Where is the plan for Education?

The last Labour government entered office with the mantra that it had ‘three priorities for government: education, education, education’. We can only wish for this prioritisation of investment in the country’s future. My inspiration for writing on this subject was an article by Ross Clark which highlighted figures from the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) suggesting that almost one in four school pupils missed more than ten percent of lessons in Autumn Term 2022, with 125,000 missing more than half of their lessons - more than twice that of 2019. This has profound implications for the nation’s future.

The government fell far short of what its own education Catchup Czar (yes, there is one) wanted for funding the Catchup Programme. Moreover, education does not even feature in Sunak’s five priorities so we cannot look to the current Tory leadership to trailblaze on this.  

What then of Labour? One of Keir Starmer’s five missions is ‘break down the barriers to opportunity at every stage’. Rather than the major reform of the education system that Labour often talks about, it’s time to make the current system work more effectively. So far, Labour’s major policy announcement on schools has been confined to levying VAT on independent school fees. Given the cost-of-living crisis and households already cutting back, this is likely to funnel thousands more and more children into the state sector. This is the wrong priority when you look at what has happened to so many school-aged children since the pandemic. In fact, the idea of supporting the ‘lost children of lockdown’ was significantly pushed by former Chairman of the Education Select Committee, now Higher Education Minister, Rob Halfon MP. We have to wonder why the government has not come close to addressing the issue with Mr Halfon now inside the tent.  

The government’s main education policy in the last few months seems wholly unambitious. Pushing Maths to 18 and getting rid of some university courses is extremely modest. Quite simply, Rishi Sunak has the wrong education priorities. What use is changing the state of play in higher education if millions of young people are left behind? This is not merely an academic exercise. With well-recognised links between being out of education and violent crime, the government is doing the opposite of its promises. What happened to unleashing Britain’s potential? Instead, Rishi Sunak is in danger of creating a pipeline of problems that will see the country crumble into dysfunction. 

To resolve these absences and the problems created demands bigger and bolder thinking. Implementing Sunak’s “Maths to 18” policy is counterproductive, however helpful you think it might be to those who attend, if it simply means fewer kids attend school or the gap between those who do and do not. Years ago now, the government seemed more open to such blue sky thinking on education. They even appointed reformer Sir Kevan Collins as Education Recovery Commissioner in February 2021. He put together a bold report which advocated £15 billion to help recover the damage to children of lockdown. He then resigned after the government watered this down so significantly to present a package of just £1.4 billion in the end. For those who didn’t study Maths until 18, that is less than 10% of what Collins believed necessary. There is little which better demonstrates the wider problem in government at the moment: we have an administration devoid of the guts and ideas required to deal with Britain’s problems. 

Bertie Hawkins (Ex-Publications Editor, Lady Margaret Hall) is a third year student reading PPE.

Image Credit: freeimages.co.uk Creative Commons License