It was quite uplifting that in his moment of Olympic glory, Duncan Scott found time to stress the importance of maintaining public swimming pools so that children can learn to swim and develop their talents.
Therein lies the key truth that public provision is, and always has been, the essential force in creating a better society. Without access, there is no equality. Without opportunity, there is no awareness of potential. Exceptions will always prove rules and these are the rules.
Above all, they apply to education. A child’s life course is dictated largely by what happens in the early years. It starts in the womb. It is conditioned by the home. Reading differences start to emerge by the age of two, so the experts tell us. From there on in, the struggle is deeply uneven.
Again, as deniers will be quick to point out, there are exceptions who beat the odds; lots of them and their stories command respect. But that does not change the fact that the odds are heavily stacked and show no signs of shortening.
That bleak message was reinforced by this week’s SQA exam results. The attainment gap which was supposed to narrow has reached record levels. It has become such a familiar story that the statistics of difference between affluent and impoverished have lost the power to shock.
The uneducated under-class, it seems, will always be with us. Yet if that is accepted then the consequences must also be lived with. Wasted talent, unfulfilled potential, feckless lifestyles, social costs, abbreviated lives, inter-generational denial of the right to aspire and contribute.
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