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NEU Senior Industrial Organiser
The Tories’ education culture wars
The Conservatives have a long history of encouraging division in schooling – but the Labour government of 1964 introduced a new comprehensive system, sweeping away the grammar/secondary modern divide. KEITH FLETT takes a look
Students at the London School of Economics listen to a speech from from Professor Lord Robbins, a lecturer in economics at the school. Robbins was the author of a Tory-commissioned report into access to higher education in 1963.

EDUCATION has been a feature of the Tory leadership race. Given the age of the party’s electorate, both candidates are talking about the great grand-children of those voting.

Liz Truss has complained that the comprehensive school she went to in Leeds, Roundhay, did not provide a good education. 

However she ended up at Oxford. Rishi Sunak, who went to Winchester College, a rival to Eton, has argued that universities are about “earnings potential” and the focus must be on subjects in that area.

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