Britain’s education system is of average quality by international standards. Among rich countries, its scores are middling in the assessments carried out by multinational non-governmental organisations. But there are three significant problems with it that are not adequately addressed by the government’s schools white paper published yesterday.
First, children have lost out on learning because of the pandemic. Secondary school pupils are two and a half months behind on reading, on average, compared with where they would normally be; primary school pupils are two months behind in maths and a month behind in reading. As well as falling behind in these crucial skills, pupils have suffered harder-to-measure losses in the social skills and creativity that schooling fosters.
Second, while Britain’s average performance is respectable, the scale of underachievement is alarming. A third of pupils do not pass maths and English GCSE after 12 years of schooling. Unequal educational achievement is to be expected in an economically unequal country, for poverty is correlated with failure. In some areas, children on free school meals are more than two years behind their better-off peers by the time they take their GCSEs. In the country as a whole, the average gap is 18 months. It is not closing.
Third, young people come out of school ill-prepared for work. A survey for the Times Education Commission found that three-quarters of employers give new recruits training in basic skills, including numeracy and literacy. With the digital revolution transforming the workplace, only half of employers thought that schools were providing the skills that young people need.
The challenge, thus, is huge. Nadhim Zahawi, the education secretary, is among the most capable of government ministers, yet the white paper overall is of variable quality. There are some good things in it. The plan to turn all schools into academies tidies the system up, and the creation of more “multi-academy trusts” may encourage thriving academies to take struggling ones under their wing. Extra money for the Education Endowment Foundation, an internationally renowned institution which finds out what works in the classroom and spreads good practice around the country, is a welcome recognition of success, as is the decision to make permanent the Oak National Academy, created at the beginning of the pandemic to provide online resources for teachers.
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Yet the target that 90 per cent of pupils, compared with 65 per cent in 2019, should meet expected standards in reading and maths counts for little without the mechanism and resources to meet it. The white paper does not provide these. The commitment that schools will provide no fewer than 32.5 hours a week to pupils does not add up to much, since most do anyway. And the “parent pledge” is platitudinous: “any child that falls behind in English or maths should receive timely and evidence-based support” is all that is offered.
The white paper is best treated not as the government’s answer to the challenges the system faces but as the beginning of a discussion about a necessary transformation. The Times Education Commission, which has been taking evidence for the past year from experts in this country and abroad, will publish its conclusions in June. We hope that readers will join the debate, and that policymakers will take note.
