Speeches, etc.

Margaret Thatcher

TV Interview for Yorkshire TV (Open College)

Document type: Speeches, interviews, etc.
Venue: No.10 Downing Street
Source: Thatcher Archive: COI transcript
Journalist: Linbert Spencer, Yorkshire TV
Editorial comments: 1215-1245. MT was being interviewed for the "Open College".
Importance ranking: Minor
Word count: 2464
Themes: Education, Higher & further education, Employment, Race, immigration, nationality, Science & technology, Society, Women

Interviewer

Prime Minister, why did the Government sponsor the start of the Open College?

Prime Minister

Because there are a lot of young people who want training, who need it, and do not know where to get it. This seemed to me to be a way of getting to those young people because television has something else that no other form of training has.

Interviewer

And do you feel that satisfactory progress has been made so far?

Prime Minister

I am very excited about it. As soon as I heard about it, one realised the full potential because you see books are not enough and just still pictures are not enough. You can do something with [end p1] showing people on television and if they film it they can go back and look at it again and again until they have got it. It is very exciting.

Interviewer

I think this represents an increased emphasis at this time, what makes it particularly relevant now?

Prime Minister

Because I think change is going faster than most of us thought. When I was a good deal younger, I remember a book coming out called “The Age of Automation” ; that was the beginning of computers and we were all very excited about it and thought it was going to change a great deal—and it did change the world in a way; computers have changed, and we have got things like transistors but we thought of it then as something like computers. What is much more exciting even than that is that it is not computers as a thing apart, it is computers which are getting into every process, making all sorts of things possible like aircraft bookings the world over, hotel bookings the world over; they are changing every industrial process so everyone needs to know something about it. My generation did not pick it up anything like as quickly as the new generation so there is something that is affecting the way things are done from television, to manufacturing, to office work, to catering work, to everything, so everyone needs to know a bit about it and it is not difficult if you are taught when you are young enough. [end p2]

Interviewer

Now in the light of that, what is the Government's overall policy as far as vocational training is concerned? In what specific role do you hope that the Open College in particular will play?

Prime Minister

Well, there are so many training courses and the universities themselves are terrific, so are the polytechnics, so are the technical colleges. One of my first duties when I was made Minister of Education way back in the early 1970s was to start up the Open University which used these kind of television courses for university degree courses. That was the first time we had experimented with it. We know how good it is, we know it can be used for refresher courses and so when this possibility came up, we really seized upon it and we are very keen. It can help young people in youth training courses, it can help with specific job training schemes. Let me give you an example.

I went to visit a computer course about a year ago. We had discovered that there were a lot of spare jobs that there were not people with the skills to fill and so we got a specific course, we took onto that course all sorts of people: some who had just left the army after about ten years in it, some who had an arts degree at university but could not yet find a job, some young people who had not even got their O' levels but were on the unemployment register and had not been able to find a job—all sorts of different backgrounds and we took them into this centre and we trained them on [end p3] courses either three months or six months and everyone got a job. Now you cannot do that all over the country but you can take the courses by which we taught them, because we learnt how to teach them, put them on video, put them on television, let them have a chance to ring up and there you reach people who would like to go to one of those courses but would not have the chance so—yes—we want to get to about a million within three years or so.

Interviewer

Now out of those million potential learners, obviously they are still going to have to pay a fee. Now will there be any eligibility for current Government grants?

Prime Minister

Not automatically, that is to say you cannot simply go along and say “Well I am going to take that course in my home and at a technical college, can I automatically have a grant?” but this particular course will be part of other courses which themselves attract grants, so if you are interested in it, you might get onto a particular course with the Youth Training Scheme or you might get a job where your employer will pay for it but the course itself does not automatically get a grant but you will be part of many courses which do. But you know, we can only help people who show an interest in helping themselves. They might see this, it might stimulate them to go along and be part of another course. Then they would get a grant towards it. [end p4]

Interviewer

Following on from there, if there is a trend towards a more ready acceptance of responsibility by individuals themselves for their own learning and development, what kind of support can the Government offer to them to take this responsibility further?

Prime Minister

Yes, you say a trend towards that; I think it is a return to that. You know, I think for sometimes young people will think, “I have a problem the Government must solve it” . You cannot solve anything without the enthusiasm of the young person to generate the ready cooperation. I have seen it working in many places; I was in Glasgow recently and saw some marvellous training courses for young people who were becoming quite enthusiastic. This is an extra thing we are doing to help. We had the Youth Training Scheme, the Job Training Scheme, the Reskilling, the Skill Centres, courses like City and Guilds all run through employers, all the technical colleges. This goes across the whole lot because what you do is get the very best person, the very best teacher who knows not only his subject but he knows how to impart it to young people. There are two things: you can be very good at something and not be able to teach. We take the very best expert who is expert in teaching, your expert cameramen who know how to show things and really we are giving them a standard of learning which they would not get any other way. [end p5]

Interviewer

Do you feel happy at the way employers are taking their share of responsibility for developing skills at this point in time?

Prime Minister

Yes, I think they are. Again I go round; we could not have got the Youth Training Scheme together without that—there are a million people on that and now we are going to another one called the Job Training Scheme. We could not have got it without their cooperation. More and more I find employers saying, “Look, we have just got to do something more for young people and we are willing to take them on with training to help them get a job because we all hate the idea of them feeling that at the end of school they have not got anywhere to go” . Now you cannot always take on someone unless they have got a skill but with this they have got something to go to an employer and say, “I know about that.” And they will find a very ready welcome with most employers who are keen to do more to help young people.

Interviewer

It is clear that you believe that the Open College has great potential as far as helping to upgrade …

Prime Minister

Enormous potential, it really does. I am very excited about it. [end p6]

Interviewer

That is right! In terms of upgrading the skills of the British workforce do you think that there might be export possibilities?

Prime Minister

Yes. Do you know just a few minutes ago, I was talking to Sir Sonny Ramphalthe Secretary General of the Commonwealth and one of the things—there are forty-seven countries in the Commonwealth, they do not have the kind of education system we do—they are far spread and he was just saying to me, “Now, we want what they call distance learning—it is a piece of jargon—it is what we are doing, is there anything you can do to help?” and I said, “Yes, we have been doing it with Open University for quite a time” and then told him I was coming to see you for this interview immediately afterwards and said to him, “Look, we have got to talk in my study and not in this very grand room where I usually see you because television is setting up for the interview” and he was very interested because we can help, because it has to be put very simply. You are dealing with people who maybe have very little understanding of mathematics. They are being taught badly; they are frightened of it. Now we can teach them so they are not frightened of it anymore and that will go to many many countries and so the kind of thing we learn from this, we shall plough back into the course and if it needs modifying it will be done. Yes, I think young people will feel that they are pioneers for helping many fellow young people the world over. [end p7]

Interviewer

Returning to the United Kingdom, Prime Minister, women—and for that matter—black Britons tend to be under-represented at senior levels in industry, commerce, the professions and public administration. Now if access to training and development opportunities is one of the reasons for this, what do you hope the Open College might be able to offer?

Prime Minister

I think we are probably talking about various different levels of attainment and many many women have been coming out of universities as graduates for years and years now and it has been a great sorrow to me that there are not enough in public life—I think women tend to be much shyer of coming into public life than men—and at last we are getting far many more women up to the top of many different professions whether it is television, newspapers, industry or the city or running their own businesses. That is coming. I think that is as much a personality thing as well as a qualification and also the fact that most women have families to look after and that is exciting in itself and so they therefore have a dual role and it is much much more difficult at an early stage in your life if you are married and have a young family to take on an additional responsibility of a top career job. With young people who have come to us from various different countries, some of them have an extra problem; it is a different kind of society—they have got to learn that. Some of them are not always as good at English as we had assumed in the early days when they came. Now they are [end p8] born here, most of them, so that language problem has gone and it is a great tragedy if they do not take the first step. So often the first step is to get some sort of school leaving certificate of qualification. Now some of them do not. Some of them are frightened of arithmetic and some of them do not know really how to talk easily to someone else. They ought to be taught that at school. We can take them into courses to do it. But for many young people it is the first young step, or they are afraid of technical things “Oh, I cannot do that!” —you get a barrier immediately. We have got to get the first step. Once you get over the first step you will find all sorts of potential coming out.

The other thing is that we had information technology courses, we have had them going round, the equipment in buses, so we can get to people; what we have found is that from some of the things that young people were learning at school, they often did not see the purpose of getting stuck into work and learning them because it did not seem to be relevant to life. What they are going to learn on these courses are relevant to finding a job so all of a sudden there is a very good reason for doing it and that applies to everyone because I myself quite like teaching—I have not done a great deal but I like it, I enjoy teaching young people. Every single person has some talent. It will be different. Some talents you do not bring out in a school course for example, we need people who can get on with other people. You need people who in a factory know how to get on with other young people, know how to get them working together. It is not a thing you kind of learn at school but it is an aptitude and a talent which a number of young people have [end p9] and so you will find that a lot of them have got these talents but they cannot use them until they have got some basic skills. We can provide them with that and we can do it. We are not interested in who you are, who your parents are, what your background is, we are not interested in anything of that, we are just interested in “Are you keen to learn? Because if you are, we can help and we want to—and then we shall judge you by just what you have to give to the society of which we are a part” .

Interviewer

So there is a real interest in outcome, ability, skills and so on?

Prime Minister

That is right. This is really the thing which motivates most teachers.

Interviewer

Now a previous holder of your office, Harold Wilson, claimed at one time that his best achievement was the creation of the Open University; do you view the Open College in the same light?

Prime Minister

I think the Open College is going to reach far more people than the Open University. For example, at the moment we are only getting eight or nine thousand graduates a year from the Open University. There will be far many more people in the Open College and we will [end p10] be able to reach far many more people. If they want then to go onto a more complicated course, then I think the Open College will provide it. You can go right up the scale in this kind of work and also, you know, science is moving so fast and people need refresher courses. Supposing you are physiotherapist, supposing you are a nurse, you will need to keep up with all the latest developments. Supposing you are a technician in hospital analysing some of the things that come; you will need to keep up with all the techniques. We can do this on this kind of Open College course.

Interviewer

Finally Prime Minister, as you know, this interview is being shown on the first edition of “Open Exchange” , what particular message do you have for our Open College learners?

Prime Minister

I think this: it is a new chance, it is a chance which previous generations did not have, please try and then if you do not get it right first time, please go on trying. I remember being taught as a young person—just let me see if I can remember the rhyme—

“It is easy to be a starter, but are you a sticker too? It is easy enough to begin a job, it is harder to see it through” .

When you start this, please give it a real chance because I am sure you will find it can help if you are the kind of person who really [end p11] wants to use everything you have got to get on yourself and the best of luck and best wishes to all of you.