Education by lottery?

• More or Less
• Thursday, 29 June, 2006
• BBC Radio 4, 1500 GMT

On More or Less this week we looked at a byword for unfairness, and ask if it is still better than what we have got.

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The word is "lottery".

Except when we are trying to win a pile of cash, we do not like lotteries in life.

We think they are unjust, arbitrary. They mock our sense of the control of the our own lives and make it all into chance instead.

So what would you say to the ideas of Professor Barbara Goodwin, who thinks we could create lottery utopia, where school admissions, public housing, organ transplants, child custody after divorce, selecting people to serve on public bodies were all decided at least in part by lottery?

We took Professor Goodwin to a school in Lewisham which used to be selective and is now choosing some pupils by lottery to see if she could convince sceptical parents.

What if you live nearby, they ask.

What if there is a brother or sister there already?

But are these ways of choosing who gets what any better than a system of chance, which at least treats everyone equally?

Find out how she fared by listening to this week's programme.

We also put our reporter through a driving simulator to try to find out if it is age or inexperience that causes young drivers to have more accidents.

And we bring you the latest on our so far fruitless attempt to compare the statistics on hospital mortality for England with Wales.

Presenter: Andrew Dilnot
Producer: Michael Blastland

BBC Radio 4's More or Less was broadcast on Thursday, 29 June, 2006 at 1500 BST.

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