Carolyn Leckie: Talk of meritocracy is cheap when privilege is still for sale at private schools

It would remain one of his favourite buzzwords.

Last week it was dusted down by Theresa May, who promised to “make Britain the great meritocracy of the world”.

So what does this word actually mean? It sounds, on the face of it, pretty benign. People rise to the top based on intellectual ability rather than their inheritance. Who could possibly disagree?

Well for a start, the man who coined the word was none too keen on the concept.

Michael Young was a radical sociologist who in 1945 was involved in drafting Labour’s 1945 General Election manifesto, which promised sweeping social reform and led to a landslide victory for Clement Attlee.

Young went on to a write a book called The Rise of Meritocracy, published in 1958. He later carried out ground-breaking social research that paved the way for the scrapping of grammar schools and the introduction of comprehensive education.

Strange then that Theresa May’s "meritocracy" will be based on a return to the eleven-plus and the phasing back in of selective grammar schools.

Not so strange when you realise that The Rise of Meritocracy was a satirical fantasy, in which meritocracy was not some lofty ideal to be strived for but a grotesque dogma that would reinforce and multiply the inequalities of capitalism.

According to Young, the book warns of the danger of allowing power to be concentrated in the hands of a new elite, out of touch with the real world and possessing a messianic belief in their own superiority.

Fired with a grandiose sense of their own worth, the new meritocracy, he suggested, would be even less restrained in their pursuit of wealth and power than the old aristocracy.

Just before his death in 2002, Young lamented the fact that meritocracy had become a horrible reality under New Labour, where “insufferably smug business and political elites had invented all manner of new ways to feather their own nests”.

Meritocracy had led to ludicrously sky-high salaries, bonuses, golden handshakes, share-options and umpteen other reward schemes for those who had risen to the top, supposedly on their own merit.

“As a result, general inequality has become more grievous with every year that passes, and without a bleat from the leaders of the party who once spoke up so trenchantly and characteristically for greater equality,” said Young.

The motto can be summed up by the L’Oreal advertising slogan: “Because I’m worth it.” It’s the system of gold and silver stars that they used to hand out in primary school taken to a whole new extreme. The deserving elite … and the rest.

The rest may have plenty of other, more impressive qualities, such as compassion, generosity, creativity, resilience. But they’re not worth anything, other than what’s necessary to keep them running the health service, delivering the mail, driving the buses and trains, sweeping the streets, staffing the call centres, caring for the elderly and all the other stuff that the minions do.

Selective education is entirely compatible with meritocracy. It is about nurturing the flowers – and eradicating the weeds. Fortunately, no party in Scotland – even the Tory Party as far as I am aware – is advocating this regressive step back to the 1960s.

But let’s not be complacent either. We still have a thriving private education sector, catering for around a quarter of all school pupils in Edinburgh, which allows some parents to buy educational success for their children. Fees for the top private schools are more than £30,000 per year – £7,000 more than the average household income in Scotland.

This year, the average Higher pass rate across all Scottish schools was 77 per cent. In private schools the figure was 92 per cent. That 15-point gap is reflected in the composition of our most sought-after universities. More than 40 per cent of St Andrews students were privately educated, as were almost 33 per cent of Edinburgh University students.

And when the Scottish Government dares to address that advantage, with modest adjustments to make it easier for disadvantaged students to get into university, we are drowned by a cacophony of moans from the folk who think they are entitled to hang on to their privilege. They have such a cheek.

I’d like to see a few mainstream politicians display a bit of courage and principle by calling for private schools to be phased out over, say, a ten-year period, with their considerable resources brought into the state sector. That would strike a mighty blow against the class inequalities that seep through our educational system.

Our politicians love to talk about equality of opportunity. But how can we ever have genuine equality of opportunity while we have fee-paying schools that virtually guarantee a place in a top university for the children of wealthy parents.

And for that matter, how can we have equality of opportunity when students from working-class backgrounds have to work long hours in bars, shops and restaurants to get by, while trying to study for exams and write assignments?

And how can we have equality of opportunity while some children have their own private study, access to as many books as they need and the best technology that money can buy, while others are brought up in the 20 per cent of Scottish households with no internet access, and are forced to share cramped bedrooms with brothers and sisters?

But we also need to question the whole basis of meritocracy – a system which has reached its crowning glory in the United States of America, where one per cent of the population receives 20 per cent of all income, while tens of millions live on the edge of starvation. That’s Theresa May’s vision and it’s the direction in which the UK is now travelling, faster than ever before.

Scotland is hopefully headed in a different direction. But we still need to continue the ideological debate over what kind of Scotland we want to live in.