British Tories Slash Public Education

The stern taskmasters of Mrs. Thatcher’s government have now translated the ideology of monetarism into chilling cutbacks throughout the social services of the United Kingdom. The Conservatives’ goal of reducing public-sector spending by I percent of the Gross National Product is a reality. Both in the White Paper on Public Expenditures, setting forth the government’s five-year budget, and in actual cutbacks, the dismantling of the welfare state proceeds apace. It is merely gallows humor to observe that education is less decimated than public housing.

The cold fact is that the cutbacks in education are substantial. A nation now suffering 20 percent inflation rates will spend 9 percent less in current dollars on education, from primary school to university. Below the university level the primary schools, adult education, the humanities and social studies have been particularly hard hit. The impact on the local educational councils translates into both cutback...