By Richard Ellis 36 Shares

"Aspiration," said David Cameron in his conference speech, "is the engine of progress." Quite right. But what is the engine of aspiration? What makes people decide to set their sights higher, to raise their ambitions and to lift their game? The answer, surely, is the prospect of success.

It is only when the rewards of success are apparent and when the path towards it is clear that people decide to push themselves harder and do the best that they can. Take the Olympics.  Many young people will have seen the achievements of Britain's Olympians, and the rewards that those achievements brought with them, and will have decided that they want those rewards for themselves. Their ambitions have been fired. More than that, they have role models from whose experiences they can learn. The successes of 2012 are inspiring the efforts of 2013-2015 and will produce the successes of 2016 in Rio. Success; inspiration; aspiration; more success. It is the ultimate in virtuous circles.

The crucial point, however, is that this should not only be true of sport. It should also be true of our national life more generally. The hopes and dreams of most young people are centred well away from the athletics track and the next generation of entrepreneurs, inventors, soldiers, professionals, public servants and volunteers need their inspiration too. They need to know how to get from their classroom to their own individual successes. They need to know what they have to do and how hard they have to work – and they need to be convinced that it will be worth their while to make the effort.

Team GB has shown us three practical steps that we should take to provide all our young people with the inspiration that they need.

Celebrate individual successes

If people are to emulate success they need to know what success looks like and how it was produced. A sprinter who wants to be the best in their generation has a ready role model in Usain Bolt. They know that his training programme is likely to repay study. Other walks of life need their role models too. Happily, Britain will find these easy to provide.

We already produce vast catalogues of success. The New Year and Queen’s Birthday Honours lists are packed with British heroes and inspirational figures. So are the Queen’s Awards for Industry. Ditto the gallantry awards presented to members of the emergency and armed forces. We have 'gold medallists' aplenty – the problem is an embarrassment of riches.

Many people receive our national awards and we cannot learn from all of them. Those charged with producing our various lists of honours and awards should select a small cadre for special mention. These should be the most impressive soldiers, business people, professionals, scientists, public servants and volunteers. They should come, as far as possible, from across the country and be representative of the whole nation. It is these people whose successes will provide the much-needed inspiration and example to our young people.

The Honours System has been much in the news in recent months. To be sure there are many ways in which it could be improved, but it records our citizens’ achievements with commendable ceremony and thoroughness. It provides a rich source of inspiration – we should make the best use of it.

Put these stories in front of children

The stories of our civic gold medallists should then be taught in our schools. The recent account of how a British soldier won the Victoria Cross, or how a British scientist made a great discovery, or how a British industrialist founded a leading company, could inspire young people to consider careers in the armed forces, scientific research or business. These should include people whose contributions are less obvious and the stories of hard-working public servants, those who work in charities or in the voluntary sector will also inspire many.  They will also demonstrate the important lesson that success and achievement are not always glamorous and that it is possible to make real and valuable contributions to society in seemingly small ways.

Nor should teachers be left to carry the whole burden of this new process. Just as Olympians have been visiting the nation’s schools so those on our various Honours lists should be encouraged to go into the classrooms and tell their stories first hand. This will bring major achievement in a range of fields within the day-to-day experience of Britain’s schoolchildren – inspiring them to replicate this success and showing them how to go about it.

Set success in a national context

This inspiration should be available not only to our children but to all of us. An annual Celebration of Britain, focussing on that year’s particular successes – Nobel prizes, military heroism, sporting triumphs – would be useful boost to national morale and would help us all to set our sights high. It is easy to imagine how an event in the Royal Albert Hall, perhaps held on the Queen’s Official Birthday, could become a valued part of our national life.

Success follows effort, effort follows aspiration and aspiration often follows inspiration. If we want greater and more varied success we need to provide greater and more varied inspiration.  Britain will not find this difficult but we need to get on with the task.

 

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