden, as i think, then you should welcome this.
Mandy: are mothers the only carers for children then? My husband would disagree. Also, being able to continue a career I love and am good at does not “eradicate” my motherhood.