Posted 22nd May, 2023

The Swann Report (1985)
Education for All

The Commons Select Committee on Race Relations and Immigration had highlighted widespread concerns about the poor performance of West Indian children in schools in its 1977 report on The West Indian Community and had recommended that the government institute a high level and independent inquiry into the causes of this underachievement.

As a response, Labour education secretary Shirley Williams formed the Committee of Inquiry into the Education of Children from Ethnic Minority Groups in March 1979.

Under the leadership of Anthony Rampton, the Committee complied and published its interim report West Indian Children in Our Schools in 1981. It concluded that low teacher expectations and racial prejudice among white teachers and society as a whole were the primary problems.

It was not a well-received message. In true Tory fashion, Mark Carlisle, Education Secretary in Margaret Thatcher's Conservative administration, fired Rampton and appointed Michael (Lord) Swann in his place after the media derided the report even before it was published.