CAROLINE BENN
A tribute from John Austin MP

With the death of Caroline Benn comprehensive education in the United Kingdom has lost both its most steadfast and determined advocate and its chronicler in chief.

Although, I had the privilege of meeting Caroline on a number of occasions and read her contributions to the debate about education, I did not have as close a personal contact as many of my colleagues. Following news of her death, I spoke to my friend and colleague, Tony Evans, a former Chair of Woolwich and Eltham CLP and activist in the Socialist Education Association, who worked with Caroline in the early eighties on a document concerning the role of voluntary schools. I am indebted to Tony Evans for the contribution of information and feelings for this article.

For over 30 years, Caroline threw herself into the cause of fostering an education system where the talents of the majority would develop, where options were not closed down prematurely and where the cosy assumptions of traditional hierarchies were challenged.

She had the capacity to see the ‘big picture' while paying attention to the details that made a difference at ground level. This capacity underpinned her work as a Governor at Holland Park School, as a member of ILEA, as President of the Socialist Education Association, as co-founder of the Comprehensive School Campaign and as Editor of the journal Comprehensive Education.

This sense of commitment to her cause shone through in the two works she co-authored on the comprehensive system – Halfway There with Professor Brian Simon (1970) and Thirty Years On with Professor Clyde Chitty (1999). These works provide the definitive account of the progress of comprehensive education in the United Kingdom. They chart the shift away from the tripartite system to the point where the schools attended by 90 per cent of primary and secondary age children in the state system were comprehensive schools.

She had no time for the refinements and revisions which would water down the ideal. She despised proposals which would lead to polarisation in the comprehensive system, decrying ‘antiquated argument about whether or not to return to the discredited practices of the past'.

I recall Tony Benn telling the story of a public meeting when he called for the raising of the school leaving age to 65 only to be rebuked later by an 80 year old student questioning his apparent acceptance of age discrimination. Comprehensive education extends beyond schooling. Caroline Benn's own teaching commitment was in the field of adult and continuing education, where she worked at different times for National Extension College, the Open University and in further education in London. That we now have a Minister for Lifelong Learning is a tribute to Caroline and her fellow pioneers.

If education was her first passion, it was a passion informed by a commitment to and understanding of the socialism of her adopted country. Her 1992 biography of Kier Hardie confirmed her ability to amass and interpret historical evidence to build a picture of a man and a movement at a particular moment of history.

The tributes that have been paid to Caroline reflect her warmth, her wit and her ability to bring out the best in others, especially the young. Those who knew her well confirm the importance of family and privacy to her.

With her family we mourn her passing. Our thoughts are with Tony and the family who supported and cared for her through a long illness. But like them we celebrate her life and we must seek to continue to fight for the causes she held dear.

John Austin
November 2000