Too many children in the North of England are falling behind other parts of the UK, leading to a serious skills shortage for employers, a major new report has found.

The report, from the Northern Powerhouse Partnership (NPP), sets out three major factors affecting the next generation; the importance of a child’s early years in their future development, how disadvantage drastically impairs performance and leaves them behind the rest of the UK when they leave school and the need for businesses across the North to play a much bigger role in providing meaningful experience of work.

It also calls on the government to provide extra funding to ensure children are ready for school at age five, to increase support for disadvantaged families and failing schools and to devolve adult education funding to Northern Metro Mayors.

The NPP Education and Skills Board, chaired by Manchester Airports Group Chief of Staff Collette Roche, is calling on employers in the Northern Powerhouse to play a far greater role in offering mentoring and meaningfully reaching out to children and young people.

Challenging companies of all sizes to work with the same number of young people as they have Northern employees, this would see at least 900,000 young people receiving experience of the world of work. This will help the Northern Powerhouse train, retain and upskill its own workforce, with a wide range of high-skilled jobs in areas of Northern expertise such as digital and health innovation.

Creating a skilled workforce, coupled with increased government investment and enhanced connectivity to be provided by Northern Powerhouse Rail linking the great cities of the North, would allow 850,000 extra jobs to be created and generate an additional £100bn to the UK economy by 2050.

Key to this is making school leavers see genuine parity of esteem between vocational and academic further education, establishing the North as the world’s leading centre for degree apprenticeships. Many of the North’s leading universities and businesses are already embracing apprenticeships but need to make full use of the apprenticeship levy.

One in four Northern secondary schools are judged by Ofsted as inadequate or requiring improvement. While the North’s primary schools perform only slightly worse than those in London, at secondary schools the gap widens considerably, with Northern children 13 points, or one whole grade, behind at GCSE.

Collette Roche, who lead the review group including Sir Michael Wilshaw, former Chief Inspector of Ofsted, and a range of head teachers, educational charities and businesses, said: “This report should act as a wake-up call to everyone involved in education and skills in realising how far the North is behind the rest of the UK and where we need to get to.

“The devastating consequences of disadvantage in the North is fully set out, as is just how far our children from all backgrounds fall behind by the age of 16. These critical issues lead to employers not having a highly-skilled workforce, which is vital for increasing productivity and growth across the North.

“This report examines a child’s journey from the nursery to the workplace, identifying all of the crucial points where intervention is needed to ensure Northern children do not fall behind.

“Our 14 specific and bold recommendations challenge the government, local authorities, businesses and others to invest in our children and young people, to ensure they have the future they deserve.”

Lord Jim O’Neill, NPP Vice-Chair and one of the leading figures behind the report, added: “For the Northern Powerhouse to succeed and deliver a North that pulls its weight in economic terms the first things we have to sort out are education and skills.

“Sorting out schools in the Northern Powerhouse should be at the top of the new Education Secretary’s in-tray, and we will be working closely with government to implement our recommendations.

“We have seen how everyone involved in delivering education in London came together to turn their schools around from some of the worst in the country to some of the best. The same can happen in the North, creating an education system capable of delivering a skilled workforce in the North, for the North.”

Ambition School Leadership Director North and Midlands Raksha Pattni said“As today’s report shows, too many pupils are failing to receive the education they need and deserve. It is unfair that a child at school in a deprived area in the North is much less likely to obtain good GCSEs than their counterpart living in a more affluent area.

“We know that strong school leaders unlock improvement and help to improve school standards. The Government’s Opportunity Areas are helping to address inequality in investment, but more work is needed to attract and retain the very best school leaders and teachers to serve the communities hardest hit.”

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