Shaping School Policy

The youngest MP when she entered Parliament in 2003, Sarah Teather was appointed the Liberal Democrats’ Shadow Education Secretary earlier this year.

For someone charged with shaping school policy, Sarah Teather had a very unusual secondary education.

A serious illness prevented her from attending school between the ages of 13 and 17. Largely self-taught via the copious reading of photocopied notes and the odd visit from an accommodating teacher, she sat her GCSEs at home and crammed all her A-level studies into one summer.

“I certainly had a lack of formal schooling at that stage and I wouldn’t recommend it as a way of gaining an education,” she says. “The main thing you miss in not going to school is not actually the work, particularly if you’re academically minded; it’s the normal things you do as a teenager, the everyday interaction, making friends, actually sitting in a classroom, leading the kind of structured life that school provides.

“It was those kind of things that came as more of a shock when I went to university. I had a clear goal; I wanted to catch up but friendships were largely conducted over the phone at that stage. It’s fair to say that my self esteem was not very high when I went to Cambridge.”

The hard work and determination paid off, however. Sarah read Natural Sciences at St John’s College, subsequently working in science policy at - among others - the Royal Society and Macmillan Cancer Relief.

It’s not the kind of career path that attracts too many students today, she admits.

“I don’t think you’re going to be excited about science unless you’re taught by somebody with a real passion,” she says. “The problem is that a lot of people teaching science are not necessarily qualified for their subjects; there are lots of biologists teaching physics and chemistry, for example, and many struggle with that.

“That’s where the problem starts. We have to make sure that all children are taught by someone properly qualified in the subject.

“The numbers of people studying physics and chemistry are not as high as the economy needs. We’re only going to see people studying at university and then going on to research posts if their interest is properly lit at school,” she adds.

“But we also need people to be scientifically literate enough to be able to debate the major issues where science plays a huge role such as climate change, GM foods or stem cell technology. You really need a basic level of science knowledge to have a view on the way in which policy should move.”

When elected, Sarah was the only MP under the age of 30 and ‘baby of the house’, a title that comes with some privileges - “you receive a lot of interest from the media which can help a lot with working for your constituents,” she says.

She continues her quest to engage younger people in the political process.

“I visit a lot of schools and talk to a lot of students; I hope all MPs take that opportunity,” she says. “When young people have the chance to question you face-to-face about the things that matter to them, they can see that voting will make a difference. It will always be important in a marginal seat such as mine but it’s more difficult to make that case in other areas that have thumping majorities.

“It’s why we need electoral reform; until we have the situation where every vote really counts, you will have young people wondering if there’s any point in voting.”

The Lib Dems were highly critical of the Government’s Education Bill in general and its emphasis on trust schools in particular.

“We genuinely think it’s a good idea to involve outside bodies, particularly community organisations, involved in schools but it’s not such a good idea to hand over the running or the assets of a school to an external body.

“We also don’t think it’s right to hand over more freedom on admissions to give schools more power to choose who to take in. Evidence suggests that this is more likely to become socially segregative with some taking all the bright or middle class pupils and the others left with what remains.

“And we are particularly critical of the accountability arrangement where you have a trust that can appoint the majority of its governors rather than having a number of directly-appointed parent governors. This flies in the face of parent power.”

Instead of the annual standards debate every time a raft of exams results is released, Sarah says the focus should be on whether GCSEs and A-levels are - in the popular political phrase du jour - ‘fit for purpose’.

“We should be debating a different type of qualification with more freedom for younger people to choose their own paths; a much broader mixture of vocational and academic skills.

“Why do we assume that if you want to be a brainbox historian, you don’t need to acquire any other skills or if you want to work in tourism you wouldn’t want to gain a wide range of other academic qualifications?”

When she gets the time, Sarah - a classical music buff and formerly a soprano with the London Symphony Chorus - performs with the Parliament Choir. It’s one of those rare Westminster traditions where everyone is in harmony and singing from the same hymnsheet.

“But it’s definitely someone like Kylie for when I’m in the gym,” she says.

John Holt REPORTER