- guardian.co.uk,
- Tuesday April 24 2001 08:26 BST
Every school day Morag Wood, her brother Craig and a clutch of other teenagers cross the old sandstone bridge over the Tweed for lessons in another country. For rural children, the trek from the family's Northumberland cottage to a school bus in the frontier town of Coldstream might seem unremarkable. But in educational terms, the gap is much wider than the deceptively narrow Anglo-Scottish boundary astride a salmon river.
Parents, like Richard and Carol Wood, are voting with their children's feet for a better education in a nation which boasts much higher public spending in almost every area, from schools to hospitals, roads to housing and - significantly, in the foot and mouth crisis - agriculture.
Strictly speaking, 14-year-old Morag and Craig, aged 17, from Moneylees, near Cornhill, live within the catchment area of Berwick upon Tweed community high school, ten miles to the east in England. "But if we had to send them there I would move back to Scotland," says Richard Wood, a farm stockman who was born north of the border. "They're at a fantastic place. The schooling is much better in Scotland - they put a much higher value on education there."
Berwickshire High, in the small town of Duns 12 miles north, might have a similar name to its English rival - but that's where the comparison ends. With more staff - now benefiting from a salary hike the envy of teachers in England - classes are much smaller, the exam curriculum is generally broader and, unlike its hard-pressed English equivalent, the Scottish school does not seem strapped for cash.
"The two systems are certainly different," says Ian Ross, depute rector of Berwickshire High, which has 750 pupils (including almost 20 from England) and 50 full-time staff. "We have certain advantages. Class sizes are regulated in subjects like science to a maximum of 20 and we are under 30 for non-practical subjects. Our rule of thumb is to keep classes to 25 if we can. I do not believe this exists south of the border." His average pupil-teacher ratio is 13.5.
At Berwick community high, which has 800 pupils and 47 full-time staff, head teacher Steve Quinlan looks despairingly northwards as he grapples with a school deficit of £140,000. "Our funding levels are appalling," he says and ponders an "official" ratio of over 22 pupils per teacher. "In reality it is more than 30."
While unhappy with the perception that schooling is better in Scotland, Mr Quinlan admits: "The most important thing is that parents think they are getting a higher quality education across the border whereas we have the capacity and everything pupils need and have a good record of getting them to university."
Conscience
A native of Kent, Mr Quinlan admires Scotland's political system since the creation of an Edinburgh parliament two years ago. "They have still got a social conscience and, to their credit, they have retained an ethos that social investment is as important as private investment...".
His worry, however, is that with big pay rises for Scottish teachers - a 24%, three-year package - his staff (six are Scots) will increasingly look over the border for work. Already he is finding it difficult to fill three vacancies in information technology, maths and learning support.
Fifty miles west at Lochinvar high school, in the Cumbrian border village of Longtown, it is a similar story. Scott Wylie, who teaches geography, RE and information technology, lives in Scotland but travels to England each day for work. He believes it will be difficult for English schools to hang on to staff, let alone recruit new teachers. "Every day as I travel to work I see Scotland doing things much better - from decent roads to handling the foot and mouth crisis more efficiently."
Politically, the nations of a union created almost 300 years ago are drawing apart. First the Scottish parliament parted company with Westminster by abolishing tuition fees for higher education. Then it decided to give old people free central heating installation while offering the prospect of free residential care. A big hike in teachers' pay followed, with Scotland's Department of Rural Affairs showing it was far more attuned to the foot and mouth crisis than its English equivalent. Increasingly, Anglo-Scottish divisions are widening, priorities diverging. And the people in England's border country are restless.
Like countless others in Northumber land and Cumbria, Mr Wood, who lives three miles inside England, looks north of the border for better public services.
Buoyed by new Treasury figures showing that public spending per head in Scotland is still almost a quarter above the English average, Mr Wood sees no reason to apologise for sending his two children to Berwickshire High. "Living right on the border, we seem to be a forgotten lot - roads are appalling, the health service is not that good, and everything seems to much better a mile or so north."
When he needed an operation last year, he opted for the ultra-modern Borders general hospital, at Melrose, rather than an inferior hospital in Northumberland. In any case, says Janet Wakenshaw, Scots-born editor of the Berwick Advertiser, the hospital in Berwick closes for X-rays after 5pm and at weekends. "If I broke my arm at night, or at the weekend, I would have to go elsewhere."
"Berwick is out on a limb," she adds. "We feel we won't get a fair deal from Westminster. Cross the border and you instantly see the difference."
The town certainly has an identity crisis; once a pawn in the power game between England and Scotland, it changed hands 13 times between 1147 and 1482. Now, while quite definitely English, it is trying to get a little more independence by becoming the first town outside London to hold a referendum on having an elected mayor. A poll, likely on June 7 will evoke memories of a 16th century mayor who presided over what Edward IV and Mary Queen of Scots declared to be a "free state" between the two countries.
Invidious
Some argue that the £25,000 cost of the exercise is a waste of money. But almost everyone believes the area gets a raw deal from the government.
Bill Ferguson, the Liberal Democrat who leads Berwick-upon-Tweed district council, estimates that the Scottish Borders Council, which serves the south east of Scotland two miles northwards, spends about £800 a year more on each of its people than Northumberland councils.
According to Alan Beith, MP for Berwick and deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats, it is all down to an invidious Whitehall public spending formula which penalises Northumberland and - despite numerous protests - gives Scotland 23% more per head than the English average, according to latest Treasury figures.
Based on this, estimates by the Campaign for the English Regions (CFER), an increasingly vocal pressure group, show that the north-east of England alone would need an extra £1.1bn annually to catch up with Scotland.
For the moment the Wood family, and a handful of other English taxpayers locked into Scottish education, are happy. But when Craig, aged 17, goes to Aberdeen University later this year, they will face the reality of devolution. Unlike Scots students, he will have to fork out £1,000 in tuition fees as a resident of England. That explains why some Northumbrians, and Cumbrians, are at the point of rebellion - and why some Berwickers want to go it alone.
