The Importance of Imagination

Voicing her support for the Evening Standard’s ‘Get London Reading’ campaign, Gail Rebuck said that “books were a symbol of freedom and transformation which opened my mind and changed my life.”

As the woman behind the campaign and “the most powerful female in publishing”, her voice is listened to with respect. The granddaughter of a man who had never learned to read and the first of her family to go to university, she exemplifies the type of success that ensues when, to use her words, “aspiration and imagination are unlocked”.

For the current generation of children and young people, the keys to those doors are valuable commodities that many, unfortunately, will not get their hands on. While everyone agrees about the importance of education and recognises the value of equality of opportunity, in our society unequal learning opportunities are still in place. Thanks to compelling evidence presented in recent international bestseller The Spirit Level, it has been shown that both the learning and wellbeing of the next generation are being compromised not on account of ability, but because of a wider social failure to give more of them a fairer chance of educational attainment and success.

Thankfully, the problem is reversible say authors Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett. In analysing its numerous and widespread consequences, they have demonstrated how the burden of inequality can be lessened by shifting attention to ways of improving the psychological and social wellbeing of whole societies. ...