‘Epidemic' of educational inequality for disadvantaged pupils

The Education Select Committee has said that the government’s multi-million pound catch up programme risks failing pupils who need it the most, leaving them facing an ‘epidemic of educational inequality’.

A new report has said that delivery partner Randstad is clearly not delivering on its targets, and has called on the government to prove the National Tutoring Programme’s efficacy, or else terminate the contract signed with Randstad.

On average during school closures, pupils spent just 2.5 hours learning every day, mental health problems for children rose by 60 per cent and schools faced a ‘spaghetti junction’ of bureaucracy trying to navigate funding avenues to support the re-opening of schools and educational recovery.

The cross-party group says that, whilst the almost £5 billion of additional funding provided by the Department for Education is welcome, it is not being spent wisely. By not providing support for those most in need, the government risks baking in deepening inequalities between disadvantaged children and their better off peers. According to the report, more work needs to be done, not just on improving young people’s educational attainment, but also to better support their mental health.

The committee recommends that the Department for Education must commit to publish statistics on a half-termly basis on the number of starts under the National Tutoring Programme, and that any future initiatives should direct funding to schools using existing mechanisms for identifying disadvantage such as pupil premium eligibility.

Robert Halfon, chair of the committee, said: “School closures for the majority of pupils was a national disaster for children in terms of their learning loss, their mental health, a rise in their safeguarding risks and damage to their life chances. The education catch-up programme and additional £5 billion of funding provision was of course, hugely welcome. However, there is a real question as to whether it is actually working.

“Our committee heard that it is not reaching the most disadvantaged children, there are significant regional disparities and there is a real risk of failure through Randstad as the delivery partner. Moreover, it is not reaching the hundreds of thousands of “ghost children” who have not returned to school. Given the increase in children’s mental health problems, more work needs to be done to rocket-boost support.

“The government must ensure Randstad shapes up, or boot them out. The catch-up programme must be shown to be reaching disadvantaged pupils and this data must be published. Schools must also be given the autonomy to spend catch-up funding on what they know will be of most benefit to their pupils and there needs to be a step-change and rocket boost of mental health support to schools, including through introducing a social media levy on the profits of social media giants to help fund resilience and online harms training.

“Catch-up must be for the long-term. If the department are to make the case to the Treasury that this programme is making a difference, it has to be proven to work. Education has to be the corner-stone to levelling-up and the Department should take every opportunity available to ensure the ladder of opportunity is extended to every child, regardless of their background or circumstances.”