London Black School’s Conference 2013

I took my seven-year-old son to Diane Abbott's London Black School’s conference on Saturday for a couple of hours. The conference has not been held for a few years but as Diane’s blurb pointed out, ‘it was back by popular demand.’ And true to her word it was very popular, in fact, if you arrived late as I did, there was standing room only.

I think what this conference has always been able to capture is the great concern and desire to do something to ensure African and Caribbean children get a fair shot within an our education system. The challenges were sadly all too evident. Diane Abbot pointed out in her remarks that despite being promised the chance of a job, much less a decent job, Black graduates were twice as likely to be unemployed than their white counterparts. Arron Keily chair of the Black students union, articulated how the Education Maintenance Award –EMA- had particularly affected Black students. He argued that nearly 70% of Black students benefited from the EMA grant. This compared to 38% of white students. The effect of this grant being cut disproportionately affected Black students. For some, it would mean the difference for getting better educated or not.

Keily also pointed out the disparity of support which higher-education institutions have: Some of the most prestigious and most supported where virtually all white: Oxford, Cambridge and to a slightly less extent the Russell Group of 20 universities, compared to the Metropolitan University, which has more Black students than all the privileged universities put together. The Metropolitan University,  Keily pointed out almost became bankrupt when the Government sort to send its international students home and bar the University from taking in any more overseas students.

As much as Diane’s conference wanted to show the challenges, she also chose  to highlight what had been done to nurture a generation of success. The annual LBSC award for bright Black students was slowly becoming a conveyor belt for great success. This year Ifeanyi Odogwu, told the audience that if he once was informed that if  did well at school, he would be nominated for an award. Spurred on by the goal, he achieved five grade A stars and won an LBSC honour. He went on to Kingston University, with a year in the USA, and came back even more motivated and achieved a first in Law. He is now finishing his pupilage as a barrister. However, not content with his own success he now mentors the generation behind him.

He beautifully told the story of his mentee Christine, who he said is a bright student.

‘She was encouraged to do three A levels by her teacher. I told her no!’ he pointed out. ‘ You must to do five. You can drop one further down the line, but you should know that the posh kids will have at least four.’ He went to say that, ‘She listened to my advice, took five A’s and thankfully achieved 5 A stars. She’s now on her way to Cambridge’.

For that story alone it was worth taking my son. On the way to Hamley’s –that was the trade-off for taking him to the conference, he asked, ‘Dad can I go to Cambridge University when I’m older. Maybe, son, if you work hard at school, maybe.

Diane Abbott promised the audience that next year would be bigger and better with support from the wider community and the corporate enterprise too. Knowing Ms Abbott, I wouldn’t bet against it.

Simon Woolley