Unequal Britain?

A fascinating report giving an insight into inequality Britain is out today and will surely provide more ammunition for opposition parties.

An Anatomy of Economic Inequality in the UK shows that the country has become more unequal over the past 30 years with the richest 10 per cent of the population more than 100 times as wealthy as the poorest 10 per cent of society.

The report was commissioned by Harriet Harman, minister for women and equality, and is the result of 16 months of work by Prof John Hills, of the London School of Economics.

The report examined data going back to 1961 after finding the poverty gap had got steadily worse over the past five years and despite 13 years of New Labour,the divisions in wealth created in the 1980's have not been healed.

Amongst other conclusions

1.White British pupils with GCSE results around or below the national median are less likely to go on to higher education than those from minority ethnic groups

2.Girls have better educational outcomes than boys at school and are more likely to ­enter higher education and achieve good ­degrees, but women's median hourly pay is 21% less than men's.

3.Compared with a white British Christian man with similar qualifications, age and occupation, Pakistani and Bangladeshi Muslim men and Black African Christian men have an income that is 13-21% lower.

Education and mobility

Gloves off and week three of the unofficial election campaign.

In the blue corner the Tories who today launched their what their leader described as "brazenly elitist" recruitment drive for teachers.

Claiming that the profession should take on only top graduates he told an assembled audience that

We want to give our children the best – it’s time we made our teaching the best. That’s why we’re committed to a comprehensive programme of reform to elevate the status of teaching in our country.

Ed Balls described the announcement as an "airbrushed re-announcement of existing policies"

According to the education secretary

“David Cameron’s warm words are worth little when he plans immediate cuts to school funding this year. This would mean fewer teachers, fewer teaching assistants and bigger class sizes.

Official figures show that almost one in 10 trainee teachers studying for the postgraduate certificate in education has a third-class degree or lower qualification.

However as Chris Dillow points out

Research in Sweden has found that teachers with high measured cognitive skills are actually bad for lower-ability pupils. And researchers (pdf) in North Carolina have found that the effect of teachers’ qualifications upon pupil’s achievements are often statistically insignificant, or even negative, once they control for the fact that better-qualified teachers tend to teach better pupils anyway*.

The Conservatives' leader has also pledged that maths and science graduates from the 25 best universities who go into teaching will have their loans paid off.

Meanwhile the Labour party unveiled plans for increase social mobility by encouraging top professions and universities to attract people from deprived backgrounds.

The move is intended to show that the party is the one to help nurture social improvement.