A report out this week says that there are three major challenges facing the education sector today – challenges which have been exacerbated by funding reductions under the Coalition and Conservative governments, and a lack of political direction in education policy, particularly in recent years.
The review of education policies of the last two decades by education expert Sam Freedman, has been published today by the Sutton Trust.
The report says that there has been a failure to make progress on closing the attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils and their better off peers.
Despite a major focus on socio-economic disadvantage from the New Labour government in the early 2000s, into the 2010s with the Coalition (including the introduction of the Pupil Premium, to target funds at lower income students), the final years of the Conservative government saw a reversal of this focus, with changes to the funding formula directing funding to schools with better-off intakes, and pupil premium funding failed to keep pace with inflation. There has been a gap of around 20 percentage points between pupils eligible for Free School Meals and their peers in GCSE pass rates over the past 20 years.
Meanwhile Post-16 education has seen some of the largest budget cuts in education, with spending on colleges down 10% between 2010 and 2024, and sixth forms down 23%. During the same period, there has been a fall in teaching time post-16, and a fall in the number of qualifications taken.
There has also been a reduction in pastoral support for young people. Children’s Trusts, established under the New Labour Government, aiming to integrate broader children’s service to improve child protection, health and wellbeing, were scrapped by the Coalition Government alongside cuts in funding to wider support services.
Combined with the effects of the pandemic, higher levels of destitution, and wider challenges with mental health and special needs, this has created a crisis for vulnerable children. teachers have increasingly had to cover this gap, leading to more burnout and worse retention. We have also seen a big jump in the numbers missing school and being suspended for poor behaviour in the last few years.
The report says that the current Government must learn the lessons from the last two decades of education policy, particularly if it is to meet its aim of tackling educational inequality and breaking down barriers to opportunity – an objective that successive governments have failed to meet.
The author highlights a number of major questions that the Government will need to answer if progress is to be made, including: where best to focus efforts to tackle disadvantage; the role schools should play in supporting pupils with social, emotional and behavioural problems; and how to find the substantial investment that is desperately needed to tackle issues such as teacher recruitment and the crumbling schools estate. While some of the challenges they face are conceptually straightforward, he says there is very little money to pay for solutions, “partly due to their own political choices”.
Sir Peter Lampl, Founder of the Sutton Trust and Founder of the Education Endowment Foundation, said:
“The biggest education failure of the last Government was to make little progress in tackling the gap in attainment between low-income pupils and their peers. The Conservatives lost their focus on disadvantage. It’s hugely damaging for both young people and the country that the talent of so many youngsters is being wasted. The Labour Government says it will break down barriers to opportunity but as yet, there is no sense that the scale of investment and policy action needed to deliver this will be forthcoming.
“We cannot allow another decade to pass without progress. The Government should rebalance the National Funding Formula and increase Pupil Premium Funding. The priority is to deal with the teacher recruitment crisis, caused principally by working from home which makes teaching much less attractive than other occupations.”
