IT WOULD be hard to find anyone better placed than the Bishop of Coventry, Dr Christopher Cocksworth, to take on the position of bishop for further and higher education.
While the starting route to high office is likely, for many, to have been the grammar or the public school, Dr Cocksworth attended a secondary school where aspirations were low.
Schools such as his assumed that all pupils, whatever skills they possessed, were uniformly heading down the same route: the assembly line, low-grade office work, or manual work on a building site. Consequently, very few found a different route, he says, speaking with gratitude of a teacher, Mr Campbell, who set him on another path altogether.
“I was 12 years old. I thought I was a complete failure, and he saw something different. He helped me to believe in myself. I went on to higher education, and that was a transformative experience for me,” he says.
He has three doctorates: a Ph.D., an honorary degree of doctor of divinity (for services to education), and a Lambeth DD; but he also has a PGCE, the post-graduate certificate in education that took him into a secondary-school teaching career before ordination. He taught religious studies, economics, and history, and “ended up in theological education” as Principal of Ridley Hall — where part of his work, he says, was to convince students coming from all sorts of backgrounds of their capacity to handle higher education.
Education has been a liberation for him. “I suppose I see that as the heart of it, and why God is so interested in education in all its forms,” he reflects. “It’s a means of helping to lift people to their full stature as human beings, and, more than that, of lifting society to its full stature. It is also transformative for the whole community.”
There must be no reinforcement of a two-tier approach that assumes that further education deals with practical skills, and higher education the things of the mind, he insists. “The interconnection between skill and intellectual capacity is absolutely intrinsic, and I would want to see a broad offering where each form is properly dignified and responds to the full range of human skills and abilities.” The Government’s recent Bill on post-16 education was well received in the House of Lords, he says, pleased, “but a lot will depend on delivery.”
The Church has a stake in education, and he wants to play his part in encouraging institutions in “their wonderful and hugely exciting responsibility. We’ve got a lot to give, including the offer of our care, through chaplaincy and support of Christian members of staff, a whole lot of encouraging what is already happening, affirming the intrinsic importance of education, and trying to bring a genuinely Christian perspective to bear on that. It is about the best for each human being, and therefore the best for society.”
Coventry Cathedral stands surrounded by university buildings: the city is home to the older University of Warwick, and the newer University of Coventry. Students come here from all over the world, and Coventry’s recent further rise from the ashes has been demonstrated by its City of Culture programme.
The diocese also has a particular relationship with further education here, most notably with the North Warwickshire and South Leicestershire College. Its Principal and chief executive, Marion Plant, plays a part both in raising the profile of FE colleges with the Government, and in trying to encourage the Church to have as full an involvement with further education as it does with higher education.
There is respect for the Church’s work in education, Dr Cocksworth considers, “though, as with any institution, one cannot rely on the inheritance of the past. That respect continually has to be earned. But I think that, in this sphere of education, it has happened — not least thanks to the great work of committed educationists in our church schools, the national work of education departments, the local work of diocesan education, the great work of chaplains.
“And I think it has been well stewarded, and gives us a wonderful platform to make our contribution in the 21st century, as education and society continue to transform, and perhaps at even greater speed — especially as we come to terms with all the implications of artificial intelligence.”
He has five children, all of whom have been through higher education, and reflects that the present generation of students has been very disadvantaged as a result of the pandemic. It is a matter of intergenerational equity that they are given real priority as they move through life, and certainly as they complete their education, he suggests.
He remains excited at the possibilities for the future of further and higher education. “I believe God is the great teacher and educator,” he says. “And, because I found education to be liberating and transformative for me, I’ve also found it a socialisation as well: it has taught me the value of learning from others.
“And, thirdly, the challenges this country faces at this stage of its history are immense. We need well-formed human beings whose souls are well formed, and education is about the forming of human beings and, therefore, the forming of society. The better the education, the better the society, and the fuller the life for each individual and community.”