So I was somewhat sceptical about the science policy that I as minister had to implement. But the policy never amounted to much. Science is less amenable to political direction than politicians like to think. Indeed, the history of science is in many ways more similar to the history of imaginative art than to economic history. The great scientific advances have not come from ‘practical’ plans for research and development but from creative scientific minds — the sort of minds which were around the dinner table that evening with Ted and me — people who by pushing outward at the frontiers of knowledge unlock the secrets of the universe. Politicians are reluctant to accept this; they want a quick technological fix and a quick pay-off into the bargain. Scientists rightly take a longer view. When Gladstone met Michael Faraday, he asked him whether his work on electricity would be of any use. ‘Yes, sir,’ remarked Faraday with prescience. ‘One day you will tax it.’
My second area of frustration was that of teacher training. As I have already mentioned, the manifesto had committed us to set up an inquiry into it. This was one of the points which figured large on the list I handed to Bill Pile on my first day in the department. I already held strong views on the subject. It seemed to me that the large increase in the number of teachers had to some extent been at the expense of quality. Although there were continuing difficulties about finding enough student teachers wanting to go into mathematics and sciences, there was not much substance to the complaints about ‘teacher shortages’. The real shortage was in the number of good teachers. Changing the salary structure of the profession would help by rewarding and encouraging long-serving and senior teachers, though the NUT was very wary of increased differentials. But teacher training was the key.
I wanted a serious investigation into whether trainee teachers were being taught the right subjects in the right way and at the right level. So I appointed Lord James of Rusholme, a former Headmaster of Manchester Grammar School, one of the country’s great schools, as Chairman of an inquiry into teacher training. I insisted that those who served with him should work virtually fulltime and that their report be completed within a year; it was duly published in January 1972. The report was workmanlike and made a number of sensible suggestions. It placed the greater emphasis I wanted on in-service training so that teachers really knew how to cope with a class full of children. Second, it proposed a new, two-year Diploma in Higher Education — for which I had also pressed — in which future teachers would study side by side with others who intended going into industry or the professions. But the fact that it confined itself to the structure rather than the curriculum content of teacher training limited its value. In effect, I got nowhere in my attempts to get the curriculum of the teacher training institutions discussed within the planned inquiry. It was still regarded as taboo for politicians to become involved in such matters. Fifteen years later the situation had not materially improved. As Prime Minister, I would still be puzzling about how to raise the quality of the teaching profession.
Still, although I was very critical of the outlook of many teacher trade unionists (who were in some cases more trade unionists than teachers), my final impression gained from my years at the DES was of the sincerity and commitment of most teachers. Sometimes teachers from the most difficult schools dealing with ‘problem’ children (who could usually be traced back to ‘problem’ parents) would come in to the department to tell me of their experience. On other occasions, I would talk to them in their schools and see something of what they had to cope with in their classrooms.
The teacher can never be a sufficient substitute for the family: yet a good teacher cannot ignore what happens to the child when he or she goes home, perhaps to be ill-treated. On one occasion, someone put the dilemma to me:
At 4 o’clock on a Friday afternoon when the other children have gone home, one child clings to you and begs not to leave. You feel sure — but you cannot prove — that something is seriously wrong. Perhaps there is violence or neglect, or just deep unhappiness from one source or another. Do you walk the child home and tell his parents that he seems a bit off-colour; saying, of course, that he has not complained or been a nuisance; but gently enquiring if anything is wrong? You don’t know whether the child may be beaten as soon as you leave. Do you alert the authorities? That may have even more traumatic consequences. Or do you do nothing and hope that it’s just a temporary problem which will sort itself out? Well, Mrs Thatcher, what would you do?
There is no single good answer to this question. And despite our agonizings over such cases, we have still not found a solution that is right for all circumstances. We need teachers, social workers and policemen who are trained to recognize the symptoms of abuse, while remembering the commonsense reality that most parents love their children. Of the three, teachers are by far the most important because they know the child personally and see him or her almost every day. If they are to carry out this delicate and important task they can do so only if their authority is fully restored, not only over the child but also in the eyes of the parent. And when that happens, the bad parent is more likely to be held in check.
MILKING PUBLICITY
In one respect at least, the Department of Education was an excellent preparation for the premiership. I came under savage and unremitting attack that was only distantly related to my crimes.
But it did not begin like that. I have described the arguments about grammar schools and comprehensives. Yet these caused me only limited trouble, partly because many people — and not just Conservatives — agreed with me and partly because I was the bringer of good tidings in other matters. For example, I was hailed in a modest way as the saviour of the Open University. In Opposition both Iain Macleod and Edward Boyle, who thought that there were educational priorities more deserving of Government help, had committed themselves in public against it. And although its abolition was not in the manifesto, many people expected it to perish. But I was genuinely attracted to the concept of a ‘University of the Airwaves’, as it was often called, because I thought that it was an inexpensive way of giving wider access to higher education, because I thought that trainee teachers in particular would benefit from it, because I was alert to the opportunities offered by technology to bring the best teaching to schoolchildren and students, and above all because it gave people a second chance in life. In any case, the university was due to take its first students that autumn, and cancellation would have been both expensive and a blow to many hopes. On condition that I agreed to reduce the immediate intake of students and find other savings, my Cabinet colleagues allowed the Open University to go ahead.
There were more discussions of public expenditure that autumn of 1970. The Treasury had its little list of savings for the education budget — including charges for libraries, museums, school meals and school milk. I knew from my own experience in Grantham how vital it was to have access to books. So I persuaded the Cabinet to drop the proposed library charges, while reluctantly accepting entry charges for museums and galleries. (We kept one free day.) But pressure for more cuts was maintained, and I had to come up with a list of priority targets.
Savings on school meals and school milk were, I had to admit, an obvious candidate. There seemed no reason why families who could afford to do so should not make a larger contribution to the cost of school meals. I thought that I could defend such cuts if I could demonstrate that some of the money saved would go towards meeting the priority which we had set, namely the primary school building programme. And within the Department of Education budget it seemed logical that spending on education should come before ‘welfare’ spending, which should in principle fall to Keith Joseph’s department, Social Services.